Ride 57-59
Turkeys!
Had quite a few very successful rides at home the last few days. I have been very burnt out at work, so I ended up taking a mental health day and didn’t go in on Monday. Since I only clean stalls on Tuesday, I basically had a three day weekend for horse activities.
Our normal haul out day is Sunday, but my friend was worried about the weather, so we hauled out on Saturday after work instead. That left all three of my long weekend days for home rides. We’ve had a lot of storms overnight and early mornings, so unfortunately the humidity was quite high all weekend. Luna did struggle a bit with the heat, but we ended up with two 4 mile rides at speed (5.2 and 5.5mph averages) and one 3 mile ride at a walk.
The hay field has a bunch of new tracks mowed, so we were able to keep things fairly interesting by switching up which tracks we used. It was a good exercise in how well Luna listens to my leg. We are generally very used to a set pattern, and switching it up kept us both on our toes. Luna definitely had some thoughts on where she wanted to go, especially when we came to turns that would take us back to the gate. But she always listened well, even if it sometimes took asking twice rather than once.
The hay field has a fairly long hill on one side, and the paths that were mowed cut off the flat side of the field. Since the flat side of the field is near the residential homes, which include the sheep, the chickens, and the aggressive dog that tries to come under the fence, we stayed on the hill side. But since the tracks basically cut the hayfield in half, it means nearly every track has some sort of hill, some more intense than others. I didn’t think the hills were that bad, but Luna reminded me we don’t do hills at speed very often. I didn’t have to push her very hard, but the second 4 mile speed day definitely took it out of her, and I’m sure the intense heat didn’t help. I’m very glad to have some hills to condition on, but we’ll have to take it a little slower than expected and build up some hill tolerance.
We did end up meeting a group of turkeys, both Sunday and Tuesday. In previous years, the hayfield has been a very scary place for me, because I know we have a ton of wildlife out there, and I feared things popping up unexpectedly. I’m not sure why the fields at home were more anxiety inducing than the trails we haul to, but they were. But I need to learn to trust my horse. The juvenile turkeys showed themselves first. Though they did come out of the bushes, they knew to stay away from us, and they popped out way ahead of us. By the time I noticed them, Luna had already clocked them and decided they were of no interest. The adult turkeys only showed themselves on Tuesday. Luna thought they were a bit more suspicious, and she had to pause and consider them when we first saw them on the track. They also thought we were suspicious, and headed into the brush so they were not visible on the track. The crackling of them moving about in the bushes did spook Luna once, but we were able to move on fairly quickly. By the third loop they made themselves visible again, and Luna had no problem once she knew what they were.
The turkeys really hammered home for me how much Luna and I have improved over the past few years. A year or two ago I wouldn’t have dared to even go out to the hayfield if I knew the turkeys were present. And I certainly would have turned around and given up when Luna was wary of the adults on the track. I never thought I’d be capable of doing rides at speed by myself, and each ride we complete on our own gives us more confidence.
I’m hoping I’ll keep the motivation going in the next few weeks. I’m only halfway through the amount of miles I’d like to hit for the year, so I need to pick up the pace. But if all our rides are this good, it’s looking like that will be easy.
