Big ride on a big hoss

Would you look at the size of this beast? Not me, the horse

This is Big Jon, the horse they evidently give the fat girls who want to go on a trail ride at Blue Bell Lodge, the only licensed trail ride in Custer State Park. I had a feeling when I saw them leading out this thing with feet the size of my head that I was going to have to get on that thing.

Now I am not just fat, I am also not short-- I am 5'7" Notice how my feet do not even get close to hanging down as far as his belly goes? Big Jon was part draft clearly, and about ten years old. I have never ridden a draft horse that I can think of. One person told me he was 17 hands, and another one told me he was 18 hands--I do not think he was that big--but he was at least 17. That makes him almost a foot taller than what I am used to! The biggest horse I have ever ridden prior to this was Raisin Hell who was 16'1 or so and this one was way bigger than him

Look at this head! I swear when he put it down to graze, it still came damn near to my hip. It was huge. And when he wanted to cheat and snag a snack on the trail, I was almost powerless to stop it--he was strong. And committed to snacking. After all, you do not get to weigh a ton by not eating at every opportunity. At least he would be big enough to not be intimidated when we ran into a buffalo, so there was an upside.
This lady led the ride-and although she does not look it compared to him, she was at least 5'10", several inches taller than me.

It was a beautiful ride, about 2 hours long. Normally, I do not even feel it until we hit 5 hours or so, but then again, I do not ride things that make my legs stick straight out to the sides like ol Big Jon did. Two hours was plenty.







It was not difficult riding at all---which makes sense I guess for a public stable. I would love to go back and really ride it, get up on the cliffs and climb around.

Someday