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The second day of riding at EJ's Stables was here. We'd had one heck of an adventure thus far, but we knew we were in for something, today. We had woken up early to feed and water the boys, then Bitty 2 began another round of her incredible breakfasts. Around 9 AM there was a knock on our cottage door. It was Mike the Mule Man! He once had a legendary Molly Mule and has since been working to find another just as good - good luck. That said, Mike is also known for getting people into some trouble, or well, at least every story I've ever heard about him, or from him seems to relate to him getting into to some death-defying situations - exactly the kind of person you're looking forward to leading you on a ride, right!? - not so much. As things started to progress, I was really starting to chicken out on this one. Mike happened to know some others in camp and invited them to come along as well. "I thought this was a private thing?" I recalled confused. But that's just how these things go. The Bitties and I weren't too sure about inviting a big group with us, the whole reason we wanted to do this ride had been to keep it private. We even chatted about bailing on this and doing our own thing. It's one thing to ride in a large group, however, we didn't even know these people or their horses? In the end, the group had about 11 riders, one of which was on a very young buckskin, no helmet, and she admitted this was only his second time under saddle. The rest of the group were astride walking horses. While Jean-Luc is a walking horse, he does a great job of sticking with a quiet quarter horse after only a mile or so. People have often commented how amazed they are that he can hang with the slow crowd or pick it up when he needs to. (Go us! I guess?) That said, riding with walkers can be a pain for others I've learned because they tend to get a group pretty excited. "Someone's gonna die," I was sure. My nerves were shot before I ever hopped in the saddle. See, as if it wasn't enough to ride with all these unknowns, we were also riding with a Bitty (Bitty 3) that had to be very careful because her shoulder was recovering from rotator cuff surgery. Though cleared to ride, it wouldn't take much to put her back in the hospital. Luckily Bitty 1 is afraid of nothing - like dangerously unaware sometimes. In the end, it kind of balanced out. I made my peace with the situation. I was also to a point with Jean-Luc where I knew I could trust him. Besides, we decided if things were too terrible, we would just turn back. The ride started out questionable for the first few miles. We decided to hang pretty far back, and that ended up being a great choice. The trail was very technical, hilly, but honestly not too much. I took the new saddle out as well because it had been pretty comfortable the day before Jean-Luc seemed to like it. We rode up and up for several miles. It is rare that we all agree to stop while still climbing, but this was quite the climb! We paused a few times going up due to the amount of huffing and puffing coming from everyone. "If this is the beginning," I thought, "We are in for quite the day." And we were. The day was amazingly beautiful! Again, we saw parts of West Virginia you just can't easily hike to. I liked that the ride itself was an actual ride, too. Meaning, it wasn't for a beginner. This ride was the kind of thing you truly had to trust your horse and know how to direct him through the best places for him. We went over logs that were as tall as Jean-Luc's knees, around massively fallen grape vines, and through places, I totally called BS as to even being a trail. But alas, Mule Man Mike was never lost, or so he made us believe. The most intense things that occurred revolved horses that didn't know how to pick up their feet. At one point Bitty 3's horse could have lost a leg on some down aircraft cable (why that was in the woods in the middle of nowhere is beyond me), but thankful, the cable was already snapped and he just dragged it along instead. Another instance involved the same horse's leg getting stuck in a grapevine wine while two others (not so smart, helmeted lady on the green horse and friend) tried to go around said grapevine and ended up on a vertical mountainside. I still could not tell you how the got stuck like that, but the rest of the group had left them (crappy on them). They were calling for help and did not understand we were going to pass the grapevine, get to a place that was safe, because the trail was so thin you couldn't just hop off, stop, AND THEN come to get them. So the two are screaming, "How can you leave us! You can't leave us!" Meanwhile, simultaneously yelling at each other. Not-so-smart-lady then proceeds to hop off her green horse and tries to send him to us. Well, smart horse. It decides it would like to go home. Home, in this case, is about 15 miles away through a thick, West Virginia, rainforest-like jungle. Yup. Make better choices. At the same time this horse was trying to re-find the zip code it called home. The horse in front of me got its leg snagged on the down grapevine. The issue, there's no going up, because it was a sheer cliff face, and there's no going down because there's a downed tree with its roots sticking up to make a wall. You had to ride through it. This is why it is so important to teach a horse to just stop when something is around its feet. That is exactly what the horse did. his back right leg had a grapevine stuck past his knee. There was no getting off easily. Thankfully, Mule Man Mike hopped off his Mule Ms. Kitty and promptly saved all the days. Patience is key and just staying calm. It was a literal example of "how-to" and "not-to", and I was the only one smashed in between. Jean-Luc, solid man the entire time. Also, I'm sorry, but if you're making dumb decisions and end up on a cliff face, don't think I'm coming to your rescue in a hurry. My own self-preservation is foremost important. Sorry, not sorry? We eventually stopped for lunch in a really cool place. It happened to actually be on of the old roads to Cass. I would not have believed it a road, however, had I not seed the sign. The rest of the ride was fun. I didn't like being stuck with the back with the Not-So-Smart people, but Jean-Luc and I made our peace with it. The two thought we were just going to leave them for dead when I didn't hop off to help, but I simply explained to them that my knee isn't the one you want coming to save you. I don't know that they cared, but nor did I really.
The last 30 minutes of the ride were somewhat miserable for me. Jean-Luc was done, and he isn't the best at not jigging when going down hills. He falls on his front end and it creates a jack-hammer-like motion. It is literally fun for no one. He was tired and it all he had left, which meant it was all I could do but to try and have him shift his weight to the back end. I lost that battle so hard and for whatever reason, 30 minutes of that happened to be enough to break me. When we hit bottom I really didn't know if I was going to cry or laugh, so I just cussed - a lot. It was pretty out of character for me. While I knew everything was fine, I'd just built up so much (like horses do) that I needed a release. We arrived at the final river crossing and I told Mule Man Mike, "That was amazing! I'm @#&$* done. Thank you!" He was confused and laughed. Together Jean-Luc and I barreled crossed the river and smiled that our 8 hour day was nearly done. Again, that was the most challenging and fun ride all year. I am proud that we (mostly me) completed it, and would like to try it again now that I know what I'm in for. Until then, Jean-Luc and I will keep practicing around the barn, and wherever we can get to. #BoldlyGO!
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AuthorMy name is Chelsey. HorseGenerator's Cuevo Gold, or as he's known around this barn, "Jean-Luc Ponycard", was foaled in 2004 from Generator's Hurricane & Cheyenne's Little Bit. Top 10 Blog Favs.Archives
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