Last weekend I was once more on Team Chasing duties as Annie was off on a jaunt to Suffolk. Fortunately the weather had been fairly good so there was no necessity to bath the horse before taking her. Just a good once over to get what little mud there was off.
This time the trip was to south Warwickshire, not an area that I visit a lot, but one shrouded in folklore and tales of witchcraft.
Not that there was much sign of such supernatural goings on last weekend. No, the scariness was down to both the up-hill-and-down-dale nature of the course, coupled with the size of the bloomin' fences! Zorya is not a bold horse. In fact she may at times be accused of being a little wussy. Not that you could tell from this picture. There were 24 fences on the course, the final two after a steep climb.
I didn't walk the course with the team, not because I get nervous but I wanted to keep Claire (one of the mums) company because she gets quite fearful. So it wasn't until the teams were about to start that I saw the last fence. I couldn't believe how big it was. Nearly 5 ft! I cheerfully pointed out that it was a brush and once a few teams had gone round it would have decreased in size with horses jumping through rather than over it. OK, I was just trying to make Claire feel better. Unfortunately by the time the rest of the team got to the monster brush fences, Hattie had already parted company from her horse, Fly, and was busy trying to catch her. When the rest of the team got to the brush fences they were just as big! They all managed to negotiate them safely and came out of the whole thing with a little bruised pride and some thorns picked up from those wicked brush fences!
1 comment:
That thing is absolutely huge!
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