This weekend we took the pony out to Escrick park for his second pleasure ride of the season. There was a lot of doubt about whether we were going to attend; first of all we didn’t receive any maps or ride details leading us to suspect that it had been called off, and then the weather looked like it was going to be torrential on the day. So I’d mentally decided that this probably wasn’t going to happen. Sue made a phone call on Saturday and then it was back to all go!
Sunday morning, a late start so we could avoid most of the 80 odd expected riders, and off we go after loading the route from a couple of years ago onto the GPS watch.
It turned out to be a pleasant 20km, Casper was dutifully drugged up an hour before the ride so he was in a calm mood. The weather had changed overnight from potentially bad to dry. Most of the other horses had left before us so we wouldn’t be getting overtaken. A decent set-up for the day.
The route, though different was generally the same as a couple of years ago, so the pony satnav was useful, and even if it hadn’t been, the route was very well marked. The ground was boggy, but most of the route was on hard track and unaffected. Casper was in a good mood so we trotted most of the way with some nice gentle canters.
We did make an “on the day” change, which we normally try to avoid, this was because the gaiters on the “boots” he’s wearing until we get him shod were rubbing his pastern. So we put some vet-wrap on his pasterns (instead of tights) and that actually worked for the entire ride without any significant problems. There was a small rub at the bottom of the vetwrap, but not enough to actually break the skin. I pulled him up after about 5km to check up on how well this new change was working, if the rub-protection had failed I was going to turn back home. Just after we’d pulled back from canter to trot to walk the dozy little sod tripped and I ended up going ever so gently over his head to land on the ground. No-one was hurt and I got an excellent view of his feet, all was well. Onwards!
The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful, we passed a number of other pleasure riders, gently so as not to upset their horses by storming pass. All was pretty good. Sue even cycled out to meet us half way, always a pleasure to see her.
The only, less than good, point was when we caught up with a couple of the 30km riders who, looking over their shoulders and seeing us decided to canter off. I find this behaviour annoying, it winds both me and Casper up – If we’ve caught up with you it’s because we’re going faster than you, just cantering off to keep us behind is at best only a temporary measure, I promise we’ll be passing you sooner or later, you may as well accept that and let us pass now!
So we finished sound and only a couple of kph over the maximium limit for pleasure rides (oops!).
All in all it’s a decent ride, not really a barefoot ride, and a little hard if you are concerned about that. I think we’ll probably alternate this ride with the Shipley park ride in future, it’s on at the same sort of time and about the same driving distance, and, from memory, one that can be done barefoot.
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