Trip to the forest

Claire and I had a lovely ride in the forest on Sunday - first time we have been for about 2 years. It was Hebee's first visit since he lost his eye and rafiki's 3rd ever visit. They could not have been better behaved - we were expecting to stay online mostly as I've barely ridden Rafiki since January (and she only had about 5 rides then - this will be I think my 13th ride on her).

An 'onboard' pic - amazing how confident she was striding out in front. We had no worried moments. On the one occsasion I had sat on her before when going to the forest I got off a lot!! The time before that (3 years ago?) I didn't ride at all.

This was when we were doing an online passenger lesson - I stayed in Z 3 to see how confident she was.

This was at the turn aound point. Rafiki really strode out on the way out but was not keen on heading back to the float. She walked really slowly, stopped once or twice and wanted to take 'tiki tours' on other paths. we had a few strides of trot a couple of times - I was really pleased that go and slow were so easy and even.

She wore boots all round as the track was stony all the way. Hebee managed just fine barefoot.

I didn't have her brain 100% all the way BUT she stayed 100% left brain the entire trip, apart from the first 2 minutes on Claires float up the hill, when she was by herself. She's not that familair with straight load floats. Even the potentially spooky flapping plastic, upturned bath, troughs etc were no issue. If I felt she wanted to look at something I asked her to stop, gave her a minute then asked her on again.

SO pleased!!! looking forward to next time.....