At last, the temps are warm enough for an enjoyable, un-bundled ride! We had been awakened early by our neighbor leaving, (they began packing up about 6:00, before the sun came up, and finally drove off about 7:30), but stayed in bed, sleeping off and on until about 9:30 before getting up and starting our chores. After breakfast, we headed out to saddle the horses, and saw that another day trailer had come in and were saddling up as well. They were gone by the time we finished, and we left shortly thereafter. As I feared, Apollo was like a stick of dynamite, looking for any excuse to blow up. Before going very far, I got down and tried to lunge him with my Mccarty line in an effort to blow off some steam, but he wasn't into it, so I got back on and we took a side trail in an effort to get his mind on the job at hand. He did okay, but still was bundled up. He finally burst out on a muddy crossing, and I had to get down and run him around a bit, twice in about a quarter mile. Finally, when we had a choice between a side trail and a straight utility line road, I elected for the latter, figuring I just needed to walk him until he settled down, and that what we did. It must have been close to two miles of walking, but he finally started to drop his head and calm down a bit, enough for me to trust him at a jog. Thankfully, Hubby did a great job of keeping mama Clio behind us, until Apollo was calm enough for her to step up to a trot and pass us, and we soon burned some excess energy with a long trot and even a short, controlled canter. The trails here are mostly grass, but with all the rain there were a few muddy spots. Mostly they were utility lines and trails that bordered fallow fields, but we finally accidentally happened onto the blue trail, which followed a Texas-sized creek (we presume the Waxahachie) for a while, and was very nice, more like what we prefer, before joining back up on the red trail which was a straight road. Eventually, we found the green trail, which, like the blue trail, was more to a liking. By this time, Apollo was back to his normal self, and I was able to relax and really start to enjoy the ride. A nice trot and even a little canter as we headed home, finally wearing off that extra energy. All told, it was about 7.5 miles and we were out almost 4 hours, perfect for what we needed to do. Can't say the trails are really attractive, but they certainly served the purpose today. After multiple premonitions about ending up on the ground on my butt, I took every precaution to avoid that, it succeeded, yeah! Settled down for the evening, even deciding to have a cocktail, in order to use up some orange juice someone brought us over a week ago. Good excuse, right? : -)
To say that the trail map here isn't complete would be the understatement of the year! While it indicates a lot of nice loops, there are countless other trails, wide open and cross-able prairies that make an infinite variety of riding. We started out following a trail I made from Google Earth, and which had a few faded blue paint spots on an occasional tree, but that was about it. The key here is that there are numerous signs indicating numbered points (though a few are missing as indicated by the map), and once you find one of those, you can determined where you are. It's not a huge place, but there is plenty of variety, a lot more trails in the woods than you'd first imagine. Today, though, we headed along the west perimeter, down to the lake, and then east, a bit further than halfway across the park. We ran into a lone cow and her beautiful calf on the trail just after leaving the lake, and though Apollo was startled for a minute, he quickly calmed down, particularly after they left the trail and skedaddled into the brush, which, of course, Apollo took credit for : -). A little further on, we came across a much larger herd of cows, and the road we were one went straight through the middle of them, but the horses obviously remembered earlier training and went straight through them without hardly noticing, yeah! We did a lot of trotting and cantering along the open stretches. Footing was mostly sand and dirt, with just a few places where the sand got uncomfortably deep. We met another rider on the trail, a local gentleman named Wayne, who gave us some tips, and rode with us back to the campground, taking a shortcut I doubt I would have found without his help (though I know I could have found a way back, just not THAT way back. Had a nice chat along the way. One thing I'll say for Texas, everyone we've met here has been very nice, very accommodating, very laid back. The only problem so far were the Texans that didn't bother to clean up the stalls here before we arrived. Anyway, we ended up going over 10.5 miles, in perfect weather, out just about 4 hours. Horses were on their best behavior as well, with Apollo settling down very nicely from the start. After a lengthy discussion with a woman at Tractor Supply the other day (frankly, the first and only person at any Tractor Supply that seemed to know what she was talking about!), we changed the horses feed regime, cutting out the oats, having Apollo eat only hay and a small amount of Purina Enrish 32 balancer, and Clio getting mostly senior feed and some weight builder along with her hay. The results seem to be a calmer gelding, at least. We'll see what else it does over time. Meanwhile, a great day!
