I wanted to share with you some snapshots of a recent ride where we took a mother and two kids out for a ride. Both the mother and the kids had some previous experience from a riding school, but they had never been trail riding or never really brushed a horse either. Most of their experience was literally time spent in the saddle, they weren’t very familiar with the horse as an animal.
As per the Country Quest style, we met all the horses first in the herd and then picked up our horses for the ride and gave them all a good brush and got to know them. As we tacked the horses up, all the equipment was explained and the kids taught how to saddle up properly and how to make sure the horse is always comfortable.
Once we had saddled up and everyone was given a briefing on how to steer and control their horses we headed out to the hills. Our trails go up and down banks so there was a little bit of nervous excitement at first as the horses picked their way through, but once everyone learned to trust their horses all we could hear from the kids was ‘oh this is soooo cool!’ and ‘wow, did you see how I came up this hill?’
I am so delighted to get to lead out rides like this, where everyone, including the horses, has a great time. Even first time riders can really enjoy the trails and have a better riding experience when we go off road and over some quite challenging terrain. It’s not always the speed that makes riding exciting, it’s the challenges that nature brings you!
I hope you enjoy the photos, we certainly enjoyed shooting them!
