CastleMouse
Well-Known Member
It was an unhappy ending to a decent day (have posted about it below), fortunately it was only a small deep cut... it could have been much much worse
Ali was fantastic to load this morning, no bother at all... Arrived to the meet, unboxed about 20 minutes later and Ali was quite relaxed. When we set off he had a bit of a fit when I was giving my cap to the treasurer, I managed to pay my cap and then fortunately there was a gate entrance on the left where Ali could "calm down" a bit, I didn't want him to have a fit in the middle of the road and p*ss off everyone elses horses. He reared, bucked, was generally being a bit of a brat, but settled down after a short while and we headed on (there was a large crowd out today so I wasn't at the very back once Ali had settled). First jump was a drain with wire on the other side, very dirty fence and there was a horrible accident there last year
Ali was the fourth horse to jump it (unfortunately my plan to sticking at the back didn't exactly work!
), he was very neat over it... My report would be very long if I went into detail about the whole day, but afterwards we jumped a few stone walls, there was a bank into water and then a bank straight out, a lot of falls at that fence but Ali just went for it with no problems, I managed to stay on even when he jumped rather big down the bank!
We also jumped two 6 bar gates in a row... When I saw the gates I didn't actually want to jump them, but Ali was rearing to go (literally!) so I said feck it, and just went for the two gates with no problems, he jumped a bit too big over them as well!
There was a lot of wire today as well, but Ali was a star, apart from a few of his rearing and bucking tantrums whilst standing around...
He flew over everything, and I had brakes though!
I'm very proud of him!
With a bit more experience on the hunting field (and once he learns a bit of manners when standing around) I think he'll make a smashing hunter... There was a man out with us today as well, he had a 9 year old Danish Warmblood who has never hunted before, this was her first day out and she had a few tantrums like Ali as well throughout the day! All the hunt staff said I was a bloody brave person to have brought a half Arab, half Danish Warmblood who has never hunted before out hunting! I'm very upset that the day didn't end well though, just when we were finishing up something bad had to happen
I look like an eejit in that photo
I look like an eejit in that photo
