Sunshine and great ground

Radar and I got out on our first hunt in several weeks yesterday and we were favoured with a brilliantly clear afternoon and the most superb ground conditions you could wish for. We got long, long runs over big open fields and jump after jump. He's sucha  tough old fellow that no-one would possibly have known that a week ago he was lame with an abscess and still had a hole in his frog :-0

Last time I was out I fell off - well actually I had to do a planned dismount. We were cantering fast alongside the field master with a hedge about thirty feet to our left. Suddenly the field master swung and jumped the hedge with no warning. Radar tried to follow but I would not let him go from that close, and turned away, which is always  a fight when he wants to follow the master. I did not give myself a long enough run-up to get him under control and we went in far too fast. He buried his knees in the hedge and only just got a leg down before his nose hit the floor. By the time he was away from the other side of the hedge, I was hanging perilously off the left hand side. In hunting circles that's called "riding one side of the horse" :-)  I really thought I could get back on, but then he started to gallop towards the next hedge and I knew I had to let go. Thankfully I wasn't much hurt. The ground was soft (you should SEE my coat!), my hat saved me when he brushed my head and I had a very blue knee where he tipped my kneecap, but after half an hour it was pain free and gave me no trouble in spite of a week of spectacular colouring!

Understandably, it took me a while yesterday to get my eye back in, but he was game and we did do a couple of seriously big hedges and a number of "ordinary" four footers along the way. But he is a naughty boy when he gets the wind up his tail. When he wants to be let go, he lunges his head downwards, then does a massive jink of his shoulders and yanks at the bit, left, then right. All three moves in quick succession. He is very, very strong and it's difficult to hold the reins and sit the shoulder-shift at the same time. I managed, but I've got sore shoulders myself today!

The soaking? Well, we were fording a river and the person to the right of me found an enormous pit in the bed of the river. His horse plunged into it stirrup-deep, to cause a fountain of water shooting up into the air - and down all over me! I was absolutely soaked from head to foot down one side. It was so funny I spent the rest of the day laughing with the guy who caused it. He gave me a big slug from his sloe gin to make it up to me - very tasty.

I needed a stress buster and I got one. We were out four hours, with checks only 90 minutes of that at the most, the rest was running and jumping on the boldest horse in the field. Brilliant.