… but too nice not to. That was the dilemma this weekend. As I weighed my options on Friday night, I decided to skip the Saturday morning hunt and go out Sunday afternoon. I spent Saturday doing some yard work, and the afternoon heat made me reconsider the wisdom of running a horse into the ground on Sunday. I’d just about decided against it, since I still had plenty to keep me busy at home, but my arm got a serious twisting that night.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A few of the people that make hunting fun told me they were all planning to go. They all shared my concern about heat, and said that regardless of what happened, they planned to stay at a reasonable, horse-preserving pace. That sounded like a good idea to me, even if it meant swallowing my macho pride and abandoning the jumping field for a day. As I waffled a little, somebody asked what else I had to do on Sunday afternoon. When I rattled off a list of mowing, weedeating, chainsawing,etc., I was admonished that making sure Arthur got exercised should take priority. When it was put that way, I could hardly insist on neglecting my horse’s fitness needs. So I loaded up Arthur on Sunday and hilltopped with the harem.<\/p>\n
\nThe afternoon was very enjoyable, as any afternoon would be on a horse in beautiful fall weather in country where the trees are beginning to show their fall colors. It was fairly uneventful, more resembling a trail ride than a hunt, but that was fine with me. I did have one sudden revelation that might be of interest to any disciple of the Church of Foxhunting<\/a>. As we were headed back to the trailers, there was the usual diligent effort to make sure that all flasks were emptied. I’ve been told many times that it’s bad luck to return with anything left in a flask. But it suddenly struck me today that it’s more than just luck; it’s a sacrament.<\/p>\n \nThose familiar with the communion or mass rituals of some churches know that wine that has been consecrated for the service must be consumed; it can’t leave the sanctuary, and can’t be left for the next service. As an Episcopal acolyte in my youth, I was always amused when there was a significant quantity left over and the minister had to chug the chalice. I realized today that the hunt field is the sanctuary of the Church of Foxhunting. And, although we don’t have an explicit consecration ritual for our libations, they become consecrated upon entering the hallowed grounds. And once consecrated, they must be consumed; they can not be carried back out of the holy grounds. I’m happy to report that our sacred duty was diligently fulfilled today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" … but too nice not to. That was the dilemma this weekend. As I weighed my options on Friday night, I decided to skip the Saturday morning hunt and go out Sunday afternoon. I spent Saturday doing some yard work, and the afternoon heat made me reconsider the wisdom of running a horse into the… Continue reading Too Hot to Hunt …<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horseplay","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9mOtr-4H","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}