great day foxhunting

We had a great day foxhunting yesterday. A friend rode my young 5 yr old mare,Polly, for her first hunt experience and she was terrific. Behaved herself, followed quietly and seemed fine and relaxed at the end of a 4 hr hunt. Hopefully someone will like her and buy her!

We started with a bang and chased a large red in big circles with some of those big circles going to close to a housing development and a major road. The other whip and I were looking at each other, silently hoping the huntsman wasn't bringing hounds to the line that followed the fox into the housing development but, alas, here he came and we had a mad gallop trying to head fox and hounds back to the summer pastures rather than the major road. We prevailed after whip cracking , yelling and some ratshot. Don't know if either hounds or fox pay any attention to us when in full cry but the noise we make is impressive.

This large fox went to ground in a trash pile after second big circle and we continued on to further coverts. It was warm enough now and we were all enjoying some nice gallops on good footing. I watched my young mare being ridden in the field and was glad to see her seeming to enjoy the hunt experience. Some horses love it and some never take to it, so I was relieved to see her lovely long canter going by.

The next fox was picked up slowly by persistent hound work in the woods below Touchette's and I viewed two foxes slipping thru the woods and across the fields way ahead of hounds. The hounds were in full cry and screaming eastward very fast as I galloped parallel on higher ground. We covered about 5 miles very fast, right back to the trailers and I think the field was glad to call it a day. This fox slipped away and the hounds were a little scattered in the boggy area below trailers. We had one young entry out, Phoenix, who was pretending to be the Energizer Bunny. He would not stop and was the last hound I followed, trying to get him to call it a day! You have to admire his persistence, rising again and again to seek the scent!

We were happy to get home and I was tired that night. It was a good tired, the kind that you feel after a satisfying day of hard riding. It was great to be back in the saddle and several field members said it was great to see me galloping around again ( after the cat bite incident). I love it!