TN trip and NATRC Ride

I spent the last two weeks in Tennessee for my fall trip to visit my parents and ride horses.  The weather was great (a little cooler than GA!) and we were able to ride almost every day.  Most of our rides involved creeks or rivers and here one of our friends, Louise, is riding with us.

 

There also happened to be another competitive trail ride through the NATRC at a park about a half an hour away from my parents' cabin during my visit.  I had planned for this by riding my horses almost every day for the five weeks prior to our visit.  My mom was able to compete (for the first time) on my older horse, Rabi, and since they were there to babysit, I was able to ride my young horse Mow on his first ever competition of any kind.  Here we are at the vet check the night before.

 

The judges look at how well you present the horse and at what condition the horse is in to provide a baseline for the next day's ride.

 

The horses stayed in stalls overnight at this park.

 

The ride started at 6:00 am the next morning and it was only 47 degrees out!

 

The sun just barely came up before we were off.

 

 

Along the 22 mile ride we stopped twice for P&R (pulse and respiration) checks to help evaluate the horses' condition.  We also completed four different obstacles in front of the judges including mounting, trotting from one judge to another, and side passing to a round bale.  There are no photos of the obstacles because Mom and I were too busy concentrating!  But here we are at one of the P&R checks:

 

This ride is called "Ride the Edge" because the trails go right along some beautiful cliffs.

 

 

A lot of the trails are very rocky and since my horses don't have shoes we put rubber boots on their front feet called easy boots to help protect them.

 

 

Twenty-two miles sure goes by fast when you are having fun!  (Actually it took us just over six hours).  Mom did an excellent job with Rabi and placed fourth in the horsemanship category.  I was also very proud of Mow and how well he behaved - he even ended up placing sixth in the horse category!

 

 

After the competitive trail ride we went back to the cabin to rest for a while before heading out on the trails again the next week.  We even managed to squeeze in one hike between all of the horseback riding.

 

Apparently I should have sprayed with bug spray for the hike though because I ended up with about 100 tick bites that night...

 

 

Tick bites didn't stop us from enjoying one last ride through some creeks to the Big South Fork River.  This time I rode Rabi and Mom rode her horse Doni.

 

The river was probably low enough to cross, but we'll save that adventure for next time!