A motley crew of atypical trail riders May 22, 2018 July 15, 2019 Kerrie Garvey

Maybe I’m wrong, but to me the stereotypical trail rider rides a ~15 hand Quarter Horse in western tack. Google is on my side. I searched “horse trail riding” in the Google image search and came up with photo after photo of folks riding in western tack on these nice beefy Quarter Horses. Now, don’t get me wrong here. Some of my best friends are Quarter Horses, and some of my human friends ride western on cute Quarter Horses. I owned half of a Quarter Horse once. No, I didn’t just have a stroke there. True story – I used to co-own an appendix Quarter Horse. Her name was Kiss and she was amazing.

Anyway, my point is that trail riding isn’t something that only one type of rider can do. Yippee! It’s one of the reasons that I love it so much.

My horse, Prophet, has been my partner for about 5 years now. We have evented, done dressage shows, fox-hunted (we do a drag hunt – no foxes actually hunted here), hunter-paced, and even been part of a horse themed stock photography photo shoot. Check out a couple of the shots from that to the right. Yes, that is a sword and bow. [For those who aren’t aware, some artists use these stock photos for drawing references.] The next thing that I would like to try with him is mounted archery. However, this doesn’t mean that we can’t be an awesome trail riding team too!
Prophet is not your typical trail horse. He’s 17 hands. We only ride English. He’s a Thoroughbred (and an off-the-track one at that! *gasp*). He’s what I would call a “delicate flower”, meaning that he is very sensitive and doesn’t like bugs or deep mud and is prone to weird ailments. My vet told me that he has the most types of tumors of any horse that they treat. Great… None of this stops him from being the best trail partner that I have been lucky enough to ride. He’s brave. He’s strong. He’s cool under pressure. He can gallop across a field faster than any other horse we ride with hands down. And, most importantly, he trusts me and I trust him.
In our trail riding squad we don’t really stand out. Just take a look at this photo from a recent trail ride. From left to right we have:
  • a Spotted Draft mostly dressage horse
  • a Cheval Canadien with a mom who is an ex-hunter mostly dressage and jumper rider (even though she recently moved, we still count her as part of our group)
  • a Hanoverian dressage horse (ex-eventer)
  • my silly Thoroughbred with his tongue out
  • Shire/Dales/Paint in English tack (that’s Monica)
  • and a Mustang who is actually ridden western

We have quite a few other members of our crew that aren’t in this photo including:

  • an Oldenburg eventer
  • a Thoroughbred eventer
  • a Percheron who mostly gets ridden bareback
  • a Quarter Horse who gets ridden English
  • a Halflinger mostly dressage horse
  • an Arab/Thoroughbred eventer
  • and a Quarter Horse who gets ridden western (See! We don’t discriminate.)

I have definitely been laughed at by other trail riders for both my choice of tack and mount. What I do is try to be a good example for trail riders in general while Prophet does an excellent job being a Thoroughbred breed ambassador.

Last year we were doing some horse camping out of state at a popular trail riding facility. We stopped for a break at some picnic tables and were having a snack when a group of other riders showed up. They dismounted and started chatting with us. This gentleman scoffed at me and my tack and my horse and looked at me as if I had two heads when I said he was a Thoroughbred. We continued to make small talk and we got ready to go. When we headed out, up a rather steep section with a narrow path that was not for the feint of heart, Prophet and I took the lead. He started the climb in a calm and confident fashion as usual. As we were leaving I heard that same man who had scoffed at us earlier call out to his friends with surprise in his voice, “Will you look at that! That Thoroughbred is leading the whole group!”

In the end, trail riding is for everyone with a desire to do it. Good safe trail riding comes down to good horsemanship. I say no matter what horse you have, what tack you have, or what you do with your horse at home, get out there and ride.

Happy trails!

Kerrie

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