A little too much fun in the snow

This Morgan belongs to a friend of mine.

Sunday a good friend and I decided to try and sneak in another ride before the "Historic Snow Storm of February 2011" hits Indiana. *gag*. She leases a 5 year old Tennessee Walker mare, who is quite green but sweet and willing to learn.

After some time working in the arena (walk, trot only. The snowy footing was decent but I didn't trust it for cantering), I decided we should take a trail ride. I specifically had an area in mind that is basically a huge ditch in  between two corn fields. It is about 3 horses wide and long enough to have a good canter/gallop. And because it is between two cornfields (and it set below them, like a big ditch), it also has about 3 feet of snow. That means the horses will get a good workout.

We walked and trotted some. Both horses were being good. So I decided to try some cantering. It was SO. MUCH. FUN. Hampton was bounding through the snow - snorting and blowing and picking up some serious enthusiasm. I was laughing and had a really good hold of my running martingale strap.

We reached the end of the path and I stopped and turned around. Then I see my friend with her horse cantering at us. They look lovely ... and then ... the mare sort of leaps out of the path, up the small hill and into the cornfield. A stride after that she bucks. And I mean her rear end was far above her little head type of buck. My friend tumbled into the snow. Then the mare sort of trots off in front of us and I realize Hampton thinks this is great fun and does a little mini-leap which doesn't get far because I have him in a one-rein stop before he realizes what has happened. We get the naughty mare caught and return to the ring for more work.

We end on a good note. :-) Good times, good times.

And now, more snow. I did put a warm liner blanket under Hampton's turnout sheet so he should be nice and bundled up now. But of course the horses always handle it better than we do.