The Women from Snowy River

I convinced the BFF to come down for a trail ride on Sunday. Let's try out a new place to ride, I said.

Mr. Royale says water no problem now!

O'Bannon Woods State Park (and Harrison Crawford State Forest) is about an hour from Louisville so we hauled the boys over there to see what trouble we could find. There were maps, but neither one of us could read them to save our lives. Shocking, I know.

Yeah both boys together!
(light is weird, Royale does not actually have a trace clip?)

So we picked a day use place to park and picked a trail. (Edit: We ended up doing Cole's Loop)

At first it was a nice trail. Wide and well maintained. We started to go down a slight incline. And it kept going down ... and down ... and down.

Then we took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.

Pretty quickly we were INTO THE THICK OF IT and the trail become treacherous alternating between rocks, mud, a steep terrifying ridge on one side, dropping down ledges, and in general footing that the horses really had to pick their way through.

Much of the trail ran along the Blue River

At some point we came upon the Blue River and someone had sort of made kind of a trail leading down to the water. When I point Hampton down a path, he goes. And he has no fear. And I just hang on and let him go. The horses has to slide down this embankment (like sit on their bum slide) and there might have been some shrieking from the BFF but Royale used his brain and picked his way down like a smart boi.

Both horses enjoyed a few minutes in the water. It was lovely! 

Getting back out was less terrifying thankfully.

The second half of this loop (THANK F we picked a trail that did a loop) was much easier although definitely in the wilderness. We never saw another single soul, and the loop trail did not look like it was ridden much. The horses then had the looonnnng incline back up to the trailers. They were both tired and drank well at the trailer. Pretty thankful no one lost a shoe too because we definitely pushed that envelope.

I heard later that the trails at O'Bannon are pretty neglected. Whoops.

I'm not sure if the other trails would be easier but while a really fun time this is not the place for a "drink beer and take photos and relax" trail ride. It was challenging and Hampton got poultice and hoof pack when we got home. Plus bute lol. Royale got a great education on keeping track of his feet and he did super too! 

One well-done Porkchop

Just call us Women from Snowy River!