Trail Riding News

 

Jim Young

It is with a heavy heart that I write this piece of our news.  Our president and friend Jim Young passed away on the night of May 14 from stomach cancer.  Jim always had a smile and a hug for everyone and he was so huggable himself.  He also wrote entertaining tall tales and whoever he wrote about felt like a star.  Jim was able to go on 2 final trail rides in April.  The 1st was at the Bar 50 which was a place Jim loved to ride.  We were all so tickled to see him.  Jim said that riding the horse made him feel better than he had in a long time.  We all had a great time and it was a beautiful spring day with the dogwoods blooming and new leaves on all the trees.  After the ride several of us stopped at the little store down the road we all got snacks, cold cokes and ice cream.  We sat around on the front porch laughing and cutting up the whole time.  The last ride Jim went on was to Moccasin Gap.  It was not as pretty of a day as we would have liked but any day with good friends is hard to beat.  Jim's brother in law was nice enough to come with him and I believe Jim had stayed the night before with him so it would not be such a long trip on Saturday morning to get to the ride.  After these rides I think we believed Jim was on the road to recovery unfortunately, that was not to be the case.  Jim and June has been a couple of the nicest people I have ever met.  I have appreciated the hard work he did for our club.  He had not been a member very long before we drafted him to become the
president.  He graciously stepped right on up and did a fine job.  He always picked on me about the deer I killed and we each would send pictures of our trophies to each other.  We also had fun sending crazy emails and jokes to each other.  We will all miss Jim as he rode into the sunset far too soon.  But, I am sure he is now riding the trail with the other cowboys that have gone before him. Tina Taylor
 
Moccasin Gap Trail Ride
Noah and I stayed up late making homemade cinnamon rolls for the ride Saturday. Saturday morning our friend Nadege Bettini came to the house and we loaded up.  We were all hoping to not get rained on.  It did a little raining on the way to Moccasin Gap.  We had a large crowd of about 26 riders ready to go and it was raining pretty hard by that time so we sat under the pavilion and ate cinnamon rolls till the rain mostly stopped.  It was still a light mist but we rode on out.  This was a beautiful time of year to ride at Moccasin Gap because there are so many dogwood trees blooming.  There is also
beautiful scenery.  In the past few years we have not rode in this area very much and I had forgotten how pretty it was.  We met 4 or 5 groups of people on 4 wheelers enjoying the trails also.  All of them were very considerate of our horses.  There are plenty of up and down trails at the gap and lots of trails so you can adjust your ride to how far you want to go.  I do not plan on letting it be very long before we ride here again.  We ended up having a great day even though it was a little misty at times.  I had been hoping for beautiful weather but, we don't always get that as several of our recent rides have been cancelled because of rain. Still as a fellow we met in Kentucky said "Couldn't Have Had A Better Day To Ride A Horse".  This was the last ATRA ride my friend Nadege was able to go on.  She and her husband have returned to their home in the northern part of Italy (Rosegaferro di Villafranca) for the summer.  She has already emailed me to say she is missing the riding and to tell everyone hello.  She will be back in October to resume her Arkansas name of "Negligee Bikini" which was given to her by several of our riders.  Tina Taylor
 
Many of us are dual members with our other trail group called the Trailblazers. Trailblazers have a monthly meeting at Winfield Methodist Church at Hwy 10 &300 on the first Tuesday at 7:00pm.  It is a great idea to belong to both groups.  Most of the  ATRA rides have been scheduled at the Trailblazer meetings.  It is easier to schedule things when you see people more often. Joining us at the Trailblazer meeting as a speaker was Dr. David Jolly from Step Ahead Farms, Inc. near Hot Springs, who was our featured speaker.  Dr. Jolly presented an extremely interesting talk and accompanying DVD on wound care.  Mary Finch had a mare that had a terrible injury on both of her hind legs when she became lodged in the fork of a tree. Mary went to Dr. Jolly to see if he could help her as he had done once before with another injured horse. The protocol used was a platelet rich solution that does a fantastic and almost unbelievable job of healing called Lacerum. The over-the-counter name is Eclipse.  It comes as a cream in a tube and is also sold as a spray-on wound wash.  Dr. Jolly showed his technique of care that spanned almost 6 months – it was a fascinating pictorial diary of healing.  I’m sorry to report that Trailblazer Walter Redd suffered some damage to his new home at Center
Ridge during the recent tornadoes. Walter was on the phone with Jerry Strickland when he shouted out that the tornado was in his yard!  We are so thankful that Walter and his family are safe but they did have some property damage.  We also checked on Super Trailblazer Friend Doyle Scroggins who lives in hard hit Scotland. I can happily report that Doyle and Mary did not have any damage and are safe.
Tina Taylor, Barbara Penney

 

 

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