Max & I did the Formby Beach 8 mile pleasure rise with sport endurance on Archie & Harley and it was wicked!
Harley was a star. It was his first serious trail ride and we had to drive 150 minutes to get there as well.
Harley was quite excited when we got there, but then so was Arch. I was going to put his boots on him, but a kind lady spotted me putting them on and warned me that the sand was really deep, so it wouldn't be a good idea. Thank you to that lady 'cos it was very good advice.
After a bit of road & tracks we got to the beach and the sand was seriously deep. We had to ride up on over some high dunes to get on to the beach, which was interesting, but Harley soon decided that he'd got it sussed.
We had some extreme friendly game going past some wind turbines and we paddled in an inlet on the beach. Plenty of thresholds, so plenty of opportunities to show good leadership.
I won't go on about the whole ride but it included a long canter during which Harley got it all together (both leads) and we had a lovely side-by-side canter. I couldn't stop grinning.
By the time we got back he was long, low and relaxed. Two hours sharing lunch and chilling before driving back also helped.
His feet are a bit worn from yesterday, so I had to get the rasp out. Thinking about getting an equine podiatrist to look at them.
Today we went for a short ride to go find some grass to eat. Harley was sooo chilled. Usually he's a little high headed setting off but this morning he pootled like it weren't no big thing. We did encounter some puddle thresholds on route which I am sure are mostly dominance. "Don't want to!". By the time we'd done he was looking for puddles to walk through. Still need to keep playing with that though.
Got a nice message from James as well, which made me smile.
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