Saturday, March 27, 2010

Trail ride and Boot failure

I had the chance today to go for a trail ride with two ladies from the barn! I was really excited to get out and ride! Boomer was pretty good for the most part. He was a little balky, but respected the spurs. He did try to go sideways and backwards a little, but never as bad as before. One of the riders had a tendency to gallop off randomly, so we got to practice being 'left behind'. Boomer actually did better with that than I expected, though he didn't appreciate being rushed upon from behind (neither did I). We mostly rode on the back roads and a little on some private property that we have permission to ride on. I don't think we went more than 5 miles but we took a lot of breaks to stop and chat. I think we were probably out for almost 3 hours! John and I have done the same basic loop in under an hour, but it was really good for us mentally to go through that whole process of riding with others, stopping to be patient, etc.

We were wearing the Renegades all around and they stayed on through mud and a small creek crossing. The only issue we had was at one point when he was throwing a tantrum and tried to back into a ditch, he stepped on his right hind with his left hind and stepped out of his boot. It stayed attached around the pastern, which I expected to really freak him out. He sort of kicked out and acted lame on that leg so I hopped off and he stood still for me to fix it. I was actually really pleased with the situation overall. After that, we had no problems. I need to adjust the velcro and o-rings a little to get maximum hold on the back boots. The velcro wasn't the reason for the boot failure, but I feel like I could adjust it a little to get better hold.

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