I went trail riding with a friend a week ago, and we went someplace new. I’ve been making an effort in the past year to get out on the trails more often – it is something I used to do daily when we had the stable at Parker Ranch (ridge-top above Tomales Bay in West Marin County). With thousands of acres, we used the trails as warm ups for the show horses and every colt we rode got out regularly. The cattle were spread out over the pastures, and we routinely went out horseback to bring them in to work the cutting horses. As a rider, I got used to being out on uneven, sometime very steep, terrain. But in the past few years, when I have to trailer out to get to the trails, and I have to admit that a majority of my saddle time is spent on level ground.

So this time we took one very experienced horse and my gelding Blue, who’s been out a few times on mild trails. Blue also has been going through some chiropractic treatments so I’ve been riding him pretty carefully. But it was a lovely day and so off we went.

I wasn’t sure how Blue would handle the terrain, and he was pretty bug-eyed as we left the horse trailer and went though a “corporation yard” of dead tractors, stacks of pipe and our favorite; a huge turbine-thing that was taller than the horses and slowly rotated in the breeze. Blue was quite good through this little minefield of spooky items and then the dirt road headed right up the hill.

One good thing about trails that start right out going up, is that colts get tired before they can get silly and pretty quickly Blue gave up being bug-eyed and started concentrating on climbing up the hill. I think he handled it better than I did at first. I’d look at the slope off the side of the road and get a little dizzy. Then I reminded myself that when I was out on the hill everyday, I would have gone sliding down that bank without a second thought if there were cattle down there to gather. By the time we got to the top of the ridge the ranch road had dwindled down to a cow trail. I was ready to head Blue down the ruts …. which he had to think about darn good as placing his feet one ahead of the other and not stepping off the edge onto the side-hill was a new challenge. He handled it just fine. I was getting my confidence back as he learned to negotiate each new obstacle. Finally after climbing up and up, we had to turn around and go down and down. Another new challenge, but Blue soon figured out to bring his hind legs up under himself and we came down the hill without a mishap. Oh, he made a few mistakes – this was the first time he’d been on anything this steep and uneven – but as he gained confidence so did I, until I was feeling pretty comfortable myself and even figured I could have taken him down the ravine to get the cattle, if that was the job to be done.

Getting out into a new situation is a real test for any horse and rider team. It brings out either the best or the worst of the team’s relationship. It exposes where the trust is weak. That new situation can be a show or competition, a new trail, or a new arena … but getting through those new situations as a team is what builds the horse-man-relationship. It also reminded me of how important it is to leave our comfort zones (I don’t think twice about hauling Blue to a horseshow at a new arena …) if our goal is a horse who is well-rounded, truly well-trained.