Horseback Riding anyone?

For as long as I can remember…

I’ve always wanted to go horseback riding. As a child, I asked my parents; as an adult, I asked my friends and after some reflection and realizing that I just moved across the country with nothing but myself and a little faith, why on earth am I still waiting on anyone to do anything!?! Two days prior to my 32nd birthday I made my decision that I was going to go. I had just cancelled a flight to Dallas because … you guessed it! I had no one to go with and due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a road trip to the beach was completely out of the question. I don’t really even celebrate birthdays… but I deserved to treat myself! With options of things to do very few and far between, horseback riding was perfect! I was going with or without anyone to accompany me.

I had been out to South Mountain a few times since I’ve moved back to Arizona, the first time with my grandma, uncle and his family. We planned to take a ride up the mountain to watch the sunset. Unfortunately, due to the 2020 pandemic (or maybe it was just full) we were unable to drive up. This is when I noticed they have horseback riding. The second time I went to South Mountain, I took my nieces and nephew for a morning hike. After the hike I stopped so we could go up and look at the horses. I guess it’s kind of a popular thing for random people to go up to the horses and feed them carrots on the weekends. A nice woman offered the kids some carrots to feed the horses, since we were unprepared. I had a brief convo with her about the cost of rides. Later on, after a friend saw my post of the horses on IG and me making a statement about wanting to ride, I looked up the rides online.

The name of the company my ride at South Mountain was with, is Ponderosa Stables. They list options for different times of the day, etc. The day I was ready to go, I hadn’t made any prior reservation online and your online reservation, according to my memory, must be made at least 24 hours in advance. I simply called the company hoping that there was still room available, lucky for me, there was! I checkd to see if the kids wanted to go and set us up for the 5pm ride. Calling in the reservation over the phone was super simple. Very little information was needed: a name and phone number to put the reservation under, the time you want to ride, the number of riders in your group and the ages and weights of each rider. That’s it! My reservation was made without a payment over the phone. Once you arrive, you and all riders are required to sign a waiver (in case anyone gets hurt/regardless of age.) The workers know the horses carrying capacity, behavior, and mood so they look you over before pairing everyone with a horse. They waste no time getting you up on the horse, for some reason I thought it’d be a much longer process. Tip: you probably want to get a good stretch in before arriving… It takes a lot to kick your leg up over a big animal like that. You are required to wear closed toed shoes and long pants. I wore jeans but all my jeans have a little stretch to them, so I was comfortable. I wore combat boots instead of just regular tennis shoes and I’m glad I did; because there was so much dust being kicked up. I could only image what my ankles would have looked like after this ride, had I not. I also stopped to get a cute cowgirl/straw hat at Walmart on the way to the stable. It was a bright sunny day and the temperature was between 99-101 degrees. With the wind, my hat kept falling off, same happened to my nieces’ hat. Not exactly sure what to call them but thankfully one of the chaperones was kind enough to pick up and hold on to both our hats. If you plan to go and wear a hat, it would probably be a good idea to find a hat with some sort of chin strap or something to keep it secure. Also, I did not have on a mask for my ride, had I known there would be some much dust kicked around, I probably would’ve worn mine. My allergies were in an uproar the next day.

As for the ride itself, I’d say I felt 20% scared/nervous and 80% empowered. My anxious thoughts were, “OMG! this is a whole 2,000-pound animal with a mind of its own.” My counter thoughts were, “This is what these animals are used to, this is her routine.”

My horses name was Peaches. The ride happens with all the horses in a single file line. I was the last person, my 2 nieces and nephew were directly in front of me, preceded by the rest of the riders. I did not count all the horses on our ride, but I was told over the phone that they only do groups of 10 max. I believe there were a total of 3 chaperones on horse back herding the group. They made sure everyone stuck together and provided guidance and assistance along the ride. The chaperones were there in case any of the horses were to get out of line, or were moving to slow, or just telling the riders how to lean/sit to make the horses more comfortable.

My first horseback ride was a great experience and I look forward to it again and encourage you to give it a try if you haven’t. Just know … it’s a bumpy ride and you will be sore!

#horseback #firsttimehorsebackride #gonewiththewind