Despite having been out at the new place for about 4 months now, I haven’t had much opportunity to really explore the area. First it was still super hot, then Henry was lame for a while, and it just didn’t happen. But now (knock on copious amounts of wood) Henry is back in regular work again, and we finally got the chance to do some poking around.

There’s a boarding barn pretty much right across the main road from us that recently opened, and they’ve got a covered arena, a decent size outdoor arena, and a lot of land. Fun fact, Sadie did her very first little show there as a 3yo literally a decade ago when the farm was under a different name and management, but I hadn’t been back since then and didn’t remember a whole lot about it.

Bobby mentioned wanting to go trail ride somewhere, so I figured this could be the perfect opportunity to go check out the farm. I’ve been following on facebook and it looks like they’re set to make some improvements, including clearing more trails for conditioning, adding some XC jumps (particularly ditch/bank/water), and putting in a rider gate right across from the stop sign at the end of our road. That would make it all of a 200-300 yard ride to get from our gate to their property. Considering I want to spend most of Presto’s first year under saddle just hacking him out and trail riding, easy access to 80 acres would be a big boon. Plus it would give me a bigger space to do Henry’s conditioning work, or just get him out for a change of scenery. Naturally, I would like to be best friends with these people.

So I made an appointment for us to hack over and ride out there on Sunday. Bobby trailered over to our place, and we got on and rode over to the other farm. On the way over we just rode down to their driveway, which is about half a mile down the main road. It isn’t a particularly busy road but the cars do tend to travel fast… luckily both our horses are well-used to road traffic, so it wasn’t a problem. I wasn’t super clear on exactly what was their land versus other people’s land, but once we got there we figured out that the one big empty front field actually has a gate out onto the main road that spits us out really close to my road, letting us avoid that half mile walk down to the main entrance. Bonus.

The space kind of brought back memories of the fields we lost at the barn that closed last year. It’s slightly rolling, which I think will be super nice for my needs. These wide open spaces just make my heart so happy.

We managed to make almost a 2 hour hack out of exploring everything and poking around the farm. They’ve got great bones to work with, and lots of land, so hopefully their vision will come to fruition. It would be great to have an extra big place to go hack the boys, especially if they put XC jumps out there. What a luxury it would be to not have to drive 2 hours each way to do some cross country! There’s also talk of doing some schooling shows (there are already some western dressage ones – their discipline of choice – set for this year), which would also be amazing. In what world have I ever been able to be within riding distance of a show facility? It could be great for Presto especially, as I start putting miles on him.

The facility is offering a one year riding pass for $125, which would be a pretty great deal if I utilized the space even just once a week. I’m excited to see how it comes along and what else they add. Bobby and I definitely had a good time poking around on a gorgeous 70 degree day!