Blue's First Trail Rides

The last couple of weeks i have spent with Blue have been almost all riding, only using ground work as a warm up and refresher course. While he only showed any spunk in the round pen when i would ask him to lope, he isnt really big enough to give a good buck... So it wasnt really hard to ride it out of him. After about 5 rides in the roundpen he finally gave up the bright idea of bucking to get me off. Now i could work on the more refined aspects of starting a horse like 2 rein stops, moving off leg pressure, and trail riding. Because he is a mustang and it takes longer for things to sink in for him i rode him in the roundpen a lot longer than a domesticated horse. This time was spent working on stops since it took him a lot longer to get the two rein stop down. When I was thoroughly convinced that he was ready for the outside world i took him out into the pasture. After walking, trotting, then finally loping around the pasture and a lot more desensitising with the tarp i decided to just lead him up and around the short trail around our house. 3 or 4 more days of trail riding later Paige, his owner, came down and was exited about trying out a saddle she was interested in buying. Since she came all the way from Virginia i really wanted her to be able to trail ride him but it all depended on how he was acting that day.... She had ridden him before but only in the roundpen. He was just as calm as ever that day and convinced me to just warm him up and then turn him over to Paige. While she was working the initial kinks out between them i went and saddled up my boy Scooter. By the time i was up and ridin Paige decided she was ready to come out of the roundpen. Just to be sure I took Blue out and rode him around the pasture one or two times and then turned hime over to Paige. Aside from a couple of "communication errors" between Paige and I everything was so far going fine. Since he was doing so good with her Scooter and I decided to lead them on a little trail ride. During the ride which was probably a little more than a mile of thick trail and roadside(Blue did great with the few cars that went by) I became prouder and prouder of Blue because he was doing better than i could ever have imagined. The only thing I had a problem with during the ride was that Blue still wanted to wonder off the trail.... not exactly a huge problem for a "green-broke" wild mustang. This is just something that will come with lots of wet saddle blankets and age. During the whole ride we were looking for things to shake Blue up a little so I could teach Paige how to handle him when he spooks, but we had absolutly no success. He didnt even turn a ear when one of our neighbors growled by on his tractor. Overall Blue's first trail ride with Paige couldnt have gone any better.... they are just such a perfect match for each other. I dont know if it is because of all that time Paige spent with him this summer or just Blue's old wise man personality.... there is just something about the two of them that is magical.