Winter Washington weather (say that five times fast) does not often conjure visions of sunshine and blue skies. But every so often, the metaphorical stars align to grace us with a January or February day that feels more akin to early summer.
Such was the luck we had for our first off-property excursion of 2024, a trip down the road to Bridle Trails state park. We loaded eight horses into the trailers: Alums Owen and Fancy accompanied current SAFE horses Artie, Veronica, Pepper, Tiva, Violet, and Edward. For the majority of the horses in attendance, it was the first time they had been away from SAFE since their arrivals, though you might not have guessed it by how coolly they greeted their new surroundings.
We unloaded horses and tack, and brought everything and one to one of the park’s arenas. There, we helped the horses settle into the new space through a combination of exploratory walk-and-sniffs (turns out, white vinyl fencing is snort-worthy) and groundwork. The time it took for each horse to settle varied some, though no one was particularly unsettled to begin with. Soon, everyone was cinched up, and we followed the sun into an adjacent arena.
All the horses currently going under saddle (meaning everyone aside from Tiva) had at least one, if not two or three, rides that sunny Saturday afternoon. Faced with strangers walking alongside the arena, some shepherding very interested dogs or children, as well as a stop-and-start parade of mounted riders heading out to the adjacent trails, our modest herd did tremendously well. They were able to find support in their humans when it was required, but for the most part handled the new environment and wide open arena space with level-headed grace. The countless hours that had led up to this point for each of them helped to make the entire outing hugely successful, and check some major boxes for our horses.
After several hours under saddle, basking in the sunshine and the glow of a very productive afternoon, we untacked the horses and grabbed our snack bags, retiring to a shady spot to allow for a physical and mental cooldown slash lunch break. The horses shook out their coats while they sniffed at our sandwiches, taking sips from the water buckets we’d brought as we all rehydrated for the short drive home. One stud muffin each was in order, the equivalent of your dad stopping for ice cream at the end of a road trip. Then, we loaded our tack and our horses, and headed back for SAFE in time for afternoon hay.
Though it takes some work logistically, we plan to take the horses off-site multiple other times this year, be it to clinics or for more casual adventures like our trip to Bridle Trails. We could not be more proud of the SAFE horses, and extend our thanks and gratitude to the humans who helped them, and continue to help them, in all stages of their journeys.
Check out a little glimpse of our day below:
