Chase The Moon

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tigers_eye

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For those who were curious what happened to Piggy French's former ride (3rd Blenheim '10) last year he went to Dutch rider Henk Jan Lozeman, and apparently has now moved yards to Belgian-based Dutch rider Raf Kooremans for the 2012 season.
 
 
We jump drainage ditches not much smaller than that where we hunt - I think most of the Lincs lot do too. The trick is to approach at a walk, let the horse wriggle a few feet down the side then hold onto the neckstrap when they take an almighty leap. One of my horses ended up in the bottom of one at our opening meet (v hard to get out as the bottoms aren't solid) so he's been out popping them for practice most mornings this week.
 
Tigers_eye do you know anything more about where the pics were taken?

Just wondering as I had a look through the rest of the album and apart from the interesting riding styles of some, there is an incredible variety of coats being worn - colour (black, green, maroon, red, grey and 'camel') & length (standard, longer, almost tails). Some beautifully tied stocks as well in the end pics ;)

Sorry for the post hijack.
 
Anyone who thinks that's a big ditch should avoid hunting with the Belvoir when they're in the fens as believe me, that's akin to your first cross pole when you're warming up for a 1.20m class. :rolleyes:

The most common injuries are whiplash (rider) ;) and removal of back teeth (horses) :p, and we've snapped so many breastplates we now have elasticated inserts in them all. The best ditching horse of all was William who used to scuttle down the bank - OH would have dropped his reins on his neck - pop, and scuttle up the other side; Punk thinks it's hilarious to take one step down the bank then launch; :eek: Ross landed like a starfish over a huge one (think double decker bus being out of sight) with me on last week but thankfully worked it out by the time we got to the next one. :D

Sorry, that's all completely off-topic and very boring. :o Who did Chase the Moon belong to?
 
Our hunt jumps ditches - that one in the Netherlands would be considered a nice one out with us!

We jump our ditches from walk or trot. We do not get a huge amount of lost shoes or over reaches but we do occassionally get a sliced tendon. If a horse goes in and cannot get out then it is dragged out by a tractor either by front legs or less preferred method is by the neck. They normally come out as good as gold and you have to sit on the neck quickly to make sure they do not get up until you have untied their legs.

The best is when the pointers come out and they do bambi on ice impressions on landing!
 
Here is my mothership in action:

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/galleries/v/Hunting/weston-banwell/_F7W1964.jpg.html

The one advantage of ditches is that any horse can jump them they do not need to be very scopey. I used to jump everything and keep up on my 14hh WHP pony. The disadvantage is that they very quickly stop using their shoulders properly over jumps and jump very flat so its good to keep them schooling over uprights.
 
Ah, Lincolnshire ditches, that takes me back. The best bit was taking horses out for the first time and not knowing what to expect - hold neck strap, try to 'encourage' without kicking and hope for the best!
 
The grey jumped but I do not think I would be very happy with that tecnhique! I have only ever known one horse not take to jumping ditches and that was a 4* horse who just was not interested and refused to learn to creep. We had a gold cup winner (Cool Dawn) go hunting with us and cover the country.
 
And here's what you look like when you've been in one. On this occasion the horse ended up lying along the ditch bottom with feet his under him and couldn't get any traction to get up - the bank had given way on landing and he'd fallen back in. We'd just phoned for a tractor when we eventually got him out and after a change of clothes and tack went back out for the rest of the day. We even found my hunting crop the next day when we went back with a shavings fork to dredge the ditch.

Hunting007.jpg
 
For a pair that have just been wallowing in a ditch you both look very cheerful!

LEC - interesting stroy - could you imagine if for the olympics they decided to make each fence represent a county and Lincs's would be a whooping great ditch! :eek: Might change the DR standings a bit :D
 
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