Category: Rider Journal

My personal rider journal from Chloe at the Equestrian Next Door. The highs and lows and everything in between. Sure to entertain and amuse!

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6 Important Trail Riding Safety Tips

I put together a list of trail riding safety tips after an unfortunate incident last year. I hope these tips help you avoid the situation we found ourselves in!

Incident

A friend and I were out on a trail ride in a lesser-known area of our trail network when her horse tripped and accidentally dumped her onto the ground. 

Once I managed to stop my horse and grab hers, I headed back to her. She was still on the ground and in obvious pain. She decided to walk it off a bit (like any good equestrian, right?), so we both took our horses and walked. As we moved further away from home, she realized that she was hurt worse than she had originally thought and made the decision to turn around and head home. If only she could get back onto her horse!

She managed to get back on thanks to a well-placed log, but it was a painful hour back to the barn. I insisted on accompanying her back to the barn and making sure she was in good hands before heading home.

She spent that evening in the hospital for x-rays and such and it took weeks for her to feel like herself again.

This incident led me to think about the key things to do to improve your safety while on the trails in case the unexpected happens.

1. Pack water and a snack

You never know how long you will actually be out on the trail. Packing water and a snack is the minimum to get by in most situations.

There are lightweight saddles bags out there that work for both English and Western Saddles.

Here are the saddlebags available here at Equestrian Next Door.

2. Bring your phone

It is a great thing to have when you need to call for backup. Even better when it’s charged. Make sure to program the local emergency numbers too. Sometimes it isn’t as simple as 911!

3. Tell someone

Tell them how long you think you’ll be out, the route you think you’ll take and any other details. Make sure this person is responsible enough to try to contact you if they haven’t heard from you and know what to do should that happen. Have a plan!

4. Dress appropriately

There are few things worse than freezing on your horse because you didn’t check the weather forecast. Check the local weather and bring what you need. The general rule of thumb that it is easier to remove layers than add some (especially if you forgot said layers back home) still holds true on horseback.

If you are trailering out to a trail ride, make sure to pack extra clothes for everything, including socks. You never know what may happen while you are out there.

Special note on winter riding: Be aware of frostbite and dress warmly. I love the heat packs for your feet and hands. Though I find the ones for your feet only last about 3 hours instead of the advertised 5. Also, this may sound obvious, but check the wind chill!

5. Use an app

There are more and more apps tailored to equestrians. Most of these also offer safety tracking. Here’s a pretty complete list of equestrian tracking apps. Personally, I use Equilab because it connects to my smartwatch.

6. Buddy up

Last but not least, buddy up when you can. It is more fun and at least you have someone else who can contact emergency services or administer first aid if needed.

Take away message

I hope you never need all these safety tips, but as they say, better safe than sorry! I certainly encountered a few situations last summer that made me wish I had taken the time to prepare and make it part of my riding routine.

Have you ever been in a sticky situation? What happened and what did you do? I would love to hear about your adventures in the comments below or join my Facebook group for Canadian Trail Riders to share your stories!

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A day in the life of…

a hobby farm owner, mother, freelancer and online tack shop owner during COVID-19

6:00 AM My 4-year-old son sneaks into the room and enthusiastically tackles and hugs his dad. I get punched in the face in the process. We go downstairs to let hubby sleep and hope that my son doesn’t wake up his sister on the way down. Throw a bowl of cereal together for him and start the coffee.

6:27 AM Clean up the mess of cereal just as my 2-year-old daughter wakes up. Rush upstairs to get her before she wakes up my hubby.

6:55 AM Both kids are fed and sitting down in front of Frozen 2. Finally take the first sip of my coffee and glance outside. The three horses in my paddock are giving me the eye. Ugh.

7:30 AM Hubby wakes up and comes downstairs and I dash outside to feed the horses. Get nickered at and told to move it.

7:40 AM Take another sip of coffee. It’s cold. Ew. Reheat/add more hot coffee and get to work in my office upstairs.

9:23 AM There’s noise outside my office window. The geldings playing with the water trough. Because it’s empty. Guess it’s time for a break. Go outside, run the hose to fill it and turn on the water. Set a timer and go back inside to work.

9:55 AM Take a sip of coffee. Cold. Eww. Wait. Didn’t I set a timer? Nope. It was never saved. Outside the boys are playing with the hose. The trough is empty. There’s water everywhere. Correction: There’s mud everywhere. Run outside to scold the boys and babysit the hose while it fills the water trough. The boys are still playing tag with each other. They clearly have too much energy because they haven’t been ridden due to self-isolation. My calm, peaceful mare watches the boys with disinterest.

11:05 AM Walk back inside the house, again. More coffee. My hubby tells me my desk phone has been ringing. That means a missed call from a customer. Shoot. Run upstairs and listen to the message. Nope. Not a customer. A scammer trying to sell me COVID-19 tests for the whole family. Right.

12:15 PM Feed kids, hubby and myself.

12:35 PM Kids go down for a nap. Hubby heads out to work and feeds horses on his way out.

1:00 PM Nap for me too. Sigh.

1:14 PM My son is making airplane noises in his room. Sigh. Stomp out of my warm bed and sternly whisper at him to sleep already. Crawl back into bed.

1:30 PM Toss and turn in bed. My brain is jumping from work, to strategies about my tack shop and lack of sales, to the horses who need to be trimmed this week, to my son’s upcoming birthday.

2:27 PM A door opens. My son stomps downstairs. Naptime is over. Shuffle out of bed and head downstairs to join him. He grumps at me. I make coffee.

2:45 PM My daughter wakes up happy and smiling. My son grumps at her.

3:00 PM Snack time and then outside. Coffee in a travel mug. The kids are happy to see the horses, yet stay far away. They are very big for little ones. Play outside and clean out the flower beds.

5:00 PM Feed the horses and head inside with the kidlings. Take a sip of coffee. Cold. Give up on it.

7:05 PM Survived making dinner and feeding the little terrors. Bath, book, bed. Then wine time.

8:05 PM Plop down on the couch, too exhausted to get wine. Pass the time on my phone for an hour. Nearly unhook my jaw with a yawn.

9:12 PM Crawl into bed and settle for the night. Toss and turn. Worry about all those who are sick, those who will get sick, my nurse/pharmacist/doctor friends and their families, worrying about our financial future, my husband who has to go into the office, my kids who don’t understand it all, my horses who aren’t being exercised as usual. Roll over. Worry about the toll this virus will take on all of us. Shift legs. Worry about the muddy paddock.

10:00 PM Get a glass of water. Crawl back into bed. Try a meditation app on my phone but it bugs 8 minutes in. Sleep finally claims me.

10:25 PM Hubby wakes me up as he comes in from feeding the horses. Rollback to sleep.

11:16 PM Hubby wakes me up as he crawls into bed.

2:37 AM My daughter wakes me up for water.

5:05 AM My son wakes me up because he wants his blankets put on him.

6:02 AM Get punched in the face.

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Quarantine: How to get your horse fix

Stuck at home and looking for your horse fix? This list has something for everyone, even though it isn’t quite the same as the real thing. Stay home, stay safe and healthy.

Watch a horse movie

  1. War Horse
  2. Seabiscuit
  3. Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron – This was one of my favourite movies when I was a child. I would listen to the soundtrack all the time!
  4. Secretariat
  5. Hidalgo – A real tear-jerker!

Read a horse book

  1. Horses in translation by Sharon Wilsle – I’m currently reading this book. I love how the author explains things and the different queues.
  2. JOEY: HOW A BLIND RESCUE HORSE HELPED OTHERS LEARN TO SEE by Jennifer Bleakley
  3. 101 GROUND TRAINING EXERCISES FOR EVERY HORSE & HANDLER by Cherry Hill
  4. THE HORSE ENCYCLOPEDIA by Elwyn Hartley Edwards

Follow these equestrians on YouTube

  1. Harmony Horsemanship
  2. ZL Equestrian
  3. This Esme 

Or read these horse blogs

I hope this list helps you get your horse fix while staying at home. If you are looking for something to do, here’s a list of things to get you and your horse ready for summer that you can mostly do from home: Ultimate Equestrian Spring Cleaning List.

I’d love to hear from you! Join me on Facebook and let me know how you are doing.

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Summer Fling – My 2nd distance competition

Our second ever competition was at Summer Fling. We signed up for a 25-mile Set Speed Bronze. If you missed my blog post about my first competition, here it is.

The day started early after a bad night’s sleep. (Whoever sleeps well the night before a competition anyway?)

I had made my list and checked it twice (may have added some things to it twice too). I packed throughout the week leading up to the competition. The night before I checked my packing against my list and made sure Alice’s fuzzy’s were installed on her halter.

Trailering Out

The morning of the competition we managed to get Alice on the trailer and hit the road on time. It only took about an hour to get to camp. Alice travelled like a champ and was nervous walking around camp but settled right down to work when we started saddling.

Initial Vetting

We vetted through before starting. Alice was “plumply” hydrated, but she had a sore lumbar and her gut sounds were low. We were told to get her to eat and drink as much as we could, which wasn’t too hard considering I was trying to stop her from eating at the vet’s feet while we chatted. We came away with an overall impression of B to start.

Start

The ride started 30 minutes later than anticipated which worked for us. It meant getting home later, but we had more time to tack up and eat. Julie helped me tack up and installed the heart rate monitor. Soon enough Alice and I were off.

This was our first ride alone as Julie had an injured foot and couldn’t ride. We took off slowly even if Alice was willing to give me a nice trot at the onset. There was a long stretch of gravel road leading from and to camp which I decided to walk because Alice didn’t have any hoof protection.

First Loop

The first loop went by like a breeze. Alice found her groove and all she wanted was to move. She didn’t drink at all though and ate on the way back along the gravel road. She loves her hackamore for that. When we got back and vetted through, Alice was slightly dehydrated, which was no surprise. Thankfully her gut sounds and her sore lumbar were getting better.

Julie took care of Alice during the hold and I tried to plan the second longer loop. We gave her electrolytes and lots of wet hay to get some water in her. And then we were off again!

Second Loop

The second loop was much slower. The footing was decent though we couldn’t see most of the time due to the overgrown grass. There were some downed trees along the way, some we could walk over, others we had to detour into the forest.

The ride itself was good. I learned that Alice does better either alone or with a friend that she knows. She also has a big stride on her once she is warmed up, so other horses have trouble keeping up with her. She also likes to try to pass if the horse in front is slow.

Alice didn’t drink during the first loop and the second loop didn’t start out any better. She only started drinking halfway through the second loop and then she drank at every chance she got. Julie had made it clear that we weren’t allowed back at camp unless we had spent 3 hours on the second loop. I started to slow down as well towards the end of the last loop. Not so much cramping as muscle fatigue. At any rate, we slowly walked back to base camp in an effort to keep her heart rate down and to allow her to eat along the gravel road.

We took a little more than 3 hours for the second loop and came in with a happy horse and tired rider. Alice pulsed down nicely and we presented for 20 mins with a heart rate of 44. Great improvement over Merrickville.

We kept feeding her and offering her water for the last 10 minutes.

We ended with better gut sounds and better lumbar than we started with. Her heart rate went up at the end so her final heart rate wasn’t what we would have liked. The vet suggested it may have been because of the bugs. She also mentioned that many of the horses that day had low gut sounds probably due to change in weather.

The Finish Line

We finished with a grade 5 and 9th place (out of 10). The important part was that we completed. We also finished with a better overall impression than we started with A-!

My main takeaways were:

  • Bug spray at all times. My mare is sensitive!
  • Improve our electrolyte protocol
  • Hoof protection
  • I need to take Tums to combat muscle fatigue and work on my nutrition leading up to the ride and during competition day.

We’ll have time to figure this out. Our next competition is in October.