I’m getting old and predictable. Anytime I say I had a wonderful weekend, it probably means I spent some time on the back of a horse. And that was the case this weekend. Saturday was the Blessing of the Hounds, and I elected to skip it this year. I hope I haven’t invoked the wrath of St. Hubert. I think this is the first Blessing in over 25 years that I have missed voluntarily. There have been a few that I missed due to weather, injured horse, or other circumstances beyond my control, but this was the first time I decided it just wasn’t worth it.
The Blessing is really a fun and picturesque ceremony, but it’s a little of a hassle getting myself and my horse down to the Mill at the appointed hour. But the worst part is after the ceremony, before we start hunting, there’s a photo session that seems to get longer every year. Last year, before we even started hunting, my flask was already empty and Arthur’s Ace had worn off. A hell of a way to start the day in a field full of star-struck hunters who haven’t been on a horse since last year’s Blessing.
So this year I decided to skip Saturday and hunt Sunday afternoon, allowing for a more leisurely preparation and a saner field. It turned out to be a wise decision. Reports from Saturday included a fair amount of crash and burn. Sunday turned out to be just what Arthur and I needed.
As usual, the Bitch Pack was split between first and second fields, and after a few seconds of careful deliberation, I opted to hunt up front. Like last week, we started out fairly slowly, working some cornfields, and then scared up a coyote who decided to blaze a trail south.
Arthur and I kept up with the first field long enough to prove that we both remembered how to jump. But as the chase took us farther and farther from our starting point, I began to consider Arthur’s relative lack of fitness, and started to ease up the pace a little. Another old bull, whose horse was still a little tired from the previous day, pulled up with me. For a while we cantered along, watching the first field disappear over the horizon. Then we stopped at the top of a hill, looked around us, and considered our options.
In true old bull style, we considered that eventually the disappearing first field was going to come back in our direction. Then we looked down the hill at the second field below us, looked at each other and said “Let’s walk down there and get ’em all”. (If you don’t get it, you’ve forgotten the parable of the pair of bulls.)
We had a leisurely and social ride in, and were joined by another Bitch Pack dropout from the first field. We managed to make sure all the flasks got drained, and even had an opportunity for larking over some coops. By the time we got back to the trailers, first field had already returned and hauled out. They may have covered more territory than we did, but I think the extra time we spent coming home made our day more fun than theirs.