The Easter Parade
5 April 2010 00:16![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glenatronToday, after a couple of fairly damp days, the weather was bright in a patchy-clouds-and-april-showers kind of a way, so Zorro and I took the opportunity to go for a walk in the sunshine. In the end we covered about eight miles of Zorro being an absolute rock star followed by about a quarter of a mile of him being a tit, then a bit more good Zorro. On the whole, excellent!
Heading off up the road towards the common we were exploring on today. We rode out on the one the army use as a training area, on the grounds that surely they take bank-holiday weekends off. Turns out they were still around with Land Rovers and stuff ( maybe cadets or reservists enjoying the weekend ) but not shooting as much as usual so fine for riding past.
Hankley Common, where I was riding, is a bit drier and less open, with a lot of pine and birch woods.
Inviting trails, Zorro's mane indicates how breezy it was.
Having climbed up the main ridge on the common. The puddles show how much it has been raining lately.
The Noble Cob poses in front of trails that are ours to explore on another day.
Heading into dappled spring woods on the route home.
The thing which made most of the ride work and the last bit tricky was finding other horses. Zorro seems to obsess on them the moment he sees them, all his attention just goes straight off to any horse he doesn't know and if they are at all anxious or going past quickly he'll pick up on it very fast and tend to get very anxious. I think this is just something that will come with time, but as he seemed determined today to descend the very steep valley just before we get home in full on passage and I wasn't really alright with that, I just hopped off and walked down with him then had a ten minute conversation at the bottom of the valley where I got him calmed down enough that he would stand for me to get back on before we headed home. It was a bit of a shame but we handled it and I certainly won't let it detract from the rest of the ride, where he was relaxed, forwardgoing and generally a very fine horse indeed.
Heading off up the road towards the common we were exploring on today. We rode out on the one the army use as a training area, on the grounds that surely they take bank-holiday weekends off. Turns out they were still around with Land Rovers and stuff ( maybe cadets or reservists enjoying the weekend ) but not shooting as much as usual so fine for riding past.
Hankley Common, where I was riding, is a bit drier and less open, with a lot of pine and birch woods.
Inviting trails, Zorro's mane indicates how breezy it was.
Having climbed up the main ridge on the common. The puddles show how much it has been raining lately.
The Noble Cob poses in front of trails that are ours to explore on another day.
Heading into dappled spring woods on the route home.
The thing which made most of the ride work and the last bit tricky was finding other horses. Zorro seems to obsess on them the moment he sees them, all his attention just goes straight off to any horse he doesn't know and if they are at all anxious or going past quickly he'll pick up on it very fast and tend to get very anxious. I think this is just something that will come with time, but as he seemed determined today to descend the very steep valley just before we get home in full on passage and I wasn't really alright with that, I just hopped off and walked down with him then had a ten minute conversation at the bottom of the valley where I got him calmed down enough that he would stand for me to get back on before we headed home. It was a bit of a shame but we handled it and I certainly won't let it detract from the rest of the ride, where he was relaxed, forwardgoing and generally a very fine horse indeed.