Most boring first flight ever!! ha ha. Dan wants his money back. :) hee hee. Teasing.. kind of. We had a blast but it was a very tame day. The coyotes and foxes were a no show, so... it was mostly a trail ride. But we still had fun and Dan made it adventurous. And we got to jump some coops and see cows and friends. So, a very good day. A very good day indeed! And probably a much better introduction than just going all out. And Dan still made it exhiting!
We got there early enough to get tacked up and ready and have time to warm up. Side note. No studs! Dan gets a little kicky. So... no studs! I did put studs in today because I had no clue what to expect. He was chomping his hay and totally relaxed at the trailer but I was smart and got on early. Also, Missy had said that the last time she did it they hit a trail as soon as they started so they didn't have much warm up. Since it was a fridid 30 degrees, I wanted to make sure he was warmed up before we did any trotting or cantering. (Hee hee.. I needn't have worried!). We went to the field and started walking around and he was fine. The hounds were getting ready so they started talking which had his interest a little piqued. He got animated but not bad. Then we started trotting and after 6 minutes or so he took a breath and was fine. And then we went to walk over to the rest of the people starting to gather and... hee hee.. This TEENY little white marshmellow fluff of a mini was getting lunged. Dan had a fit and spun into another horse, tried to bolt, and then started in horror with his heart pounding. It's literally like... 12 hands Dan! He finally realized it wasn't some sort of scary creature and settled so we then sat and ate grass. Then the hounds came up and he was still munching til suddenly he scooted! But then he was fine again. At that point they were ready so they gathered us all up into our groups and went over some ground rules. There were a TON of riders... Probably 45 or so. It was a huge group. Courtney and Jacel were there and had signed up for first flight, so... what the heck! That's what we did to. I figured it might be good to get his feet moving and having to jump things would get his brain occupied and hopefully be better than just hacking in a group. Although it also had the potential to get him super amped up. So anyways... off we went.
We started off following the Master (I think) and there was about 12 riders ahead of us. We just walked off down the drive and headed to the fields. Well... Dan was RARING to go and lost his brain. We basically pivoted left and right and cantered in place like a spazz. In a short time he had managed to sneak his way up to the front so that we were basically right behind Dr. Molony (yay!) who was our head leader, and right behind the Master, and then behind Laura was three other riders who were obviously staff or regulars. So.. okay... well... at least he feels more like he's in front. And Devon and Blaze were behind us and I knew they weren't regulars so I felt okay about it. Plus it was nice to have someone who knew Dan behind us as she could keep her distance if warranted. :) And the cute little paint gelding in front of me was very very tolerant of Dan. So we basically walked for a good bit letting the hounds search. Dan jigged and bounced and carried on but basically stayed in his 6th position.
After a bit we came up to a tiny stone wall that Dr. Molony jumped, so we jumped that. Except because we had such a big line of horses and there was still no coyote we basically trotted/cantered 4 strides, jumped it, and then cantered another 4 strides and had to pull up. But yay, we did get to move our feet. We then walked a lot more. Then stopped and listened to the hounds. By this point Dan had sort of settled and was atleast walking flat footed and not bouncing in place anymore. Mostly. There were occasional moments. And often when we stopped, he would be okay.. then suddenly spin around, almost backing into the other horse and then stare back at the line of horses behind us. But he was also very intent on looking for the dogs. And at one point... I was cracking up because he CLEARLY was intent on getting a coyote. Like.... I think he felt that the hounds were just farting around and not taking it seriously enough and he was all set to take off and chase that coyote down himself and tear it up to pieces. hee hee. He was feeling a wee bit murdery. :) Again though... he was really interested in the hounds. And the noises the huntsman was making. It was really kind of neat. And he was so good about the hounds. He didn't try to chomp or chase one. And he wasn't even pinning his ears at them. Other than being annoyed that they weren't finding anything, he was really good about them.
So basically... we never found a coyote, so our first flight foxhunt was a 3 hour trail ride mostly at the walk (or trotting or cantering in place). We did get to jump about 6 coops though, and the last one was sizable. And Dan was so good! He just jumped right over them, even in good form too. One of them was at the top of a hill so you jumped it and then immediately went down a fairly steep hill. He was good about that too. We went through some cow pastures and saw cows. One little baby cow came up to a few of the horses. I was hoping he'd come up to Dan but he didn't. But Dan wasn't phased by the cows. Curious, but not phased. So yay for that. The only issue we had is that he kicked out at Blaze once, while harumphing loudly. Hee hee. I do think that Blaze ran up on him closer than he would have since we had to stop short. Luckily Dan missed him. Then another chestnut ran up on him and Dan kicked out and unfortunately caught her right at the bit in the lip. She got a tiny little nick. ooops!!! Again, NO STUDS next time! And then at one point he got frustrated at standing and spun and tried to stomp the nice little paint horse. Ooops! Please don't kick us out. I don't think Dan was kicking to kick.. more just frustrated that we weren't running and chasing down vermin! But still.. not allowed sir! Not allowed. Especially if you insist on being up in front of the group. But all in all, I was quite proud and pleased. I was able to ride one handed and loose reined most of the ride. Even when he was being bouncy and flailing in place, he was very much within the connection and not bolting. And I didn't have to hold him that hard either. He was very much contained. You could tell that he wanted to, but he wasn't blowing through me. And he was so good with the hounds. And he seemed genuinely interested in the hounds and the redcoats.
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