Today was just what I needed. Sleep a little later, and then start all the hunt prep work: hitching up trailer, cleaning horse, filling flask, etc. My attitude has gotten so sour I almost didn’t remember why I go to all this trouble.
\nAfter getting mounted, it didn’t take long for me to remember. A beautiful day, on a horse, surrounded by friends, with a pack of hounds and full flasks, far removed from anything that beeps, buzzes, or blinks, it just doesn’t get much better.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It was my second hunt of the season, after our unfortunate debut a month ago, and my brother’s first, and neither of us had done enough fitness work over the summer. \nThe only bad part of the day was the trip home, when the road was blocked by a horse-transport semi (I couldn’t tell if he was loaded) that had swung too wide coming out of a side road and was jackknifed across the road. I got to brush up on my trailer backing skills as I backed my rig almost a half mile to a place where I could turn around. It was fun watching the cop try not to look nervous as I backed past his cruiser. I decided not to tell him I was better when I was sober.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today was just what I needed. Sleep a little later, and then start all the hunt prep work: hitching up trailer, cleaning horse, filling flask, etc. My attitude has gotten so sour I almost didn’t remember why I go to all this trouble. After getting mounted, it didn’t take long for me to remember. A… Continue reading Back in the Saddle Again!<\/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-450","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-7g","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450","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=450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSo we decided to make it a short day and not over work our horses. The first hour saw some intense riding, with horses performing well; and we decided that put us in a good spot for a nice long cooling-out hack back to the trailer.
\nI was pleased with Arthur’s jumping; I had been a little nervous that his accident might have spooked him some, but I had nothing to worry about. Besides, he taught me last year<\/a> that any problems we have are probably my fault and not his.<\/p>\n