Monday, June 30, 2008

Ethan to Alexandria - pictures

Waiting for the ride to start -- they shuttled trailers down from the farm to the arena where the ride ended, so luckily there were lots of good stout railroad ties to attach horses to after the trailers left.
J's mare Sheba is 26 years old this year. She's Arabian, TB, Morgan, and probably a bit of QH, and is one of the best rough country horses I've ever seen. She's ponied a ton of babies in her day, worked cattle, and just generally done anything she's asked. Not a kid's horse though -- she can spin on a dime and fly 10 feet sideways in a heartbeat when she wants to.

I wish there'd been more scenery to capture yesterday, but much of it was pretty much like this:
Or like this.... Not that I'm inclined to strip and ride topless anyway, but the idea of a possible gravel landing pad and that exposed skin (shudder) - although from a purely selfish perspective, it wasn't hard on the eyes! Luckily the one rider that did come off landed in the relatively softer long grass of the ditch.

We paused for a bathroom break at Hanson Lake, receiving some dirty looks from the swimmers, although we stayed on the pavement of the parking lot and didn't leave any horse apples for bare feet to hit.

I thought I had a couple of the horses sleeping at the trailer, but I must have dreamed that part. They were happy to be standing still, though, and so were we!

2 comments:

Pony Girl said...

Looks like a fun ride! How many riders and horses were there in all?
Funny, the topless riders! Not bad on the eyes, but I prefer a shirted cowboy myself, at least in the saddle, LOL! ;)

SunnySD said...

I think someone said they'd counted 48 people, but there were a lot of kids packed into the wagons. There were about 28 horses, counting the two teams, so 24 riders, or thereabouts.