Trail Riding Adventure

Lyric

Riley

Auggie

Oooooh, boy.
Monday night, I went on a trail ride with Kyra and David. It was ridiculously fun, slightly terrifying, and absolutely hilarious. I was on Riley, Kyra was on her horse, Lyric, and David rode Auggie. Riley is this little quarter horse that I sometimes ride for his owner. I've only ever ridden him in the ring before, and he's always been a very solid citizen, quiet, slow, well behaved - the whole nine yards. Lyric is not so sane. She's calmed down a lot, but well, she still has a ways to go. She's a 9 year old TB mare who sat in a field the first 7 years of her life. Auggie is all around a good horse, he's been exposed to lots of craziness since he fox hunts, and he was p
erfectly behaved the whole time. Lyric was a little jumpy, and Riley went bananas on the way back, but I'll get to that later.

So anyways, we set off down the road, and then turned onto this driveway that led us into the woods. I had never been back there, and it was gorgeous. We cut through this riding ring (that I don't think is ever used) and set off into the woods, following a very narrow, and very swampy trail. Well, the goal was to go to Great Falls Park.

Didn't happen.

Kyra told us to take the wrong turn. Because obviously, who doesn't want an adventure at 7 at night, an hour before the sun sets?

We kept riding, laughing at how lost we were, and how weird this was. The horses were all well behaved, jumping random creeks and logs and going along pretty well. We had to get off a couple times when they would spook and not want to cross ditches and such, but that's to be expected.

We rode for probably about 45 minutes one way. Then, all of a sudden, there was a field of horses! Meaning we were probably about a mile past where we were supposed to have been spit out to go to Great Falls Park. Meaning, we basically had no clue where the heck we were. Well, we galloped up this little hill to see where we were.

And we were in someone's back yard.

Yup.

So, laughing hysterically, we rode up to their driveway. David went and knocked on the door to ask for directions. Needless to say, the lady was really surprised. She thought he was a runner (wearing a riding helmet and carrying a crop...?), and didn't believe there were horses in the driveway until she came out to see for herself. Kyra and I were laughing hysterically the entire time, because there were a bunch of people in the house staring at us through the windows, plus, the whole situation was just ridiculous. The lady told us that we could ride down her driveway (which was like a mile long) and that we'd get to Leigh Mill Rd. If we walked on the road for about a mile, we would get to the back of the field, and would be home. Well, the whole way was downhill and really twisty, and the cars were not very considerate, and the drivers crazy. Since getting hit by cars and dying wasn't on our agenda, we decided to just go back the way we came.

Everything was going fine, until Riley decided that he needed to get back to the barn immediately, and that the best way to do this would be to go insane, attempt to rear every five seconds, and generally be a jerk. I got off and led him the rest of the way, which resulted in me getting covered in beetles and dirt and horse sweat.

Well, we got back in one piece, hosed the horses off, and laughed some more about the pure ridiculousness of the evening.

Just a day in the life.