Peanut 5/5 Trail Work

Peanut went out to Susquehanna State Park today to do trail training. He's been very quiet and responsive on trail, so we brought along a completely green, never been ridden on train before horse named Lori. It ends up Peanut was "having a day" and Lori ended up being the rock on trail LOL!

The ride started with us rounding the corner and immediately seeing all kinds of dead farm equipment, old round bales, and large construction sized piles of dirt and cement blocks scattered all around the trail. We had to walk right between all of them, and I admit if I were a horse, I'd think all that stuff looked strange. Peanut stopped, planted, snorted, and sidestepped until Lori walked up beside him. What an example, eh? But overall, he was good--just evasive for about 10 seconds until he realized that not starting the ride wasn't an option. He was tense, so I asked him to relax at the poll, put his head down and walk forward. He did a fast powerwalk, tense but obedient on past all the obstacles. It set the tone for the ride, though, so he was reactive to any stimulus the rest of the time.

We saw more round bales scattered around in an open field and he tried to turn back once. I simply kept his head pointed where he needed to go, put his head down and send him forward and he was tense, but went forward. As we passed the last round bale, I had him walk up to it and sniff it. He took a bite, relaxed and walked on LOL!

We ran into several bikers on trail and he did well. He did the quick "startled" jump in place and then would walk past them with encouragement. Lori thought Peanut was silly and would jump when he jumped, but then walked by the bikes too.

He crossed every water obstacle and bridge with no problems or hestitation and relaxed in the woods. I worked on keeping him STRAIGHT between my aides (he escapes with his right hind and requires left seat/rein and right leg to keep him straight) and really focused on building his hindquarters on the uphills. His balance has truly gotten better since last year and he was able to negotiate the downhills and large steps down very well.

On the way back, we did some gentle cantering and he was excellent! Very good day overall. A little spooky, but under control and came back to relaxation well.