Our first outing!!!

Finally! We took our horses out for an outing in our own trailer, and it was a success <little happy dance> The occasion? A 15mile Charity Ride.

As with everything, the 'relaxed' trip out required a lot of planning and organisation..... So, on Saturday we had horses to exercise and scrub (the gelding is naturally.a filthy beast) tack to clean, numnahs to wash, trailers to check, and an enormous amount of stuff to pack up - hats, boots, gloves, body protectors, water container, buckets, first aid kit and Polos to name a few.

Of course, having small children, the organisation did not stop there. We had to double check we had childcare, make sure there was something yummy for the babysitter for lunch and to leave the house in a decent(ish) state.

On Sunday morning we were 'lucky' enough to be woken by our son at 5.45am - no chance of oversleeping! We left the house at 9am armed with sandwiches, cans of coke and clean numnahs. The sun was shining!

The horses had been left in so they (well, the gelding) didn't get muddy. This turned out to be a mistake as both were very wound up. They had some mild sedation for travelling and we loaded up.

Both travelled amazingly well. When we unloaded, the mare looked very pleased to be out somewhere and the gelding was a bit of a knob to be perfectly honest! We managed to tack up and could get straight going, which was lucky as I don't imagine either of them would have taken too kindly to hanging around.

It was FABULOUS! Lots of long grassy tracks for some fun gallops canters, some wooded tracks and a little stream to cross (ok, so it was little more than a puddle) The horses were very well behaved for most of the ride, but half way round the mare got a bit cross and stressy. This meant snatching and jig-jogging, though to be fair to her, we were on a track with horses in front going quite slowly and some behind messing around - who wouldn't get wound up? We covered just over 15miles, the last 5 were the best in terms of good tracks and less horses but the worst in terms of aching muscles. We completed in just under 3 hours.

The horses were very sweaty, but still full of life at the end. They must have been tired though, as they actually stood tied to the trailer sharing, actually sharing a haynet.!

Travelling home went very well, and with no sedation (Yay!!!)

The mare and gelding spent the rest of the day out in a grassy field, before coming in to a good brush, a clean bed, plenty of hay and a well deserved feed. We had to rush home to relieve the babysitter, and get our daughter to a birthday party. Burger King for dinner followed by a hot bath, painkillers and wine. The most impressive part? We can still walk today just