A trail ride and a DIY Cordeo

I'm taking a break from editing my cross country photos to post this story and DIY guide.

Wolcott Mill Metropark Ride

On Saturday Alicia and I made plans to go trail riding. We didn't have much of a goal in mind other than get the horses in shape for the endurance rides we were planning on doing this fall. Plans were equally compounded by Gwyn still not having a shoe on one of her front feet plus the velcro stickers were loose on her feet so I had just pulled it off so the Megasus were out of the question. My farrier is coming Monday and I didn't feel like wasting a velcro thinger for a day. My goal was to go to a place where the footing wouldn't negatively effect Gwyn.

Highlights from my helmet cam

Wolcott Mill seemed good. While it would be fairly boring as it's just farm field edge riding with some woods it's also pretty well groomed as it's one of the few places that's good for people to come and use their carriages. It's nice and wide and mowed. The last time I was there was in 2015. I was hoping it wouldn't be as muddy as last time since we've been lacking some regular rain lately.

Wide, groomed trails

Right away, the horse flies decided to be horrendous. They were the giant ones, big black, the size of a fingernail and not your pinky unless you have humongo hands. They drove Gwyn absolutely mad. They really liked landing on her butt, right in the little dip on her spine where she couldn't reach with her tail. She figured out that if she bucked it would flip her tail up and over to swish at them but honestly I just tried to smack them as much as possible. The fuckers would dodge as soon as they saw my hand.

So this ride was characterized by a TON of bucking and kicking on Gwyn's part, while she was being perfectly behaved. Several times she broke into a trot just to try to escape them. So noted, Gwyn. We will not do Wolcott again in the summer. We'll wait for fall when the bugs are dead. The deer flies were equally bad but not as maddening. Fly spray did nothing.

 The parking is on the north side of 29 mile road but all of the trails are on the south side. So rather than cross a sometimes busy mile road, we go under it!

I was pointing out a deer, this is the view immediately on the other side of the road

Random ridiculous giant rock ditch that we bypassed

Baby deer bounding toward us! Watch the video for a better view

Hello storm clouds

 We started hearing thunder at this point in the ride and shrugged it off. The storm seemed fairly distant.

Alicia and the Storm

You can see the B52 bomber fly

It was right around this time that we saw lightning and suddenly getting back to the trailers was urgent.

Back under 29 Mile Rd

Alicia's reins got stuck when she tried to use them to get rid of a deer fly on his ear. It didn't work, lol

River view

In the woods heading back to parking

Endomondo Stats

Side by side map comparison from 2015 and Saturday. We covered some new ground. This gives me hope for going back for some good conditioning mileage.

Wolcott Mill Metropark Adventure!

Today was a GREAT day. I got the barn bright and early to get my truck hitched and all my stuff loaded. A group of five of us from the barn were all planning to head to Wolcott Mill Metropark to ride on the horse trails there. We took two trailers including mine. It felt really good to be able to provide my own transport! And help someone else!

I had long ago gotten my bridle tag to ride there, which didn't cost anything. You just haul in, sign in at the book and go. Super simple.

This is where I totally go first world problems though.... these trails sucked compared to what I could do in Washington. It was mainly edge of farm field riding and minimal woods trail. What forest trail there was was a sogging muddy mess thanks to all the rain we've been having so we didn't even attempt to go through the forest areas. I would have been happy with woods. I can ride on the edge of a field at the barn :/

I will go back though, because for distance it's pretty good and once it does dry out, it would be an easy place to just trot/canter FOREVER and get some good conditioning for endurance in. No hills though, it's on the wrong side of Van Dyke.

The trail from the staging area to get to all the loops goes under 29 mile road. Gwyn had no issues going through. I was really happy.

See? Flat

Farmland.

We trotted where the footing was good and made good time heading out.

There was a grassy place to stop with a concrete mounting block. I think it's for pictures. We could see the river below us. Good grazing for the horses and a nice break.

Then out and around and onto a powerline area with random paddle boat.

Maybe this place becomes a lake....??? It was crazy deep mud. I was not a fan but Gwyn handled it well.

Bridge with kids on it. Private land on the other side of the river so no crossing. Plus no rails, made me antsy just thinking about going over.  I didn't get pictures but we turned around just after getting to the next field past the bridge. We'd caught up with a guy out by himself riding a thoroughbred. He cantered across the field, turned around and just BOOKED it galloping back. Ellen's eyes lit up (she was on the paint) "I want to do that!!!!!"

So I rode out with her to the far field and the guy came with us, we lined up and just FLEW back. I decided to trust Gwyn and just let her go. Oh my goodness, the rush was amazing. We hit 24.6 mph, breaking our previous known record of 19 mph. The guy's horse still was faster but my drafty put up a good effort. I ended up losing my jacket off the back of my saddle bags in the gallop so we went back to retrieve it then headed back. 

We crossed paths with these girls right by the river access. Technically horses aren't allowed in the river. 

But we did it anyway. And then saw the girls watching and double back to do it too, lol. I was proud of Gwyn, she walked into the river with minimal issue. But she had major problems with all the puddles.

The original plan was to eat lunch and head back out for another ride before going home, but during lunch NO ONE EXCEPT ME TIED SAFELY.   Those horses were on a cross tie attached to their lead ropes. They were all over the place. Then they were just plain loose. THEN... one of the horses got too tangled in the long line and gave himself rope burn on the back of his pastern.  It was bad and his halter was nylon with no snap on the lead rope so SUPER UNSAFE. There was no way to quick release him and nothing to break under pressure. Poor guy. I felt bad not offering her a trailer tie to use initially because that's what I grabbed for Gwyn since it'd give way under that strain but... the horses could have also been tied to the trailers as well, and not those posts.

Thankfully because I'm keeping the majority of my stuff in my trailer tack room I had my full first aid kit so he got sprayed with wound spray and then slathered with Furazone. I also showed someone how to put on those professional's choice boots.

Since the poor rope burned guy was ouchy, we called it a day and loaded everyone back up. Gwyn was an idiot for loading, but not nearly as much as she's been in the past. We headed home and overall it was a good day!