Autumn Hunting

The "Autumn Hunting" was a 2 1/2 hour hack in the company of the hounds, but not following a scent. It was an absolutely perfect way for Radar to start the season. I am thrilled to announce that all our schooling appears to have paid off and he was the easiest to control that I have ever known him.

Unexpectedly, there were a few hedges today and they weren't small!  Normally I would not start with hedges that big at our first outing, but he just looked at them and made it clear he wanted to do them. He jumped brilliantly. What's even better is that the field master was not jumping brilliantly and I had to give him a lead, so we were actually the first horse over. We had about seven hedges. Only two of us jumped the biggest two, and only about 1/4 of the field jumped the rest.

Our only sticky moment came crossing a deep stream. Across half of the stream was a very low bough of a tree, a foot thick. Radar tried to take a shortcut to get to the horses in front by going under it. There was no possible way I could get under it, as it was too low. Luckily, at the moment when I was about to get swept off his back by the tree branch, he fell into a hole in the river bed. So there he was, head in the water, and in so deep that my jodhpur boots were under water and I was half off to one side still trying to avoid the darned tree! I have no real idea how we got out of it in one piece, but there was a chorus of "well sat"' from people on both banks of the stream as he scrabbled back to a shallower place and I scrabbled back into the saddle! That'll teach him not to try and take his own line :-)  !!

I was so pleased with him. Apart from that one incident he was the best he has ever been. I can't believe that he went straight out after months with no jumping and did some good five footers, judged perfectly and flying, as the lead horse.

We were home at three, so I took Ace out onto the arena because he was not ridden yesterday and I don't like to leave him too long at the moment while things are progressing so fast in the right direction. I wasn't out there long. I had no draw reins on, and he tried to spook where the wind has detached the letters from the side of the arena. I told him not to, and he didn't !  I did a circuit or two in each direction in trot and then popped him into canter just to warm it up. I did what I thought was enough on one rein, turned him across the arena, dropped to trot for  a couple of strides and popped nicely up into canter on the other rein.

He was working so well, and trying so hard to ignore the flapping letters for me, that I thought I would just try our first ever attempt at simple change - canter walk canter. He did a super walk to canter to start, I cantered a half circle and as I came across the arena I imagined being pulled up by a string from my head and bringing him back to walk. He did two strides of trot, walked two strides , and then popped up into canter incredibly sweetly on the other rein. I came round on that rein and did the same again - one stride of trot, walk, canter on the other rein. One more try - canter, walk, canter.

I have never, ever, in my whole life had a horse learn as quickly as Ace does. It is truly shocking. It took me eighteen months to get the mutual trust we needed, and eighteen months for him to develope enough physical strength, and eighteeen months of mental maturity, and three weeks of serious discipline to tell him it was time to put all that together. Boy has he been worth the wait.

C