06/10/2025
Absolutely!!!!! 🏇🏿 Takes just as long or longer really to create a good trail horse - as it needs the skills of basic dressage, a little leaping, some western steadiness, & ability to think for itself.
"Oh, you're just a trail rider." Many riders, particularly those in the arena disciplines, do not appreciate the qualities of a good trail horse. Any horse that can take a rider on a good long trail ride has to be versatile. The horse has to get along with other horses. It has to be open to new sounds, smells, footings, visual impressions and more without spooking. A trail horse has to listen to the rider in a crowd where other horses that might act up, take off, or otherwise threaten the peace and safety of the ride.
I have a lot of respect for anyone who can take a young horse and make it a good trail horse. The bottom line is these trainers have to build a high degree of trust with the rider in the horse. A good trail horse can handle mud, deep water, ice, rocky terrain, slopes, railroad tracks, pavement, traffic, ditches, logs, bridges, ticklish hedgerows, other animals from goats to cattle, or a bear to a rattlesnake, all without panicking.
I came up on a rattlesnake on a trail ride. It was coiled and threatening. At first, I thought the rattle noise was crickets. I was riding a well trained and valuable polo horse I quietly stopped and carefully backed up away from the snake without a problem.
I have had a trail horse with steel shoes that could be ridden over a bridge with a metal grid roadway you could see through to the creek below. We both could see the river 30 feet below as the horse's metal shoes made their way across the metal grate footing.
While trail riding with a group on a full moon night we once mixed in with a large grazing herd of deer as if we were invisible because the horses' scent covered up our human scent. On a January trail ride after a long snowstorm, my horse enthusiastically made a pathway through a five foot high snow drift for others. While crossing a hedgerow my horse's legs once got tangled in unseen barbed wire. He stood perfectly still while I dismounted and unraveled the tangle. All these are traits of a good trail horse. All these horses had been trained to face any circumstances on a trail ride.
If you think a trained trail horse is "just a trail horse", you are mistaken. Trail horses are among the best mounts because of their versatility, temperament and problem solving abilities. A trained trail horse can go anywhere in any season, at any time of day, in any weather. Please think for a minute and compare these trail horses to the specialized discipline horses we see today. I'll take a trail horse every time.
