As a kid I used to take my trusty gelding to a pond and swim him across, then stand him on the edge and jump off his butt into the water, then swim back to him, climb up and do it again and again. Tons of fun when you are young.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, there is not much water in my part of southern California, unless you head for the ocean. Recently, I did just that. After more than 20 years living in here, I finally took one of my horses to ride along the beach.
I took my mare Dollie as she has the most miles under her saddle pad. As soon as we unloaded she could smell something was different in the air. She was alert, but not overly excited. She could not yet see or hear the waves crashing on the beach below the parking lot.
My friend Barb and I decided to saddle our horses although neither of us had an idea of whether we would actually get on and ride, as this was both horses first introduction to the ocean. After saddling we headed through the busy parking lot, past a party and down a ramp to the sand. It was on the ramp that both horses knew they weren’t in the country anymore. Waves crashing, umbrellas blowing, baby strollers and seaweed!
We started out by longing our horses near the water to gage their reaction and anxiety levels. I knew I needed to get into the water for Dollie to see that the waves were not going to eat her. So I stood with waves filling my boots and soaking my jeans, moving her back and forth along the shoreline. After a while she stepped in closer to me and a big wave washed over her legs. She wanted to spin and run, but I held the rope tight (I had a stud chain on too) and talked her through it. I think the scariest part for her was not the water hitting her legs, but the sand moving away under her hooves as the water receded. We worked on standing in the water, waves coming over her hooves and sand shifting for about a half hour longer until I decided I could get on her back.
I headed back up on the dry sand to where there were a number of driftwood logs. I could use one as a mounting block. There were a number of tee-pee like structures on the sand made out of drift wood logs, a virtual town of forts, likely made by teenagers hanging out at the beach (as evidenced by the empty beer bottles that were left). I took some time to maneuver through this obstacle course before heading back to the shore. Dollie was definitely more comfortable walking over and around the logs!
As we headed toward the waves a very large curl was approaching us and my horse paused to take it in. At that moment a large clump of seaweed was uncovered and rolling toward us. That took Dollies’ attention away from the crashing wave. She decided right then that she did not like the seaweed and was leery of it and other clumps like it the rest of the day.
I was able to get her past the seaweed and into the edge of the water and make her stand as the next wave washed water over her legs almost to her knees. We stood there for a while and after numerous wave cycles headed for a walk along the shore. I wanted to see if I could keep her in the water and walk parallel to the waves. She had the ear closest to the water cocked toward it and her body arched away from it for the ride along the beach, but she did it! She was ready to jump sideways at any moment. We ran into some other riders coming back from their ride to the end of the beach. They were part of the group from our area that made the trip to the ocean that day. Most had been to the beach before and their horses were already desensitized to the moving water. All were very supportive of us newbies and were complementary about our progress.
It was a very good first ride on the beach and I’ll definitely go again.
