Sept 7-Our next trail,This will either make or break us..

I put a few nights in riding in the front pasture at home... Kizz settles in and acts ok, No more spinning and acting foolish, he does Whinny some though and a friend of mine has told me not to tolerate him yelling to his buddy while we are working (which makes sense to me, as everytime he whinnies he usually does something foolish) So I take her advice and everytime he whinnies I pull his head into my knee and smack him lightly on the bum with my crop. At first he is so surprised he jumps sideways, but we do a few little circles and then he's fine and I continue on riding our circles trotting , whoa, rein back etc. We do this a couple nights in a row. He really is starting to pay more attention to me finally!!!

Saturday comes and Kaaren and I plan to leave around 11am. I have around a hour to prepare . i am so nervous, more nervous I think than the very first time we went out alone!! I almost feel sick to my stomach!

Wimp that I am (imagining all kinds of horrible things that happen to me out in those fields) I quickly down 3 coolers while tacking up :P

I get on a do a few serpentines in the top of my driveway. (Hubby takes our gelding and puts him in the mini barn. Where he is happy to keep company with the minis )

I head down the driveway , along the road and up the access road. I ask him for a trot ( I figure if we can get some of the hyperness gone by time we hit those 2 fields it will be a good thing. It's a bit of a uphill and a ways until we get to the fields. Once we hit the fields I ask him for a walk and we walk calmly across. He is A1! We arrive on the trails and I'm ecstatic!!  I take a picture of us and post it on Facebook to let all my friends know we made it!! Yahooo!

Kizz goes along the trail excellent! At the bottom of the mowed trail, we come to the logging roads, they're very wide, straight , good footing! So we trot all along it, it's a blast! once we get a ways in I call Kaaren and she says she is just coming onto it from her end so we have a ways to go. I trot most of the way and we even canter some. He is perfect! ears up, happy and heading on great!! I am so happy! I think about how this is most definitely a rollar coaster ride for sure! lots of ups and downs!

We are quite aways around that logging road when Kizz looks ahead very intently and I know Kaaren and Odin must be up ahead! We see them as we come around the next turn! We head down the logging road the way I came. We are going to try a new trail. As we get onto it, it's really muddy but she says the muddy part isn't long so we trudge on, at the end of the trail we notice she is missing on of Odin's pretty orange back boots! So we spend the next hour or so looking for the boot in the mud. Here 's a picture of myself holding Odin on Kizz at one point while she's looking on foot for the boots (at this point she's lost 2 !)

Finally the boots are found! yay! at this point I have to head home. We continue on the way we were and loop back onto the logging road again and head back towards home. When we get to the part where I take a left back towards home, Kaaren and Odin are in front of us and continue on.. and Kizz knows to the left is home so he heads that way, but soon realizes that Odin isn't coming with us. He whinnies and is upset (this is the first time we leave Kaaren /Odin that he notices us leaving them ..normally he doesn't notice until it's way too late lol) But I point him towards home and ask for a trot, he continues on slowly but doesn't refuse or spin around. He doesn't whinny after that first time either! We trot and even canter along the road! Then we hit the mowed trail and continue on up that. When we come out to the fields he seems under control and good so we trot across the field. He is perfect! We cross the little rock wall and then into the last field (the big one) When I ask him to trot across, he picks up a canter... A very nice slow easy going canter (nicest I've rode on him YET!) so I let him keep it, and we make our way across the field with no incidents! He is A1! look at us?!?! trotting and cantering through the fields that a few hours ago I was needing a drink to WALK through them haha! 

When we get onto the access road and he can sense his buddies at home, he starts whinnying and acting up a bit. It takes us a while to get down the access road because of it, as I'm doing small circles everytime he acts up. Then most of the way he is fine until we get to the very bottom close to home. He whinnies again and ignores me, so we do another small circle. Coby is whinnying to him at this point . We get home eventually and I dismount and clean kizz up , cool him down then give him his supper in the wash rack. No girth sores! our new system seems to be working! 

I put him back in the pasture with Coby since I'm so happy we had such a great ride and also there is a new fresh cut round bale in there for them to enjoy and it's calling for rain all next week. 

What a great ride, I'm so happy! We did 11 miles and a lot of trotting/canter and Kizz has cooled out pulsed down A1! Rides like these make me feel again that "We GOT this!"

It rains for the next week , slippery messy mess.. when will we get our next ride in?  Soon I hope as we are planning a fairly long ride Sunday ! (with Kaaren & Odin and Robyn & Magic!)