Emily Aadland aboard Doll, her silky-smooth Tennessee Walking Horse mare. The Aadlands treasure their saddle mares.

We were camped by a beautiful lake on a plateau at 9,300 feet elevation, not far from Montana’s highest peak. Fine as the trip had been, my wife, Emily, and I were nagged by worries about our ranch, that summer’s drought, the fire danger in late August, and the restless cows we knew were pressing the fence in an attempt to find greener pastures on irrigated alfalfa. Regretfully, we disassembled the camp and mantied our loads for the pack animals.

We’d decided to ride the whole distance to the trailhead in one shot, forgoing an intermediate camp in the meadow we’d enjoyed on our way up to the plateau. Twenty miles isn’t a terribly long ride, but with pack animals in tow, on ledge trails chiseled out of solid granite, such a ride is fairly rigorous.

Add to that a descent of some 4,000 feet to the trailhead, some of it in very steep stretches, and knowing that riding downhill is harder on horses and people than riding uphill, we braced ourselves for a challenging day.

Emily looks back with fondness on the trip off the plateau only because she was riding her mare, Doll. The smoothest horse is still rougher downhill, but Doll isn’t just smooth, she’s silky smooth. Her fast, efficient gaits took the shock out of the boulder-strewn trail and let Emily’s knees survive to function the next day.

Emily adamantly maintains that the very best gaits among the several hundred Tennessee Walking Horse colts we’ve raised since 1980, the smoothest, the most correct, the most natural, have tended to be found among the mares rather than the geldings. She can’t claim scientific proof, but you won’t convince her otherwise. It’s just another reason why on our ranch, saddle mares like Doll are so treasured.

(For a feature article from Dan Aadland on the excellent qualities of mares, see “6 Reasons to own a Mare,” Sketches from the Trail, The Trail Rider, November/December ’09.)