Jessica has ridden before in a conventional riding lesson program. She knew a bit about horses but nothing in her background prepared her for her second ride with us. On her first session with us she rode Comet, and to my surprise, found him to be "slow." Yesterday was her first ride on a formerly wild horse. She rode Samson on an afternoon long ride with about a half dozen other riders.
On a whim we turned into a stretch of woods that I had not walked into for about 30 years. I thought that there was a trail through it but, if so, only a fragment of that trail still existed.
Ice storms over the past decade have killed many pines in my area. The woods floor is a maze of twenty foot tall trunks scattered like tooth picks. Green brier and fox grape vines lace among the standing trees. A week of torrential rain has softened the deep stump holes hidden on the forest floor.
Of course, none of our horses panicked or showed the least bit of concern. The Corollas seemed to feel at home in the tangles and mire. Jessica did not let fear get in the way of solid horsemanship. She and Samson came through it all with only a few scrapes and scratches. Samson is a first rate horse and Jessica is going to be a first rate rider.
Speaking of New Worlds, the horse in the picture above lives (and works) in the Dominican Republic, which was the site of many of the earliest horse breeding operations in the New World. That is a riding saddle on his back, not a pack saddle. A lot of Dominican country people ride on these homemade saddles which are essentially a huge set of saddle bags.
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