Ft. Pierre to Deadwood - taking the old road

In the spirit of rides I'd like to take some day, check out the Fort Pierre to Deadwood Trail Ride.

Held in honor of the 100 year anniversary of the trail closing, the ride's scheduled to start on July 29th, and follows a 200 mile long historic trail between the two South Dakota cities.

I suspect, given the terrain and rural locale, that there won't be live up-links to anyone's blog from the ride itself, but I'm hoping there's coverage in the news, or by some of the participants later, because it sure does look like fun!

If it rains, South Dakota gumbo will make things pretty sticky/slippery, and I'm guessing they'd have to stay up on gravel & blacktop. I hope they get good weather!

Here are a few links to the coverage so far:
Deadwood Magazine - A Trail Rediscovered

Black Hills News Bureau - Historic Wagon Trains to Meet on Deadwood Main Street Aug. 15th

Black Hills Pioneer & Rapid City Weekly News - Ft. Pierre to Deadwood Trail to Live Again

Places I'd love to ride...

I drove out to Pierre Wednesday for a meeting and T and the kids went along for the ride since they've never been. Rather than come back the same way as always, south along Hwy 83 to I-90, we took Hwy 34 all the way across to 37, and then down.


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I would absolutely LOVE to ride some of that country! I took pictures, but unfortunately, they don't do it justice. While I've been lucky enough in past years to ride in the Medicine Creek area (Medicine Creek Ranch, now owned by the Ness Family), the landscape north of the Missouri is equally spectacular.

We had rain on the way...
And haze on the way back... Now wouldn't this be prettier from horseback?Other places I'd love to ride: Ireland, Australia, Iceland... I keep drooling over the pony trekking articles, but unless I win the lottery, I figure I'd better dream a bit closer to home for now. North and West River SD is probably doable!

The enthusiastic leading the blind

A gentleman I know just somewhat ruefully informed me that his family is acquiring a horse. Not in itself a bad thing. He and his wife have two young children still at home, both of whom are very excited about said horse, as is his wife. He's mostly resigned, I think.

The horse is "free" - although, after shots, wormer, fencing, barn renovation, random, necessary equine paraphernalia... they may be rethinking the "free" slightly!

He's evidently a well-aged (18?) roping horse that needed a new home before he ended up staying somewhere less pleasant... and more briefly. His present owner took him in for the same reason, but can't afford to keep him indefinitely: she has enough horses of her own to support.

I'm pretty sure they don't know exactly what they're getting into. They're all newbies at this whole horse thing. But in the plus column, I'm assuming the he's healthy and sound, as he's currently residing with a vet. Too, they've done a fair amount of work to ensure the old boy will be comfortable in his new home. They've also had the girls take some lessons with him at his current residence. They've had a couple of months to see him handled, and presumably at this point he's been deemed gentle and quiet enough for them to deal with on their own.

Too many horses out there don't get this chance when their first career is over. And if I'm cringing just slightly for the pony - who'll have a trial and error existence for a while, at least - I'm also happy that he's getting a shot at being an ambassador.

The family is doing a good deed, and my fingers are crossed that their first horse experience will be a positive one; that this gelding will be a kind teacher, and the girls - and their parents - will enjoy him. I'm also hoping the girls will continue to take lessons so that they can learn to care for him and ride him properly.

If all goes well, the work and expense of their "free" acquisition will be more than worth it.

Office Mascot

Pony Girl, this one's for you and My Boy :-)

This little guy sits above my computer at work and grins down at me all day. A co-worker found him while excursioning, and gifted him this year at the holidays. He's the work of a local (well, South Dakota, somewhere) artist.

Mostly, he just makes me smile he looks so chipper and pleased with himself.

Night and day

Well, maybe evening & morning.

But that's what today's ride felt like in comparison to yesterday's. I followed through on the ground pole plan, setting up six poles so we could walk and trot through them. It was late - after 8 o'clock by the time I caught Sunny, but the bugs weren't as bad, and the heat of the day was gone.

He wasn't look-y, and I'd decided after yesterday that I was just going to ride through whatever he threw at me. He hasn't ever pulled anything major, so I'm more than likely psyching myself out over nothing anyway. And you know how Arabs feed off of nervous riders - lol!

I walked him through the poles on the ground first. It's been a long time since I set distances up, and he's shorter than the TBs & QHs that I took jumping lessons on. He was patient while I fiddled, and once I had things set, planted himself politely for me to mount.

We walked the poles a few times. Picked up trot on the correct diagonal - yeah, me - and continued winding through serpentines and circles. I could feel him engaging his back and stretching over the poles, which was great.

And I figured out something else while I was thinking over yesterday's ride. I think part of his focus problem was not just me being nervous, but also too much contact. Sunny's been ridden western. I've been using the bitless bridle, but on a mostly loose rein. He neck reins, & works off my legs. He's not heavy headed - he never tries to hang his front end on my hands.

When we were working at the walk he was soft because I was soft. It felt familiar. But when I asked for a trot, we started misunderstanding one another.

Riding English I'm used to picking up contact and feeling the reins telegraph the horse's actions: moving them up into the bridle. So, when I was asking Sunny to trot, I was automatically pushing him forward into my hands. But contact for him means something entirely different. We were working on mixed signals. He was hitting my hands and reading stop - I was pushing forward, and he was confused. We spiraled from there.

Tonight when I asked for upward transitions, I pushed him forward, but I also gave him more rein and encouraged him to reach out for my hands instead of trying to gather him up. For the most part it worked. He didn't get hollow and evasive. He let me know when I was gathering up too much, and if I softened my hands and fed him a bit more rein, he relaxed down into them.

When we were done he was actually warm and so was I. He licked his lips and let out a big sigh while I cleaned his hooves and brushed off the sweaty marks. I think we both finished the day more satisfied with one another.