Into the Wild

Waiting to head off

We went for our first ride in the forest today and it was awesome! S took her eventer Rocky and I of course was riding Jack. This was the first trip away from Pony Club since I got Jack and in truth I expected him to act a bit crazy. His previous owners told me that he was a great floater but since I hadn't floated him before I was a bit aprehensive. Well Jack proved me wrong by walking straight onto the float after Rocky! Yay! No bum ropes, whips or natural horsemanship required.

Woodhill Forest is situated a nice 20 minutes from our Pony Club. A Equestrian Park has been established there and has a lot of a great trails to ride on. Endurance Races are held in the forest and there is a campsite that is open to hire. Our pony club camps there every Easter which is a lot of fun. Right next to Woodhill Forest is Muriwai Beach and is accesible on horse back which means if you have enough time to get out there, you can go for awesome gallops along the beach.

The carpark was filling up fast when we arrived. Horses of all shapes and sizes with all sorts of riders were being tacked up and ridden out into the forest. When Jack came off the float I noticed that his tail bandage was no longer on his tail. He had given his tail a good rub on the bum bar and the tail was sticking up in all places. When I looked into the float, the tail bandage wasn't there either. Somehow he must have flicked it out the back of the float in transit. Can't say thats ever happend to me before.

Again I expected Jack to act crazy after coming off the float since it was his first time away from the club in quite a few months. Again Jack proved me wrong. He was as cool as cucumber and was no more fidgety then his normal self. We tacked up and headed off into the forest.

Tacked up and ready to go

And again I expected Jack to be a bit crazy, but again he suprised me. Are we seeing a pattern here? Man I love that horse. Both the horses were calm and we rode happily along at the buckle. The trails are marked with posts with either a green or orange horse on it. Green is going away from the carpark and Orange is coming back to the carpark. We didn't have enough time to make it out to the beach and back so we just meandered in the forest. Its quite hard to get lost in the forest but it can be done (I know because I've done it before). We stayed on the marked trails keeping mostly at a walk. The footing is really deep sand in most parts and hard on the horses legs. Most of the trails were only wide enough for one horse and Rocky liked being in the lead. But Jack was never far behind, he face planted into Rocky's butt a few times :). We found a wider trail that had good footing and was big enough for both of us and went for a good gallop along it. Jack came straight back to a trot when I asked him. Man I love this horse! There were also some great logs set up as "natural jumps" along the trails so we had fun jumping those.

S, Rocky and Jack (S has a very strange smile here haha)

Both the horses were very brave, they both had a couple of spooks at horse eating logs and bushes but were generally well behaved. Rocky actually spooked when he heard the noise of Jack's poop hitting the ground. It was halerious.

Since S's parents were waiting back at the carpark for us we headed back just after an hour. It seemed way longer then that though and we covered a lot of ground in that time. Both the boys were super sweaty so we sponged them down before booting them up and heading back to club. We found my tail bandage in the middle of the road on the way back haha.

S grabbed her pony and we gave the 3 boys a bath when we were back (this was after S and I raced each other to the bathrooms. We drank a lot of water on the ride). After the baths we let them graze on the lush green grass by the pens.

"Munch, Munch"

After a few photos the boys were fed and put back in their paddocks.

It is hard to get two horses to stand nicely when there is
lots of nice grass right under their noses.

I headed home to do housework and clean the outside and inside of my car. I don't know about the rest of you but my car gets fithly, dirty when I have my horse stuff in there. It really annoys me!

Mr "Don't Call Me Crazy" and me
(perhaps I'm a tad more crazy then him)

Anyway, it was amazing day and it really showed me how much more Jack trusts me. He keeps revealing little bits of how great he is going to be one day! I think I am in love :)