trail ride -- Shay

It was two blessed hours in the saddle. Me and LoriBeth and Pogo and Shay. She’s got this nice Crosby that I ride him in. Everyone seems so cautious -- “would you feel more secure in a western saddle?” and “would you rather ride in the tom thumb than the egg butt?” Gawd, give him to me bareback in a halter! Ok, maybe that’s too extreme, but seriously.

Seriously I don’t think I could ever teach a kid to ride, or even an adult rank green beginner. My advice has always been, get a horse (pony) that’s broke and probably old and get on it and ride, preferably bareback. When you can stay on without hitting his back or banging his mouth, come back for lessons. No wonder no one pays me for this stuff! But you’ll never figure out how to stay on if sometimes you don’t. You can’t learn to dance by mincing carefully down the hallway. As my daughter said after we’d jumped off the canopy of the steamboat, “I had that moment of insanity and just jumped!” Yes. That. Except never stupidly. Never with your eyes closed or without your helmet on. People get all tied up on one or the other and it isn’t one or the other . . . it is all.

So anyway, we only walked because Shay has no shoes. But he seemed fine honestly. We had one good shy, with both horses -- I think it was a bird in a bush right beside the trail. It was a good hard shy on Shay’s part to where I really expected him to take off but to his eternal credit, he did not move another muscle.

The temperature was perfect, the weather beautiful, we had the trail nearly to ourselves, the lake was glass smooth and reflected perfectly the mountains and sky, the company was marvelous. It is so nice when people will ask you to go riding and then bring you a horse to ride too!