Essex Hounds Hunter Pace

I was holding this post in hopes that the photographer would post the pictures from the hunter pace, but they have not yet.  I will post them as soon as they are available.

 

 

Last Sunday a friend with her 23 year old pony and I went on the Essex Hounds Hunter Pace.  It was an okay day.  A bit chilly and super windy.

 

Liam was wide awake when we arrived at the hunter pace.  He had very loose green stool (just what you wanted to know) and was more nervous then he has been in awhile.  He is the type of horse that is really effected by the spring sugar grass.  It makes him very high.  I was a bit worried, but decided to just hop on and see what I have.

My friend and I walked down to the start just as a group was cantering in from the finish.  Liam saw that and his head when straight up (think giraffe) and started grinding his teeth in a very nervous way.  As we were waiting to start I could feel Liam's back getting tight and he felt like he was going to explode underneath me.  I was about to call over to the start guy and say that we better get going before my horse explodes, but Liam decided he couldn't wait anymore and put on a show leaping in the air and showing off his best circus tricks.  Thank goodness the start guy looked over (I don't know how you could not of) and said "I guess you guys should get going".  Well, yes thank you.

As soon as we started moving Liam settled a little.  The course was set on a ton of gravel roads, My guess, they did this because of the footing.  My friend and I thought it was best if we walked the gravel roads as we didn't want to make our pony's feet sore.

The course had some great water crossings.  Some of them had big steep banks and some of them were really flat.  Because of all the recent rain, the streams were all moving water.  Liam was very brave and led through all the crossings except for one.  In hind sight, he would of led through that one too, but I picked the wrong side to go down the bank and his front feet went into a pretty deep hole.   He just backed out and went to the other side and followed the pony through.  Good boy.

By the half way point he was pretty relaxed and we were on a long rein.  The only time he got nervous again was when 2 groups caught up to us and passed us, but all in all he was a really good boy.

We did trot wherever we could and we did canter up a big hill.  All and all it was a ton of fun and good experience for Liam.  I can't wait to go on another one, hopefully this Saturday (depending on weather, supposed to rain).  This time maybe we can start out a little more relaxed.

I emailed the hunt club yesterday and found out that we ended up 5th in the hunter pace, being 6.62 minutes over ideal time.   That is pretty impressive since we didn't really canter much.

Yay for ribbon!

Jump school tonight.  Liam was okay yesterday for our flat, I didn't have much time and was a little rushed, so hopefully I didn't set myself up for failure tonight.