Trail Ride in Runnymede Sculpture Garden

Though it is still a bit hazy, the air quality has gotten better.  On Sunday I did a light ride, about 30 minutes in the covered arena walk/trot and hopped over a few tiny crossrails.  Cupid was not very inspired by the tiny jumps (a foot tall, max), and didn't even muster a few strides canter on landing.  But I did try to get him going forward and straight as best I can, and also did some leg yields to get him listening to my leg.

I had Monday off for Veteran's Day, so Cupid and I headed out to meet our friend for a trail ride in the Runnymede Sculpture Garden.  We haven't been there in about a year.  A lot of the art is large, industrial-type installations.  (Stuff I don't really get, but I can barely draw a stick figure so who am I to judge.) 

There are also some life-size and larger than life people and animals - a camel, horse, monkey, and more. 

Then there are random ceramics. 

And some stuff I don't even know how to describe. 

It was a nice, easy ride and for the most part fairly flat. We kept it at a walk.  Cupid paid no attention to the art, but did occasionally try to stop to forage.  He's weird and likes to eat moss.  He also pulled out a giant clump of weeds, then tried to figure out how he can knock the dirt clod off the roots and eat it with his bit on. 

Yummy moss

Smoky haze covering the view.

We eventually made our way out of the sculpture garden and into Huddart Park.  A part of the trail was fairly steep downhill with several narrow switchbacks.  I was a little worried about taking a bad step, but Cupid was able to navigate through it.  We also did a little gate practice, and as I suspected a real gate was quite a bit more difficult than the rope gate we did for working equitation so it was not pretty but we eventually got it.  Aside from the gate needing more work he was a perfect trail pony!  It was about a 2 hour ride total.  Cupid was a little sweaty, probably from being so fuzzy more so than the actual work. 

After the ride I remembered to start my TIP recreational riding log (thanks to http://poorwomanshowing.blogspot.com for the motivation!)  I was able to look up most of our trail rides from the past year from my blog entries, and we are almost at our first milestone to get a badge!