Tally Ho!

  A great weekend.  Not only the glorious summer-like temps, but two excursions with Irish that worked out exactly as I had hoped.  The plan was to drive to the Cheney's farm in Lyman (Rest and Be Thankful Farm), have a jump lesson with Babette, spend the night and continue to Hamilton Mass on Sunday morning to partake in a ride with the Myopia Hunt hounds.  Well, that's exactly what happened, as planned, no glitches, no delays... and lot of fun to boot!

  The last time Irish & I were at RABT farm was Jan. 25th when he shipped to Aiken (see the January archive). I hardly recognized the place when we pulled in Saturday.... green grass, flowers, no snow or ice. George & Michele are working hard to prepare their beautiful 40 acre farm for 3 clinics with Babette, and other festivities. George started "small" by building a multi-level water complex!  Below are Meghan Smith & Rikita testing the waters during their lesson with Babette. Makes me wonder what George has in mind for the next obstacles he plans to build.

   Our jump lesson with Babette was great, picking up from 2 weeks ago. We finished with a few rounds through the water too!

Up early Sunday morning and off to ride with the hounds!  I am exagerating here of course... more like a walk with the hounds.  But that is exactly the experience I wanted for Irish since he has never A) seen a pack of hounds nor B) ridden with more than 5 or 6 horses in a group. Thank goodness I had introduced him to cows a few years ago, with the wonderful help of Elijah Moore in Belfast, Maine. 

The skills I learned from that experience helped tremendously when Irish first saw the pack of hounds running towards us across the big, lush green Myopia polo field. I could feel his heart pounding under the saddle & knew what was coming... spin, bolt, spin, bolt. I turned him away and moved him to a position where he could watch the hounds from behind.  This is what works with the cows, they are scary when they come at the horse, but when the horse can follow the cow, life is much better.  

 

Irish loved herding the cows! it gave him a sense of power to know he could make them run away. It also gave him greater confidence when dealing with other scary things in the world (except for crickets and horse-eating chipmunks).

   So, this was how we dealt with the hounds. Before I knew it, Irish was right up front and wanting to get as close as possible to the pack. Normally, this is tabu in the hunt field, but Myopia started these Sunday walks to specifically allow new horses & riders a quiet, safe, casual way to get used to everything.  The Huntsman would stop occasionally and encourage everyone to ride up closer to the hounds, who of course had no fears about running behind & under the horses.  The other accomplishment was riding in a large group of horses... 30-40 others showed up, some seasoned hunters, some very cute ponies and very small kids, one green horse who was jumping and jigging and in near panic.  Irish took it all in stride and remained well behaved in the front, middle and back of the field.

Are we ready to take on an actual hunt? not likely anytime soon.  Myopia is a drag hunt which means face paced.  Walking around the countryside as we did yesterday is one thing... galloping behind baying hounds surrounded by other galloping horses, is another.  Maybe we'll try our hand at roping cows first, then think about a hunt!

(cow photos taken by fellow cowgirl, Halla Black)