Dalton is in training with Thru-Rider, Gillian Larson. You can visit her website here and Instagram here.
DALTON
Dalton is doing very well in training! He is up to 5 hours on his trail rides! He has spent most of his training time learning how to navigate the trailriding world and balance with a rider. Now that he is a semi-pro and the riding part… he is now learning stamina and trails.
Gillian’s place is 1.5 hours from my house, but the drive is beautiful and my favorite fruit stand is on the way – bonus!
When I arrived, Dalton was nose fighting through the fence with his neighbor. Of course.
Most of my photos didn’t turn out very well because once he saw me, Dalton was in my face, literally. I had such a tough time holding my camera and pushing the button while simultaneously pushing his nose out of my hair.
Not complaining.
Having a horse love on you is one of the best feelings – ever.
We hung out. I scratched him profusely. We met his neighbor and squealing ensued. We took a walk and met some of his new friends. We dunked for watermelon and we read together. Well, I read, he listened while munching on hay.
It was a great visit.
MY PHOTO JOURNAL
My boy.
He has a new neighbor, Cricket. This is one of Gillian’s trail horses. She is keen on Dalton. A lot of squealing happened when I arrived and took his attention. (The big brown thing on the left is Dalton’s nose.)
Right across the way are 3 resident mustangs who are also being trained for through riding by one of Gilllian’s Thru-Riding friends. (Thru-riding is not endurance riding.)
Dalton is helping me read and also checking my pockets.
I guess storytime was over because he took my jacket and upturned my chair when I left to speak to Gillian.
So we went for a walk… and met Gillian’s trail mule. she is very pretty.
After our jaunt, we played a bit more.
Then we played “Bobbing for watermelon”.
As the visit came to a close, we walked Dalton up to his usual turnout which is several acres with the 3 long yearling fillies. He loves them!
My kiss goodbye.
OCTOBER BUCKET FUND HORSES! A wild filly with an impaction, a beaten-up young filly and an old man with a lung/sinus infection weeping through his eye. Please share! Click here for story!
TO DONATE: click here! All donations are 100% tax deductible! Thank you in advance!
Big Sexy needs his eye surgery! Our poor filly needs so many bandage changes and healing meds…
We are not quite halfway to our goal!
So sad… I lived on Wilsonville Road (near Hunter Creek) on the Willamette. It was glorious in those days. Less than 10,000 population in Wilsonville. I have always been sad that I sold my place. Maybe it was for the best now…
Well – I do understand the past about Wilsonville but somehow I don’t think you’d like it much these days. It has become nothing more than a frantically busy Portland bedroom community. What hasn’t already been gobbled up by overpriced subdivisions, those formerly beautiful pasturelands and gorgeous equestrian facilities have become vineyards with wineries, just like so many places in California. The price of small acreages with even what I’d call dirty goldmine housing (if you can actually find any available) is at SoCal level. Traffic is simply unbearable 24/7. Might as well be living in Pasadena! I lived in Lake Oswego back in Portland Hunt Club days when the population of resident equines exceeded the number of humans and “the pond” was actually clean enough to wade in. Wilsonville was just a wide spot in the road then and a very beautiful wide spot it indeed was. Very sad that in the greater PDX metro area there was IMO zero long-term planning in place which might have staved off the overpopulation scourge.
I lived in Wilsonville (Oregon) for 16 years. I totally hear you. I absolutely LOVED the three months of riding weather. Everything was so green and lush – never too hot. But the rest of the year is very, very grey and wet. Still, I’d rather be there than here…. As far as Dalton, Gillian’s place has trail riding around, but she generally trailers to the longer trails. And when she goes on a thru-ride, it is usually a National Park or Trail, like the PCT.
What a beautiful place for a horse to go to “school”! Not only beautiful but seems as though from your descriptions that it’s close to endless miles of trails. I’m so envious – the monsoons just arrived in the new two season climate here (Pacific NW = drought now half the year, monsoon the other half). For the foreseeable future we have what Accuweather.com calls the “bombogenesis” a series of dire wind/rain storms advancing on us. Already had to place a row of tube sand along the front of the barn as the rain gutters just couldn’t handle what the clouds threw this way. Drought and wildfire, no trail riding. Drenching downpours, high winds, falling trees, no trail riding. Sigh.