Walking Again – And He Don’t Like It!

RHR: 36



HR on Return: 56



Distance: 9.67 miles



Time: 2 hours, 20 minutes



Average Speed: 4.1 mph



Hoss was not so thrilled with walking this time. After a couple days off, he thought we should just go fast! We rode yet again at the Steele Canyon bridge (noticing a trend here?), this time going to the gazebo overlooking the reservoir. We started late in the afternoon, so I knew we'd be finishing in the dark. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my flashlight, which I had carefully put new batteries in and put in my truck. Oh, well. There are worse things than being out on the trail in the dark. When I think of them, I'll let you know.



Almost immediately upon hitting the trail, Hoss wanted to take off. It didn't help that the cross country team from the local high school was out running, too. A group of boys came jogging up behind him, and he tried to use it as an excuse to lose his mind. Kept trying to tell me they were really horse eating monsters in disguise. Still, we got through that little episode easily enough.



I let Hoss pick up the trot in a few places. On our way up the switchbacks, he wanted to trot some and I let him. He realized pretty quickly it wasn't a good place to trot, being somewhat rutted and having quite a bit of exposed rock, and willingly slowed back down. Not that he was happy about it.



I spent a lot of time bringing Hoss back down to the walk or preventing him from breaking over to the trot. We made it to the cowboy gate with few disagreements. After crossing the gate, though, Hoss used stepping over the gate as an excuse to trot. I sort of half-heartedly asked him to walk, which he ignored, starting to trot faster as we hit a small down hill. When he hit the bottom of the down hill, he rolled into a canter. I made no effort to stop him. I could feel him getting ready for it, and figured it was just as easy to ride it out as to pull him back. He cantered for a bit, feeling strong and like he'd pull my arms out of their sockets if I tried to stop him. I didn't let him get far, however. The trail is somewhat treacherous in that area, and I didn't really want to take a chance of him tripping on the varying slope.



By the time we got to the bottom of the hill to the gazebo, Hoss was getting pretty annoyed with this walking thing. In the past, he's been more than happy to walk up this hill. This time, he wanted to canter or trot. I had to really correct him to get him to walk. Whether it was because he was just bored of walking, or because walking is harder than trotting, he was not thrilled about walking up the hill. It is a steep hill, so a good one for getting in some great training at any speed.



Usually we take a break at the gazebo. Seeing as how we were running out of daylight, and we'd been walking and Hoss was feeling just fine, we didn't stop. Even the dogs were less worn out than usual at this point. So we continued on our way around the old cattle pond back to the access road. When we hit the access road, Hoss once again rolled into a canter. I let him canter up the hill as long as he liked, which wasn't long. He dropped back to a walk pretty quickly, before we hit the top of the hill.



Walking back down and around was pretty uneventful. We crossed the river to the grey road, and I decided to let Hoss run up the road this time. He was really feeling frisky at this point, and had made it clear after crossing the river that he wanted to go! There really would be no stopping him without a fight. So, once we hit the road, I said okay, and he took off! After we topped the rise, he still wanted to go fast, but I brought him back down to a walk and he chose not to have a fight about it.



We crossed back over the bridge as dusk started to turn to dark. By the time we got back to the trailer, it was just dark! And it was starting to get chilly. I checked Hoss's heart rate, happy to find him at 56, and got him unsaddled and back in the trailer. I just wanted to get him and the dogs and me home.



I like that our average speed was a little faster than the last mostly-walking trail ride we did. He was clearly walking faster. I could feel that he was stepping out more quickly. I think the average coming up had more to do with him simply walking faster than with the amount of trotting and cantering we did, as we didn't do much. I never looked at the GPS unit while he was walking, but I could feel that his walking speed was much improved.