Sunday was Smooch's first trail ride under saddle. I decided to ask a fellow mounted patrol rider, Jayme, who also lives on this side of the Tetons to ride with me. He has a mule that could be the spitting image of Sara, only larger. She is experienced, level headed and calm. Perfect riding companion and lead for Smooch. Robin (my new girlfriend and favorite mounted patrol partner) decided to come along also after her trail ride dates for the day bailed.
I picked Jayme and "Big Momma" up at their house and we all met at the Pole Canyon trail head. Smooch was saddled and ready to go without complaint or incident. Pre flight checks passed. I made sure my colt was "leaving with me" (natural horse people will understand that one) and off we headed down the trail, straight up hill. Right into about half a dozen stream crossings in a row and a few mountain bikers. No problem. Oh and did I mention that Jayme's Australian Shepard, "Woof", came along for the ride? Dogs? No problem. A few minutes up the trail and a group of eight motorcycles came by. No problem. A couple of nice step up ledges? No problem. The only problems I seemed to be encountering were that 1) the rocks were hurting Smooch's feet and 2) he didn't seem to have the confidence to head off down the trail and seemed to be lolly gagging. I think 2 was more related to 1 than anything.
Reached the summit and what a view of the valley! Picture by Robin.
It was quite a ways up, and as you can imagine Smooch was exhausted. I didn't even think he would make it to the top. But little guy has a lot of heart. We had a nice little break.
Here's the two mule guys resting hard. Picture by Robin.
Unfortunately, I forgot my camera and the others forgot to take any horse pictures. So you are left to your imagination.
Smooch tied well during the break. He didn't get himself all wrapped up like Amigo does. Jayme has this thing where he walks his horses down hill to save wear on them. I'm not against that, but I was more interested in the training and getting Smooch used to navigating terrain with a rider on him. It took a few minutes and we almost knocked Robin off the side of the mountain, but Smooch soon got the hang of things and we were headed off down hill. He navigated the ledges going down as well as he had going up. He was tired, and he still hasn't figured out that turning around means going back home to food and shelter, so it was more lolly gagging on the way back. That's fine. Better that than racing ahead out of control.
Back at the trailers Smooch was acting fidgetty which is out of character. Jayme and I were checking him for Cholic but everything seemed to be ok. I hypothesized it was his feet and a quick check and sure enough he was off a bit. Probably just some stone bruising and hopefully he'll be better for his next ride this week. I think by next week I'll have Wendel put shoes on to avoid any potential problems in the future. Although Smooch has good feet, they are young and tender and I don't need any lameness issues.
So all in all a great ride. We encountered dogs, water, rocks, ledges, snow, mud, motorcycles, bicyles, hikers, horses; and all without any problems except the stone bruises. There are many old "broke" horses that have more problems than this little two year old colt. Look out, he's gonna be a good one. Let's see if I'm still saying that when he's a three year old! Only time will tell. In the mean time, stay tuned for ride no. 4.
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