Trail Ride

By Katie

            One day I had finished my horseback riding lesson, and my friend came up to me saying how thrilling and fun her trail ride went. A trail ride is a leisurely ride through trails in the woods.  Right then and there I knew I wanted to trail ride!  So I asked her if we could go together.  She said yes, so we picked a good date to go, and we decided sometime in the next week!  The rest of that week and the beginning of the week I couldn’t stop talking about it. I knew me and my pony, Lena, were ready.

            When the day finally arrived, all I had to do is to wait all day through school. It was the longest day ever.  First period felt like 2 hours compared to 45 minutes I remember sitting in math drawing horses all over my paper.  Second period was even worse I started day dreaming about the ride.  The rest of the day went ok, but when school let out I ran to my mom’s car and said, “Go!”  My mom drove to the barn.  I was so excited I couldn’t stop talking about how much fun we would have.

            As soon as we got there I jumped out of the car and ran to my friend who was taking me on the trail, and hugged her and she said, ”You ready?” and I screamed, “Yes!” so she tacked up her horse Finn and I tacked up my pony Lena (tacking up is a way of saying putting the saddle and bridle on the horse.)  We put tons of fly spray on both Lena and Finn.  Fly Spray is a fly repellent for horses.  We also put on special boots on the horses feet so they would not get hurt, by the overgrown grasses.  Before we put the bit in the horses’ mouth we put a special thing called a bonnet over their ears to protect them from flies.  Then we put on the bridle.  After we finished we put our helmets on and left to go to the trails.  

            When we first walked out onto the trails and we had to cross a road, but this road was rarely used so crossing it was safe.  We then had to walk on the side of the road all the way to a big open field, then cut through the field.  Lena got really jittery and excited, she knew she was in an open field and she was meant to run, but since I was riding we couldn’t stop and run around to play in the field.  Lena kept trying to trot and when I would slow her down she would get mad.  I could tell she was mad because she kept through her head in disagreement. I  Finally calmed her down and we were walking normally.

            In order to get to the trails we had to go in to a small opening in the trees and then walk around and find the trail.  It wasn’t more than five feet wide. We got through it easily.  The trails hadn’t been ridden on for years, so it was very overgrown with trees and hard to find the trail.  The trees were so overgrown they hit us in the face.  Lena soon took advantage of it and ate the leaves as they hit her.  After a few whacks in my face, we spotted the trail. 

            As we were walking along the abandoned trails, we heard a little girl screaming.  We couldn’t hear what she was saying. I screamed, “Hello?” and a voice screamed “Hello.” Back to us.  Then all of a sudden a family with a Great Dane hopped out from deep in the woods.  They scared us and our horses half to death.  Then their little girl screamed at the top of her lungs,”Horsie, Horsie!” and ran to our horses and scared them again.  We told the family how scared our horses were and how they didn’t like dogs, especially dogs almost as tall as them.  The family walked away the way we had just come, our only way back.   We had to get back by 6:00 pm because I had homework to do and it was already 5:30.  We had no idea how we would go back.  Then my friend said, we could follow the trail and to the light.  The reason we looked for the light is because we needed to find a field, and where the light was there was an opening to the field. 

            At first I thought it was a great idea.  We kept walking along the trail to find the light.  We soon found the light and began to follow it, we had soon found the field.  As we were walking toward the field the ground became very steep.  I was getting really worried Lena would spook.  I hopped off to walk beside her.  As we were walking Lena saw a branch and decide to eat it.  As she was doing that she ripped the reins from my hand and ran into the big field.  At that time Cassie was still walking Finn down the hill.  Then I started to scream, “Help!”  I was crying, because if a horse trips on the reins they could break there leg and be forced to be put down.  So my friend hopped on Finn and walked up to Lena and snatched her.

            I got back on Lena and we rode home.  I was so glad to see my mom and sister and be back safely.  I then thanked Cassie for the fun time.  I was ready and excited to go on a normal ride next week!