May 10, 2017 

Two weekends ago was the Mid-Atlantic #1 competition and Poe was getting a little tired towards the end of day two.  So I am digging in a bit more on his conditioning.  

We have been doing some farm hacks and a little hill work at home.  Which is pretty usual for us.  And yesterday I descided to take him for some mountain work. Mind you, light mountain work, but I knew adding the uneven footing and the constant up and down would step up the work out.  I also needed a change of scenery.   

Poe is not the loveliest trail pony, and after having Simon for trails, I am totally over riding anything jiggy or spooky.  Poe is not usually jiggy, at least for the first hour in a group but not so much on his own.  But he is aware.  He constantly scans his surroundings, keeping an eye out for any pony-eating obstacles.   So as a rider I need to be engaged.  

So my goal was to keep the ride between 1 and 1 1/2 hours and to finish on a positive – unannoyed – note for both of us. I also selected Slat Lick since it is a much more frequented area than most I go.  Just in case.  

We arrived and started off on the shortest loop.  We did a lot of waking (Poe needed his eyes to be scanning his surroundings and not looking at his footing) but we got in some elivation and Poe enjoyed marching through the water and different surroundings.   1 hour and 15 minutes later we were done and loading up to head back home.  Success!   Every spring I seem to hit a few conditioning rides on Poe and I am always surprised at how good he is.  Maybe I need to reevaluate Poe and trails.