This afternoon I took the road on a route I recc'd last week for my GF , from stables to Bushy Park , ( a Royal Park at Hampton ) only 2-1/2 miles , to nearest entrance that I deemed would be the best for the horse , Arnie , to get through into the Park , anyway we set of , my leading the way on my mighty Surly Steed ! G F on Arnie , a 14.2 ish hands Grey Arab , , clipity clop ! I began at a pootle pace It appeared to be a good pace for them , but he does not handle certain aspects of the roads to well , traffic lights and a lot of lane markings , speed bumps etc , so I let them go in front and I was amazed at the amount of talking she did to him , some commands , mostly encouragement , also I could watch the very subtle movements of her feet , pressing and tapping into his sides to steer , speed up , slow and stop , she did have a crop but never used it , I thought the traffic may spook him , but no , there was light to medium movement , cars , commercials and buses , and I must say , as s cyclist , I wish I could get the same amount of courtesy from drivers , 95% of them were really well behaved as they followed , passed and approached them . Anyway , got to the park ,Hampton Hill entrance, once more he surprised me , he handled the turnstile style gate remarkably well , they set off on the rough grass areas , cantering etc , I dropped on the granny ring and followed , in one area the was a herd of Deer , quite a lot of Stags , a lot of young Bucks were strutting their stuff and leaping around and so we got to within about 200 yards or so to them he never flinched , but , I could see him totally focused on them ,so wie rode around for about an hour , and then headed of back , same way , same again , very unproblematic , but there was a lot of things to do to sort him out back at the stables to bed him down for the night , so I was really impressed , there is no doubt a lot of experience , skill and courage to riding horses ,
More than I have it given credit for,
As for me , nearly had an off , the chain got stuck in between the chainrings as I was going back on the middle that was a first ! , al in all did about 25 miles from start at home to finish , cold head wind riding out , but nice coming back ,