Surprisingly, it was cool, with a mist in the air, and I think that had the horses feeling frisky. We saddle up, move over by our Wagon and wait until the call to line up. This photo is best titled "before the incident".
We're just hanging out on our horses and they're getting a snack and I look down and see that Joe has let his reins go slack and his horse has stepped one leg through the reins. Dangerous situation. Joe asks what he should do and I said he could get down and drop them over Hoagie's head or I'd get off my horse and he could just hand the reins to me. As it was, if the horse had raised his head, he would have realized that the reins were erroneously "between his legs" and freaked out.
You can see where this is going.
So I get off and as I walk around the front of TieDye, Hoagie raises his head and realizes he is "trapped" and starts jumping around. At this point, TieDye is jumping around too and an actual cowboy has seen the commotion and is headed to Joe to help. I swing back up into the saddle and turn around to face the action.
I'm not really sure what happened next, but neither the cowboy or Joe had the reins. Joe was still in the saddle, but the cowboy was controlling Hoagie by holding onto the saddle horn. This excitement causes TieDye to bolt, but luckily I was already seated so no harm, no foul. Cowboy gets the situation with Joe and Hoagie under control immediately - I swear these horses know when they're dealing with a REAL horseman - and we're ready for line-up. Joe's confidence is slightly shaken, but he's still game and Hoagie did calm down.
Now we're on a gravel road about 6 feet from a barbed wire fence and all bunched up together and here comes TROUBLE. Big white horse - young and not trail ready - being ridden by a woman who seemed to be a good rider, but wasn't respectful of the rest of us. Big white horse rushes through the group in front of us and whinnies loudly, then rares up (think Lone Ranger and Trigger). When he came off the ground, the rider smacked him on the neck (stupid idea) and he let out another unhappy/wild noise that spooked all the horses. Hoagie was basically dancing on his little hooves at this point.
White horse is backing into the barbed wire and horses are shifting around to get away from him and I see an opening, so Joe and I get out of line and circle back to an open area to wait. Things calmed down after that and we got off to a good start, but the big white horse was a MENACE the entire ride. He was so wild he could not stay on the pavement with the rest of the horses, so she was riding him along the sides of the road - this was better, but he was making all sorts of noise all morning and creating unnecessary anxiety in all of the horses near him.
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| Joe |
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| Lynn Burns, Joe & me |
It was a very nice ride - beautiful trail - but the cold front was coming in early and the weather had turned cold and windy with blowing mist. We weren't that uncomfortable (neither Joe or I brought our jackets) but the roads were getting slick and the horses would slip when they trotted.
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| The Long View Looking Back |
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| Rest Stop and Scene of Incident #3 |
Although he's not a bad horse, I've ridden him before, Joe vowed to never ride Hoagie again after the last rest stop where he got it in his mind that if he wasn't going to be allowed to eat the road side grass, he was going to back his way through the crowd. He didn't exactly buck - it was more like a small series of back-kicks to clear his way into the crowd.
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| Pretty Views with Wildflowers Just Peeking Out |
I hated to drop out after having gone so far, but my knees needed a rest and Joe had Achilles heel repair/surgery last fall and really didn't need another 7 miles in the saddle ... particularly Hoagie's saddle. That said, he was fine after the rest stop.
Last look at Wagon 7 for 2014 ...
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| Magnificent 7 & Crew |
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| Wagon 7 "b" - our group has two! |
Next year we're going to make it three full days ... unless the weather is bad.
