She transformed into a trail horse!

Well, I went on my birthday trail ride today with about 6 or so other people and their horses. I brought Dixie along, this was our first off-property trail ride together. I came out Monday and Tuesday so I could get her on the back property trails before we went on our big trail ride. I worked her in the arena first and then we headed out, she did pretty good. She didn't always want to go in the same direction but she overall just fine and her trail walk was very fast! On Tuesday, I went into the gelding turnout pasture (the geldings were inside at the moment) with another girl from the stable. The gelding turnout has a lot of logs and trail obstacles to go over. I took Dixie over the bridge, huge logs, lots of logs in a row, etc. She did very well. I also trotted her around a bit and she did fine at that too. I was so proud of her!

I have to admit, I was a bit worried about today.


Italic is what I thought would happen. Bold is what actually happened.

Not going/coming out of the trailer smoothly.
She loaded like a champ, didn't think anything of it.

Not slowing down when I wanted her to.
She listened to all of my cues on the trail, especially my voice. She listened extremely well to my voice. For example, when we would go down a hill and she would start to trot. I would tell her to walk, slow down, ease up, take it slow, etc. and she would listen.

A nutcase before we go on the trail because of her freshness.
She was completely calm when she got off the trailer. She didn't seem fresh at all, didn't want to go any faster than I wanted her to go, I only had to one-rein her to get on but that's always how it is. She has a problem with walking off, we're still working on it.

Rushiness on the trail.
She was not rushy at all. She had a nice consistent pace and if I clucked to her once or twice she would walk slightly faster.

Possible run-off with me.
We trotted as a group and she slowed right down when I asked her to and never even tried to go faster or gave me any reason to think she would run off. I often had her trotting up the hills and again, she never went any faster than of what I asked of her. Last time, I went to the same place but I rode Harvey, their lesson horse. He ran off with me while going up a hill. He is considered very bombproof.

Constantly one-reining her.
I barely ever one-reined her...actually, I don't think I ever did. I did slightly when she decided that maybe she shouldn't be going that way but she quickly straightened herself out and listened to me.

Becoming pissy and flipping her head around.
She only flipped her head a few times when I had some consistent contact but other than that, she really responded very well to the contact and even rounded slightly when I asked her to slow down. I haven't really worked on that with her so I was truely amazed.

Over-reacting to the water and doing something that could be dangerous or just being afraid of it and therefore causing problems whenever we would come up on mud or water.
Again, she handled this like a champ. She actually went hock-deep! We also had a lot of mud on the last mile or so and she went through it with some hesitation and needed a bit of encouragement but overall, she was great. Infact, she lead another horse through it that was having problems, two of them actually.


Riding up on other horse's butts.
She did this a bit but I could easily pull her back, I would just have to keep on doing it since her trail walk is a bit faster than most of the slow-pokes that were in our group. She also had no problem with Captain, a friend's horse, riding up her butt. He was most comfortable with his nose up her butt so we just rode like that the entire time. I think the two of them kind of bonded over the trailer ride.

Not being comfortable in a position in the herd.
She was comfortable in any position that we were in. Half of the time we were in the middle, she never had a problem with this. The other half of the time, we were leading since we were the faster ones. She did this very well, she even lead the whole group through all of the bad mud. I think she likes to lead but I'm grateful that she's content in any position. Harvey really loves to lead and he's gets so anxious if he's not and then he gets mad whenever a horse is on his butt, kind of made it not enjoyable at times.

Bucking.
Nope, no bucking whatsoever. She didn't want to at all either.

Possible herd-bound problems as well.
Again, nope, she would walk alone and away from the group. I had to go quite a ways back to help Erika and Captain and she was perfectly fine trotting away from the group that she was just neighing to earlier.


All in all, I am absolutely amazed by how she did today. I love that fact that I have this very trust-worthy and dependable trail horse now. It's like she transformed on the trailer ride over there. I really think we bonded on this ride as well. When we were all taking a break. I sat up on a hill with her right next to me. I ate my beef jerky and fed her carrots at the same time. She was so sweet, she just put her head gently in my lap, ate the carrots, made sure to not walk on top of me and then soon rested for a bit with her nose on my shoulder. She also paid close attention to me while we were sitting there. If I moved, she would look over and make sure everything was ok and then if I went back to my horn bag to get something, she would turn her nose around to see what I was doing. She was just so attentive and I felt like she was taking care of me and that if we were in a situation where I needed her help for our safetly, I am sure she would come through with flying colors.

I'm so proud of my girl.

This trip also closed more, if all, of my doubts about buying her/a horse in general right now.