Today was another beautiful glowing autumn day. I had done dressage work in the arena for the past two days and thought that today was a day for the outdoors and something different. My husband agreed to come up to the grass field and do a video of Biasini. Here is the video with his very creative commentary.
Once we finished that I decided to set off on a forest hack. We’ve had a lot of heavy winds lately and I knew that there would be trees and branches down. I set off on a westerly trail and Biasini had several branches to carefully step over but once we got into the pine forest it was all clear. We followed the trail round and headed up the hill back toward to our barn, Oakcrest Farm. But as we got closer the trail was blocked with a large silver birch. There was no way we could get round it. I knew there was another trail that led around in a semi-circle and came out onto the road that led to the barn. So we back tracked and took that trail. All was well for the start but then ….. a section with about eight trees all down and across the trail. I thought we could turn around and go all the way back the way we had come but that would have been a good half hour. Was there any way round this barricade of fallen trees? I could see the trail was clear about 40 feet beyond.
I looked at both sides of the trail and decided that we might be able to pick our way through the trees and underbrush on the right. Everywhere there were branches down and old fallen tree trunks. I gave Biasini a long rein so he could put his head down and see where he was going. I just gave him some light aids to guide him to the left or right. As we were almost back to the main trail there as a large tree trunk, with an old dead branch, barring the way. I knew it would snap off if we pushed through it. Biasini stopped. He was not certain about it.
“It’ll be ok.” I told him. ” Go forward and the branch will break. It will. ” And he did. The branch was at the level of his chest and it broke off with a crack and a snap. And we were back on the trail. I gave him a big pat and told him he was the smartest and bravest horse I had ever known. And I meant it!
He had picked his way through that forest, over dead tree trunks, branches and piles of leaves. He took his time, he never panicked and he followed my shifts of weight in the saddle to go a bit to the left or a bit to the right.
What a great horse! If he had just laid down a perfect Prix St. George dressage test I could not be more proud of him.
Thank you Biasini. Trail horse and bushwhacker!
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