It was probably 2008. I am not sure. Lido was still living. I do not remember a lot of the details. I remember that Swimmer had been under saddle for twenty days when she took this ride.
It was an all day affair. We rode at a very casual pace. It was not a race and we were not keeping time.
We were exploring, not the geography, but ourselves and our horses. We were finding out what we could do and what our horses could do. We found out that one 46 mile ride did wonders to teach horses to become safe and steady trail mounts.
Looking back over the history of our program, it might have been the most important ride that we ever took. We learned that our horses could go forever and little riders could go further than they thought, than their parents thought, and than the established horse world thought.
Modern, hover parenting steals something very important from children. It steals the opportunity to rack up successes from them. Our program constantly seeks to give opportunities for success to kids (and grown ups too). Real challenges, real successes where the reward is more than a strip of cloth.
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