Hitting the trails at Fair Hill!

Friday, October 11th we left for the annual gaited horse trail riding weekend at Fair Hill Park in Elkton, MD.  Friday was real dud.  It rained all day and night, making everything wet and disgusting, but Saturday morning the sun came out and the weather got warmer.  Since we're still new to trail riding and Nunya and Red are still getting used to going places we found a small group to go with.  We decided to ride to a covered bridge on the property, that a lot of other people said was very cool.  They all said it would take 2 hours tops..

Couldn't have asked for better weather!

Mom and Red

It ended up taking a total of three hours and we rode over 5 miles on horseback! We crossed countless bridges and went through and around some crazy obstacles.  Our first real obstacle was a really small and dark culvert we had to go through.  The horses made it half way through before they heard their own hoof beats and our voices echoing and decided they were NOT okay with what was going on.  Luckily they were able to contain their fear and stay somewhat composed till the end of the tunnel. Then we had a guy come out of nearby Port a Potty on the cross country field and slam the door.  The horse went ape but after a few minutes they came to their senses and calmed down.  After that we had to go under a highway overpass.  They horses didn't mind that until they heard the "thump thump" of the cars driving onto the bridge, but no one really spooked at it, they just got worried.  Lastly we had to go over a busy highway and on the other side was a moon bounce..  We made it halfway through before our lead horse Alegra, who I might add had been one of the most level headed the whole time, decided he couldn't take it, spooked, and tried to turn back.  Nunya of course spooked as well and tried to follow but we managed to calm them down.  After all this I looked back to my mom and the baby because they baby is the spookiest of the three, and go figure he didn't spook at all!

 We reached our goal though and all of us made it to the bridge,  And, after everything the horses had gone through by the time we reached the bridge everyone all the horses were more than willing to walk through.  After all, that day they had already seen way worse!

We were, needless to say, very proud of Nunya and Red!  It's been a long year but this ride showed how far they have come.  Fair Hill 2013 was a success and we're already looking forward to 2014!