Luck is when preparation meets opportunity!

Traverse Creek, the best spot on the ranch on hot summer days!

Since Trigger and I started our journey together my goal have been for him to be comfortable with all things that can occur on a trail ride and in the long run I want to take him with me camping in the mountains. He is cool with all kind of obstacles on the trail. He is fine going with other horses and going alone as well. He does all kind of terrain. We haven´t gone camping together yet but lately I started to highline him on a regular basis. In the beginning it was only a few minutes and I was next to him, now he can do a whole night without seeing me. He is a brave and confident horse from the beginning so it haven´t been that difficult for him. I want him to feel good about everything before he have to face it in an unfamiliar setting. (He spends most of his days and nights on a big pasture, being restricted to a small area are not the way he normally lives.)

Today I went hiking with our two dogs and Trigger. I wanted to try hobbles on Trigger while he ate grass on a nice opening in the forest. I have a pair of horsefriendly hobbles in soft thick leather. He is used to me leaving him on grassy spots (on our property) and come back for him later. It´s never been any problem. He knows the cue “stay” and he comes when I call his name. Today I hobbled him and told him to “stay”, on a familiar place we´re walking to every day with a lot of green grass. I took the dogs for a walk and when we came back Trigger hadn´t moved an inch. He looked at me as if he were saying “You told me to stay so here I am”. He was completely calm and satisfied with the situation. Starting to eat grass as soon as I took the hobbles of. I don´t like hobbles very much, I prefer to high line while camping with horses or even better set up a temporary pen. I think it can be useful for a trail horse to be familiar with hobbles though, in case there is a situation when they are required. Better safe than sorry.