Not a Seahorse, But a High Electron Horse

I've been wanting to take TC to the beach for a long time, mostly just to check a box as something he's done.

There's a beach about an hour's drive away that is pretty low key. Not a lot of trail riding to get to the beach, not a ton of sand before you hit the water, and usually not too many people.

I invited my dad and Riot to have someone there to call the ambulance for company. Riot has been to the beach a few times and although he's rather neurotic, he's safe and stays pretty quiet.

What a good boy

TC has not ridden out with another horse since before his suspensory injury almost four years ago. That's a long time! I've mostly avoided it because in the past TC has 1) gotten very attached to the other horse and 2) been a slow walker, so has always had to trot/canter to catch up and I don't like that now that I'm the one paying the vet bills. And it works for us, I mostly trail ride alone because of my random schedule.

But I figured it was time to start taking him out with other horses and see how he does! I also don't get to spend much time with my dad, so it was nice to hang out with him for the day.

Riot is 15.2 maybe? TC is only a hand bigger but seems way
way way bigger lol 

I loaded TC into the trailer and he hesitated for a moment before getting in, maybe he's not a two-trail-rides-in-one-weekend kind of horse. We then drove over to my parents' house to pick up Riot.

Poor innocent Riot. He's been in my rig before but never with TC. TC has never hauled in my rig with another horse. They both handled this poorly in their own ways.

TC nearly turned around in his space trying to get to Riot as Riot loaded. I had to push TC's nose out of the way several times to keep him from bugging him. Riot stood, shaking, pressed up against the wall that wasn't next to TC as TC aggressively STARED into the depths of Riot's soul and decided that he liked what he saw and that they were BEST FRIENDS FOREVER. He was smashed up against the divider and had his nose in Riot's manger as the doors closed. I tied TC real short so that he couldn't reach over and bother Riot the entire time. TC wasn't pleased with that.

Hi, want to be neurotic best friends forever???

When we unloaded at the beach, Riot was still shaking (he is a nervous guy generally, but I'm sure being dumped in a small space with a very enthusiastic friend was a lot for him) but TC had settled down a bit. Until we unloaded Riot and TC freaked the HELL out. Okay, lesson learned, TC unloads first then.

I smacked TC's butt to get him to stop leaning on the butt bar and then he unloaded, took a deep breath, and relaxed.

I had one of those "this is my dumb horse, there are many like it, but this one is mine" moments. Actually, this entire trip was one of those moments.

This path was great, wish it was longer!

Not having a death wish, I decided to lead TC down to the beach and see what he was going to do before getting on him. I know him well and know all his moves, but the beach is such a weird place. With the sand and the waves, I just didn't want to have him flip out and bolt in that deep of sand. He never bolts in hand so that's helpful.

We walked down to the beach and the look on TC's face was hysterical and I didn't get any media because my phone was in the car. He HATED it at first. When the waves came at him, he lowered himself back and down so far (like a dog) that his belly hit the sand. At one point, he was sniffing a piece of seaweed when a wave surprised him, so he spun away from it and then fell onto the sand. This seemed to get him to realize how soft the sand was, so he took his time finding several spaces to roll.

By the end of our walk, he was fine, but he'd trapped me in the sea once and I was wet and sandy and just wanted to go back to the trailer to empty out my shoes. Note to self: bring another pair of socks, always, actually just put a pile of socks in the trailer.

As close as we got undersaddle

We decided to tack up but walk along the path on the other side of the dunes from the beach. I wish this trail was longer so that the trail alone was worth the drive, then I think I'd go down there more and get TC all dialed in as a beach horse. It's a beautiful trail and TC was amazing on it. He led at first, then let Riot lead and was super polite about it all. He passed bikes and people and dogs and was just so happy.

After we got back, we walked up the dune with the idea that we'd walk out to the ocean and back, but there were a TON more people there and I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to get near people. So we decided to do the little trail again and then go home.

Following Riot like a good boy

At the end of our second walk on the trail, we ran into a man walking a bike. He had a beard and was carrying a plastic bag, he kind of looked like Radagast the Brown. He stopped us. A lot of people had stopped to ask about the horses, so I figured he just wanted to ask something.

Radagast: Do you know anything about nuclear chemistry?
My dad, a chemist: No, I don't (he totally does)
Radagast: Okay so there are forces in this universe, right? Protons! They're very stable, they're positive. This world is very positive, lots of protons. Then there are electrons, those are very unstable, they do not do well in this world.

TC, meanwhile, isn't sure whether the best way to get around Riot is to go around him or to go through him, so has wedged himself up Riot's butt as our wizard friend is talking to us.

Radagast: This horse *gestures to TC* he is very high electron. Very unstable. With the forces in this world *gestures around us* he's likely to explode.

And then he walked away. 

TC would have loved to go play in this water

It was kind of absurd, but he kind of read my horse pretty well and I think it's hilarious. So from now on, I'll be referring to TC and horses like TC as high electron horses.

He's definitely not a seahorse though.

And FYI, Riot was way less nervous hauling back with TC, and TC was better when I unloaded him first at my parents' house before loading him back up to take him home.

Beach Ride

Saturday was finally my beach ride on Rico. I've been wanting to take him to the beach for months but had kind of been putting it off. Now we're down to the wire. I start my job tomorrow and I move on Saturday. This weekend was my last weekend with Rico and I wanted to do something to make it special.

I think I'm gesturing toward town (behind me), I love Rico's
facial expression here haha he's not sure about me

My dad offered to go with me, Riot has been to the beach before. It's now apparent that he isn't an expert beach horse, but everything ended up being fine. We had initially planned to go in the morning, but then I had heard that waiting until low tide was best so that you could walk along the harder sand, so we opted to go then. It turned out that low tide didn't happen until 4pm, so we left a bit after 2 in hopes of getting tacked up and on the beach around low tide. It worked out, I ended up using the morning to pack!

Upon pulling into the parking lot, apparently a lot of beach folk had the same idea. There were a TON of people there, plus a few horse trailers.

We made our way across one dune and down to the ocean. Well, close to the ocean. Riot was afraid of seaweed and Rico saw the ocean and quietly decided that it was going to murder him. Not much scares my horse. But apparently we can add waves to that short list. It now contains waves and pigs. He's much more noticeably afraid of pigs though. The waves seemed to just creep him out.

He spent a lot of time wondering how he ended up with such
a crazy owner who thought it was okay to take him to a horrible
place like this

When we just got out there- you can see how
much Rico was moving around at first

I actually got off to walk Rico down to the ocean, I just wanted him to realize it was okay and I really wanted to be on the hard sand since it was clear he was struggling in the deep sand. He seemed fine once as I offered to go first. I think he was probably just sacrificing me to the sea god in exchange for his own life. But he was okay when I got back on and asked him to walk along the ocean.

We wandered along the shore for a bit. While wandering, we were chased by three tiny dogs, Riot was tormented by a family setting up an umbrella in the wind, a small child wanted to come pet Rico while he was threatening to spin away from the ocean and into the child, Rico discovered sand castles and thought that it was really odd human behavior, Riot saw seaweed and thought it would probably kill him, and we finally saw another horse, who gave zero fucks about everything going on around us. Needless to say, although the horses didn't do anything very bad (just nervous walking and Riot's occasional dropping 2 feet as he splays his feet to spook at seaweed), the first part of our beach trip wasn't very relaxing.

He's kind of fat these days, definitely not the hunk of an FEI
horse he was a year ago!

Trying to tell me that we just simply must go back

We turned around and walked back down the beach a while, past where we entered. Once as we were away from people, it definitely got more relaxing. I finally could keep Rico close enough to the ocean for good footing without keeping him in shoulder-in. The horses handled an enormous flock of seagulls take off all around them. And I actually managed to back Rico into a wave so he got his back toes a little wet. His butt basically dropped into the ocean but he didn't rear or bolt, so I gave him lots of pets.

Initially we had wanted to walk to a seaside town about a mile up the beach, but it was clear that we were not going to make it! So we just hung out along the shoreline, watching whales in the distance, and generally trying not to run over any stupid beach goers who thought that the horses were pretty and wanted to come touch them.

The sun was a little bit much, but you can see how close we
got to the ocean

Fine, standing isn't the worst

Back at the trailer, we noticed a trail that went along the river, which was on the non-beach side of the dune. We explored up there for a while, noting that it probably would have been better to do this trail FIRST and then attempt the beach. It was great to finally feel like we were on a trail ride and for me to finally stop making my poor retired horse do lateral work to get him closer to the water.

We wandered down that trail for a little bit, then turned around and came back. I think that trail goes into town, but we were tired and so were the horses, so maybe next time.

Overall it was a really fun day! I'm so grateful to have been able to do this with Rico. It has been on my list of things to do with him for years now, ever since we had a similar experience six years ago at a beach further north. What an excellent way to cap off the summer and my time with him, as now I'm packing everything up and moving just far enough away for it to be inconvenient to see him on a regular basis.

Has his eye on the exit haha

So wiggly, I meant to fix the horizon on these pictures but... nah

I also wanted to shout out to one of my students who doesn't know this blog exists (it's not like I say anything negative about any of my clients on here though, I just don't advertise that I have a blog). She passed her C3 traditional pony club rating- which is equivalent to USEA Training level- with flying colors. She did so well in the dressage portion that partway through her warm up they stopped her to tell her how great she was doing and asked who her trainer was (that's me! At least the dressage part).

And then I questioned why I was moving away for a job that is certainly not going to be as rewarding as teaching is. And in that moment I really couldn't tell you why. The reasons are many and varied and I don't want to think of them now. But I know that this is the right decision. I will always love teaching and I will always love the memories I made doing it. And I'm not going anywhere just yet, this talented rider still has another year with me and to hell if I'm letting her go.