A day of running with Linda the horse Decka and Digger the dog

On Saturday, the 12th, the Lieberman family hit the trail that

morning . That "wild bunch" consisted of Linda on her mare Decka, our dog Digger and I. We had planned to do a 5 mile loop. Decka hadn't been ridden in quite some time and was in no condition for a difficult ride. The first part of the trail was steep and uphill. Linda was concerned that her horse would be in jeopardy as a result of that difficult climb. I was not worried as I know a lot about conditioning. I get out in front of Linda and stayed there. Eventually, we reached a good wide level section of the trail. Linda quickly caught up to me and passed me arriving at the cul-de-sac before me. She acknowledged that her horse was fine and that she realized that Decka fooled her. Once her horse knew that she was headed in a home direction she miraculously came to life and went into an extended trot. We walked down the road until we reached our cut off. Linda took her horse up another steep hill and reached home. Incidentally, we are the only house on our cul-de-sac. I took the long way and dropped off our dog before heading out on another run this time for about 10 miles.

 

A brief background is in order. Recently, Raider, my Tevis horse passed as a result of a problem with his large intestine. His death was a great loss for us both. For the last five years or so, Linda had been riding him on the trail and in limited distance endurance rides. He was a terrific trail horse that gave us a tremendous amount of pleasure. He helped Linda's riding ability and she developed trust and confidence in him. As a consequence, she didn't do much with her mare. So that is one reason why her mare is a not  in tip top shape. I don't expect conditioning to be much of an issue for Decka as long as Linda continues to walk her horse up the steep uphills and trot on the flat.