We started off Saturday by sleeping in, which was awesome. Then we had to drive all over the peninsula.
We started by going to the Woodside bakery. If I were a millionaire, I'd love to this town in a second. It's dedicated to horses. There are horse trails everywhere, a world class horse park, horse farms everywhere, and hitching posts at the bakery. I want to live in a town where I can ride to a bakery. The hardware store in the same shopping center sells horse supplies. As we were driving around, we saw people out riding their horses along the horse paths.
Next up was a trip to the used tack sale at the horse therapy center. This sale is great: they have tons of stuff, everything is a decent price, and your purchases all go to charity. Today, we really scored. My husband has been wanting his own treeless saddle and we'd been looking around online. When we walked in to the sale, they had a used Freeform treeless saddle.
These things sell new for $1900+. The used one? $295. It's so nice; I've already threatened to steal it from him. We'll need to get a saddle pad, stirrups, and girth for it. But we would have had to buy those with a new one too, so it's still an amazing deal. I also picked up a used leather lead rope with chain for $10 and leather western style breastplate (for trail riding) for $12. And a sweat scraper for $1. Love this sale.
We left the sale and drove around to check out the horse trailer parking situations at Huddart and Edgewood Parks. Huddart is good, Edgewood is not going to be possible. Then we drove to the feed store then got lunch at the biker bar in Portola Valley (also a horse town - the biker bar has hitching posts too). Then we finally headed to our barn.
I rode Dijon and we headed over to the winery. I don't trust Nilla to stay tied, so we can only go to the winery when I have Dijon. My husband did a tasting at the winery and I had a coke - I don't really like wine. The winery employees all know us because my husband is a wine club member and he gets free tastings once a month. We're also rather memorable as the only people who ride to the winery. Because my husband had missed last month's tasting, they gave him a free glass of wine to drink.
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| It's good to be a regular |
We had our drinks sitting under the trees and then headed back to the horses. I think I need to find a way to incorporate more purple into Dijon's tack. Any ideas?
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| he also has purple bell boots on |
We took them up to the lookout. I let Dijon gait and he was flying. He really wanted to gallop though. Especially when Shasta would canter to keep up with him walking, he would threaten to break into canter. I need to get a GoPro so I can film him walking alongside Shasta cantering. We let them eat grass up at the top. Dijon is not very talented at this and kept eating dirt clods.
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| You have treats? |
We rode back to the barn and Dijon was actually sane for the return ride. He usually gets way too excited about going home. Back at the barn we had to clean stalls and feed the ponies. I also had to re-wrap Nilla's leg. The swelling goes down every time I wrap it overnight, but comes back if I don't. The vet is out next week for vaccinations, so if it's still swollen by then, I'll have her look at it. She's totally sound on it, so I'm not too concerned.
I spent some time Saturday night cleaning my used tack. I need to do a full post about how much I love Higher Standards Leather Care, but here's a preview:
Labels: Dijon, Trail Riding
