It has been a few weeks since we’ve done an outing with the horses and our newest horse With Wings was ready to spread his wings and do his first off-the-farm trail ride. It has only been four weeks since his last race and three weeks since he arrived on Mother’s Day. Time to take our newest BAYby for a long trail ride.
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Our farrier Chase New has often spoken about riding at Chickamauga Battlefield in northern Georgia. The trails are wide and the scenery can’t be beat. There are signs and monuments around every turn. We even got to experience a canon demonstration – more on that later!
We took four horses from Bits & Bytes Farm along for the ride. Barry rode Political Pull, Rebecca rode Pride of the Fox, Suellen rode Monarch’s Reign and I rode With Wings our BAYby. Chase and his friend Laura brought along three horses. Chase ponied one and rode the other.
The day threatened rain so most of us had our rain gear strapped on. I rode wonderful With Wings (aka “WWW”) with my trusty camera strapped down with binocular suspenders. We took the red trail which turned out to be a three hour tour of most of the perimeter of the park. There were so many great photos to take of canons and markers not to mention our wonderful Thoroughbreds.
At one point we rode out into a field below the visitor center where tourists had gathered to watch men in uniforms demo the canons. Thank goodness we were about a mile away when it went off. The riders all spooked and the horses took no notice! Just past the visitor center we needed to cross under the road and we had to climb down a washed out area and into the creek to wade under the road. All the horses took this without missing a beat and I was even able to ride facing backwards under the bridge to catch some artistic photos of Rebecca and “Foxy”.
The ride was almost perfect. About a mile away from the trailers the sky’s opened up and we got poured on. Barry and I undid our backpack rain coats as we rode along. “WWW” was not at all spooked by the rain coat flopping around as I tried to find the sleeves at a trot. Chase had Suellen’s rain coat in his saddle bags and he decided that since she was already soaked he would put on the coat himself!
All in all we had a wonderful time and finished by having a great steak dinner at a nearby restaurant as we dried off. I have to say that With Wings was WONDERFUL and he has earned his nickname, “WWW”. He also makes a great tripod for my camera. Not once did he spook or look at anything. He was the quietest horse on the ride.
Thank you to all those who have served in our military. Because of them we can experience the battlefield on horseback and not have to worry about canon fire!