Friday Trail Ride

Last Friday I went riding at Morven Park with my friend, Leslie. Because of the big US/England polo match in honor of the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown settlement, the Virginia Horse Council sponsored a Legislative Trail Ride and needed quiet horses to put legislators and their families on. Since Leslie is a fabulous horse trainer she had four of her own horses well-behaved enough to offer for the ride. I went to help out because no matter how good you are with horses, it's hard to keep four of them in the right place, behaving all at the same time.

We ended up riding out a few times, once with just two other riders and then later with about 23 other horses and riders.

It was the first time putting all four in the trailer together so a bit of thought was put into who to load first and what order would be best. By the time we were about a quarter of the way there I could tell, from driving behind her that the horse we'd loaded last was not last anymore.

So what would we find when we opened the doors? At least the banging around in there sounded normal as we drove, no one was coming through the roof, and they're all field-mates so I figured they'd be ok. Here's what it looked like when we opened the doors. Keep in mind, they were slant-loaded and Swaps, the lightest colored horse, was loaded last.

Oh! And the best part was that while we rode that morning the band, Journey, was practicing for their gig after the polo match on Saturday.