Mountain Rose Meg - Aug 2026
Next years’s plans include a weeklong horse-camping expedition. So I’ve given myself about a year to get ready. I need to become comfortable around horses, build enough saddle endurance to ride for hours, learn to mount and dismount in less-than-perfect conditions, and get confident riding over mud, hills, water and uneven terrain. Today was Day One.
I found Mountain Rose Farm, a 92-acre horse farm run by sisters Rachel and Emily in the hills near Hammondsport. The drive there from Canandaigua was beautiful—long winding country roads, some gravel and dirt, and increasingly rural scenery. I arrived early and wandered around the farm before the ride. There was an adorable little farmhouse near the road, barns and outbuildings scattered around the property, and saddled horses casually standing around untethered as though they already knew exactly what the afternoon’s plan was.
Rachel paired me with Meg, a 25-year-old mare and veteran trail horse. Beforehand, I’d been slightly worried about the very basic mechanics of horseback riding—Would I be able to swing my leg over easily? Would getting down be awkward? In reality, mounting from the block was simple, and I felt comfortable almost immediately.
Meg the Mare
Our trail ride lasted about an hour. Heavy rain the night before had left plenty of mud, boggy patches and slippery-looking ground, which made this a much better introduction than a perfectly groomed arena would have been. Rachel rode in front, I rode second, and another ride instructor swept the back of the group.
Meg clearly knew the property better than I did. She also had opinions. Rachel told me that even as an older horse Meg had always been energetic, and she still spent much of the ride trying to inch her way toward the front of the line.
We rode through woods, fields and past ponds while Rachel and I talked about my ultimate goal: a weeklong horse-packing expedition about a year from now. We decided that a combination of roughly weekly lessons and trail rides should start building the experience I need.
At the end of the ride I dismounted without the mounting block, something else I had expected to be harder than it was. I gave Meg a treat for taking such good care of me and headed home. The real work—endurance, skill, balance, confidence and learning how to actually ride rather than simply sit on a very competent horse—is still ahead.
But now I’ve started.
