Misty celebrated Black Friday with a trail ride! Here’s an update from Lisa:
My friend Victoria invited me to go on a spontaneous ride on Friday.
When she pulled up, Misty got very excited and pushy. This has become a bit of a pattern and ironically Cindy Akdeniz, the trainer I have been taking some lessons with, showed up at the same time to give my neighbor a lesson, so I took advantage of some of her pointers to use on a quick ground work lesson. Misty quickly settled with some work in hand, and then loaded perfectly as usual.
On the trails Misty gave me her one moment of ‘I don’t want to go any further (past that yard waste burn pile crackling just off the trail) and after arguing for a minute or two I hopped off, again worked her in hand to confirm that forward means forward and stop means stop, and then after walking past the scary spot I remounted and she was perfect for the rest of the ride.
We spent a lot more time in the woods this time — going up and down narrow trails, under branches, over logs, and even getting slightly lost! She proved very adept at turning around on a narrow trail when we encountered fallen trees, and she even led the way at times. I marveled at the change in her — last spring in the woods she was balky and would never have led the way. She is very sure footed and seems to really enjoy the trails.
Both of our horses were tired on the way back but we did some nice forward trot to cover ground and the weather held. We again crossed the huge concrete bridge over the ravine (full of rushing water this time) and Misty was perfect.
