Post by april on Jul 27, 2009 12:25:51 GMT -5
Midnight is up for an easy, light trail ride, so I take her out to enjoy the nice day and take a tour of the beautiful trails. She dances lightly under me, acting like a dressage horse doing the piaffe when we stop and the passage when we walk on. She's been doing so well in her dressage training and she has such beautiful movements. I let her trot lightly here and there, but I don’t want to canter her today yet. “Easy girl. Let’s just take it easy and stop and smell the roses today.” She blows, but listens. Her trot is so bouncy at first it almost feels like she’s bucking. It’s like she wants to go fast so bad she can’t stay earthbound. She wants to run. Even though she’s a show horse and not a racer now, she still has the fire that burns in all thoroughbreds. I make the ride extra long, although I always increase the distance of our trail rides to build up my horses’ endurance. Being born to sprint she’s never had that, and I know she’ll never have the endurance to chase or event, but I love he just as much as any of my other horses and we just have fun exercising. We go over the hilly trails to both add to the endurance training and build up her hindquarter to give her extra impulsion. It’s fun to just enjoy the wonderful feeling of spending time with my horses. We have a great time, stopping by the stream while I braid wildflowers in her mane. She tosses her head and looks in the stream as if it were a mirror. “Show off,” I say with a laugh. After walking and trotting down the trails for hours on end, we end our wonderful ride together with a short sprint on the beach, and I smile as I see the hoofprints with long distances between them we leave in the sand.