Lara took all this week off and wanted to do some riding. The first few days I had to get some shoeing in and make money to pay bills. I decided it would be good to at least take Thursday and Friday off from shoeing horses and go trail riding. Our last endurance race was Thankgiving weekend at JDs Carolina Ride in SC. After this race I pretty much pulled the horses shoes and let them be through Christmas. When we decided to go riding today I figured I better put front shoes on. So Taz and Patton got front shoes last night.
We were going to drive to South Mountain State Park, but at the last minute this morning we decided to head for Latta Plantation. This was to be Patton's first ride back since August. We think he had a tendon issue going on and gave him some rest. Needless to say I was really excited to hit the trail on Patton. We figured the easier trails at Latta would be a good warmup back to getting him in shape.
We arrived at the horse parking at Latta just before 11am. Took us a bit of time to saddle up since I was also fitting Patton with a new saddle. We picked up a couple Wintec saddles off eBay for a great price. My friend Christine let me try a set of eventing irons, which were pretty nice to use. Patton had grown a bit chunky over the last few months of pasture rest and I had to use the longest english girth we had. I ended up not using the breastcollar or a crupper and hoped the saddle would not move. Compared to South Mountain, the trails at Latta do not have as severe a hills.
Lara was all set with Tazz and I had Patton all saddled up. I put my foot in the stirrup and swung my leg over and found out what 4 months of rest did for Patton...aka...the Red Devil. Boy was he ready to go go go!! Had a hard time getting my other foot in the other stirrup and the Red Devil even gave me a little buck cause we hadn't moved on down the trail. After a few smacks on the head, he stood still long enough to get my feet in the stirrups and myself set in the saddle. And off we went. It was hard to keep him in a walk. The air was fresh and cool in the 40s and Patton was ready to move out. Man I love that horse. I was on cloud 9 being back in the saddle on him. The new Wintec saddle felt comfy and appeared to fit him well. We ended up riding in just under 2 hours and did an easy going 8 miles. The saddle did not move one bit. Typically you can tell saddle fit by the sweat pattern when the saddle is pulled. Since we were going so easy and it was pretty cool we did not get enough sweat to tell fit yet. We're going riding again tomorrow and the weather is suppose to be a bit warmer. 
Over all I'm very pleased with how Patton moved and seems well on his way to getting in shape for our first event in south GA the second weekend of February. 
Tazz did really well for Lara today. Since he's dumped me several times, Lara was a bit intimidated by him. Surprisingly Tazz settled right in and gave Lara an awesome ride. He even led a good bit today and was not spooky one bit. Looks like I'll be slapping some front shoes on Slick in the morning and we'll be taking him and Patton back to Latta again. We'll meet up with a couple friends this time.
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