I’ve fallen a bit behind on the horse blogging lately. I started with my trip home for Thanksgiving. Although I did go on one nice long solo ride on my sister’s horse, Jak, it was a largely horse-free week.
We returned to Iowa and I was quite Steen-sick. We went to the barn the day we got back and went on a truly lovely trail ride. I rode Steen. Brian rode Cal. And our friend Gail rode her horse Doc. We went all over the place, and Steen behaved like a champion trail-horse. He went through mud, across running water. He reacted with calm unconcern when we saw deer in the distance. It was lovely. We rode for over an hour and a half and returned to the barn. Then, as I was leading the very calm Steen across the indoor arena he tripped and hit me in the back of the heel with his hoof. Ouch. I couldn’t get my foot in a boot for a week.
However, yesterday found Brian and I out there again for Duke Day. Steen and Cal got their feet trimmed and we made plans to ride today with Jean and Schooley. We returned to the barn this morning and Cathi joined us too, riding Chewey.
We had an interesting ride. Between the fact that the two retired racehorses were a bit goey and shotgun deer-hunting season just opened, everyone was a little edgy after a while. When we saw deer and heard gunshots and realized we were surrounded by men carrying guns and wearing orange vests, we decided to head home.
Still, in spite of everything, Steen behaved quite well today.
Steen and Cal were both a little thirsty after the ride today.
Steen seems to enjoy the winter landscape.
Yeah, definitely hurt. Reminds you how big they are when they do things like that. 🙂
Well, the area around our barn is private land, and I think the people who hunt on it have permission to do so.
Oww, that heel injury sounds painful.
I'm kinda surprised that hunting is allowed that close to an area were people live. I've lived "out-of-town" a lot, and I've never had issues with hunters in areas I could get to just riding (as opposed to trailering out somewhere, or really trying to get far from home). At least Steen isn't deer colored, like my old mare was.