I figured if we were going to have to ride we should go for a hack on the mountain, hoping the trees would act as a bit of a wind block for us. But I knew that the last time we went over the mountain poor Reily had a really hard time getting under the vine that hangs down over one part of the trail and through all the saplings and underbrush that have been growing up on another stretch of the trail. I'd been meaning to take a folding saw with me for ages so I could clear those areas but hadn't had a weekend free to do it, so I decided that yesterday was the day and there's no better way to keep yourself warm than to do manual labor. Well I bundled up and put my western saddle on Reily and packed a small, folding hand saw and an extra lead rope and off we rode.
When we got to the top of the mountain and reached the part where the hanging vine was I climbed off and clipped the lead rope through his bit under his chin and walked him over to a small tree just a couple feet behind me and loose tied him while I cut the vine multiple times to get it out of the path and (hopefully) keep it from growing back. He stood wonderfully for those few minutes (I think he was more than happy to have a minute to catch his breath after the steep climbs) but as I untied him and walked down the path to where the underbrush started I was apprehensive about how much I'd be able to get done. After all, he's only 3 and just over 4 months off the track, and this wasn't just one or two little things to cut down, this was 0.5-3" saplings growing up in tight quarters over at least a 50 yard stretch of trail. I really wanted to get a solid 4-5ft wide walkway cut out so neither the horses or I had to worry about getting smacked in the face with limbs and cobwebs anymore. I resolved to work for as long as Reily could take it and assumed from the start that it was going to take multiple trips to get this done. Boy was I mistaken.
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| Simply for your viewing pleasure, pictures of Reily as a 2yo, sent to me by his former owner (who's proved to be a real gem!) |
You know how everyone says if you assume the worst the outcome can only get better? Well this was a classic example. We spent, at the very least, 45 mins on the 50 yard stretch and Reily was the most perfect gentleman, you'd have thought he was an 18yo, life long ranch horse. He stood tied to small trees about half the time and the other half of the time, when a small tree wasn't close or handy, he stood ground tied right behind me and never put a foot wrong. WHO IS THIS HORSE?!? I mean seriously, who would ever expect a 3yo of any breed to be so patient, but considering he's a 3yo OTTB, it seems like a physically impossible feat! Granted there were a couple times he walked around the tree once or twice while he was tied and towards the end he showed his boredom by doing the cutest little nose nudges on my back. He would softly bump me asking if we could get going, but I couldn't possibly consider either of those a bad behavior. He was absolutely perfect, despite the cold, the wind, the fact that he hadn't been ridden in a couple days, and even despite the fact that I had my dog with us and she was running around all over the woods making noise where he couldn't see her!!
So, thanks to the perfect gentleman we cleared the entire stretch of the trail that had grown up and we moved on further down the logging road to finish off the last few obstacles (cleaning up the footing around some fallen logs, cutting off problematic limbs, etc. so we could safely use them as jumps) of the day. When we finished those I remounted and we went on our way, following the neighbors switchback driveway all the way down the mountain until we could cut through the woods and back to our own driveway. We were gone for almost 2 hours.
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