Yesterday I went for a ride on trails in the Boise
Front. I rode with a friend and we both have special horses. We both
ride for a PNER team called the Outlaws and we have outlaw horses ? horses that
Butch Cassidy would ride, or horses that you could trust with your life if you
were in the sort of situation where you had to leave quickly and you had to go
far and fast. Both are 100-mile horses. Both are in their
middle-teens, and between the two of them they have more than a few top-ten
finishes and more than their share of BCs too. Both are modest horses who
live to run trails. We are both very lucky and we will never have horses
like these two again, ever. Some of you have horses like these two
yourselves, and if you are like me, you are in awe of their athletic
ability.
We rode the Hard Guy trail in the Boise
Front. Hard Guy is a special trail and if you are a runner, or a mountain
biker, you know that there are more difficult trails and there are longer trails
on the Boise Front, but if you want a good workout that can be run (barely) or
ridden on a mountain bike (barely), Hard Guy is your trail. If you have an
endurance horse and you are looking for a nice sustained climb that can be run
at a trot (barely), then Hard Guy is your trail too.
Yesterday we saddled up the two hard guys and they
took us on up the trail. Near the top we met two mountain bikers.
One of the bikers looked at my horse and said ?Arabian?? He had an eye for
horses and we got to talking. Eventually the conversation got around to
how fit are those horses? Well, we did not tell the whole story, but these
two horses are fit, yesterday they were in their element, and they were working
together passing off the lead and running together as a team.
There were no awards at the top. Still for
me, riding with a friend on two fit horses up a nice long sustained grade in the
spring along the Boise Front is about as close to perfect as things will ever
get.
Each region has its own ?Hard Guy? trail and if we
are lucky we get to ride fit horses on those tough trails on days that we?ll
never forget. Yesterday was one of those days.
