Friday, Nov. 23, 2018 – Ride Day with Flash Up the Withlacoochie Trail

Another good night sleep, thank goodness it's so quiet out here, other than the occasional train, (which correctly blows the Queens Crossing signal, long-long-short-long at every road intersection). Hubby wanted to try a short ride on Flash in the arena today, mostly to see if his legs are getting any stronger, especially since we didn't dialyze yesterday, which usually helps. I got Flash saddled up, and Hubby managed to climb on using a mounting block with no trouble at all! He took Flash around the arena a number of times, but he kept going back to Apollo, who was standing in the corner. After a while, he started to give Hubby a bit of a hard time, so Hubby finally saw what I meant when I was telling him how bossy Flash can try to be at times. To be on the safe side, Hubby decided he'd had enough, and was able to dismount more easily than he had been lately. Using the cordura saddle obviously is helping, as the cantle is lower and he's able to get his foot over more easily, plus he felt a bit stronger today, whoo-hoo! I put Apollo back in his paddock and switched saddles on Flash to the usual cowboy Aussie, and Flash and I took a nice ride up the Withlacoochee trail, which has a trailhead less than a quarter of a mile from Cherryl's farm. I knew it would be long and straight and probably boring, but it turned out to be a good exercise for Flash, as all kinds of strange pedal-powered vehicles went by us, including one with a little yapper named Lucy in a tiny cage behind her human's head (it was on one of those low to the ground contraptions). We kept off the pavement as indicated, and a lot of the trail actually had some nice trees along it, so it wasn't quite as plain as I thought it might be. We went almost 6 miles up to the overpass over route 50/98, then turned around and came back, completing an 11.78 mile ride in under two hours! I'm convinced more than ever that this horse will make a great endurance horse, he just loves to go go go! We walked quite a bit, especially at first, to get him over all the scary new things, like bikes and benches and picnic tables, but eventually we geared up, doing long stretches at his faster gaits, and finally a good mile or two at a lovely canter. I mostly let him go at his own speed, just to let him enjoy himself, and we both certainly did! Got back around 2:30, just in time to get Hubby started on his dialysis, followed by a quiet evening in our mobile cabin. Another great day on the road!

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