Myles Standish

But first, we jump schooled with a barnmate on Sunday and you guys: this horse.

We set up a bounce one stride to oxer one stride to bounce.  Did a single crossrail a few times, then sliced into the elements individually and jumped down the line as a whole.  This is a really useful grid: rideable from both ends and the step to the oxer rides a hair, the step after a hair short, and the bounce at the end discourages the horse from sprawling or running off, so it's basically a coordination of the aids and a balance exercise for horse and rider both.

I screwed up.  A couple of times.  Missed badly when slicing the oxer by itself.  Came into the grid underfunded and riding a crappy line.  And this horse: just pricked his ears and guessed and offered to keep jumping, and when twice I declined, didn't hold me to that decision on the next attempt.  And when I held my line and committed, he yanked his knees up and jumped on through, stretched when I landed with leg on, was already balancing back when I breathed whoa on our way to the ground.

He is the best.  The best.

And Sunday we hauled to Myles Standish State Forest to meet some friends and take advantage of a warm day to check out a new-to-us park and get some miles in.  It looked like this:

I arrived early and Tucker proved that he'd learned a thing or two last year by stepping calmly off the trailer and diving right into his mash.  Seeing my friends was fantastic and the park is definitely big (and well-marked!) enough to be worth the haul.  We did the first loop -- about 10 miles; I screwed up my tracker app and lost the first 45min -- in 2:30, mostly walking on account of there was more chunky gravel to the footing than we'd expected and one of the other horses was newly barefoot (and Tuck was a little tired of it by the end, too; I think I'll want to get boots on him before slotting this park back into the rotation).

We finished the first loop back at the trailers.  Our friends headed home and after letting Tuck eat what he wanted, I hopped back on to investigate in a different direction which turned out, alas, to be mostly paved road.  I would not lie to you folks; the first two miles of our solo loop were a zombie death slog that had me wondering whether I should just turn back and call it a day.

Just as I was ready to quit, Tuck pricked his ears as a single-track side trail that I'd noticed earlier but avoided on account of deviating from the main clearly-marked routes has gotten me into trouble in the past (I'd headed down the paved road intending to hook up with a section of bridle path).  But I figured a little out-and-back couldn't hurt anyone...

...and it was great.  There was more snow down on this trail and Tucker stepped right into an eager traveling trot (and a couple stretches of canter) and toured of the woods and gas lines and even found one of frozen-over ponds although alas, the path around that turned out to be pedestrian-only boardwalk and so we had to turn back.  I got a little turned around on the paved roads and am pretty sure that my REI dividend purchase this year will be a GPS...but those glorious middle miles made up for a little more roadside.  Second loop measured at 7 miles on the nose for a total of 17 in 4 hours for the day with plenty of horse left, bored-to-tears roadside shuffle aside.

And when we returned to parking again, I discovered that the many other trailers that I'd seen at our previous stop belonged to a group of riders who were Doing It Right: they had a grill and picnic going and were kind enough to invite me over to join them.  I was concerned about getting home by a reasonable hour and about getting my rig out of the vastly-more crowded lot and was, unfortunately, not at my most social, but hopefully I will run into them again some time and make a better accounting of myself!

Overall I was pretty pleased with the day.  We finally got a useful sweat pattern under the Eurolight that less perfect than I'd hoped but should help me get the shimming a bit more dialed in and I was really pleased with the saddle from a rider perspective.  I did feel like the stirrups were a hair too far back, but that's not shocking since I've been too lazy to install the set-screws to keep the leathers where I want 'em, so I'll just get around to that and then we'll be all set.  I tried my English pommel bag, which was okay but now that I have this nice western-style pommel I'd kind of like that bag higher off his withers -- so I'll attempt a jury-rig for next time.  And I'm ambivalent about our saddle pad again, so we'll see.

I am not at all ambivalent about the horrible little creaky-squeaky noise my left stirrup pad made every time I changed how it was weighted; once I heard it I could not unlisten and so I was ready to chuck the thing into the woods by the end of the ride.  Only the left pad!  I don't even know.  My EZ Rides won't fit onto these leathers but this is not to be borne.

It was quite dark by the time we returned to the barn, but I guess that's what happens in February when you're determined to spend as much time riding as you do hauling there and back.  I'm really pleased to have our first long conditioning ride of the year under our belts and I feel good about how Tuck handled it.  I was prepared to stop after the first loop if he'd seemed tired but honestly, given appropriate footing or hoof protection I'm confident that he'd've happily gone back out against after the second if I'd asked him to.  So that's very encouraging.

Now we're back to ringwork, on-property bumming around, and gear refinement for the next few weeks...and I am determined to get to the beach before it closes to horses for the season!  Wish me luck.