It is a tradition (in my world anyway) to give one’s horse a gentle hack around the immediate countryside on the day before a competition.<\/p>\n
You know, give your horse the opportunity to:
\n* Experience some gentle fun as he saunters through the village
\n* Frighten the living daylights out of motorists who, for some reason, find it incomprehensible that they might encounter a horse\u00a0as they bomb through country lanes at stupidly ridiculous speeds in stupidly inappropriate vehicles
\n* Gawp at the flood damage
\n* Snigger at the things hanging on washing lines of remote cottages (oh yes he does, honest!)
\n* Spook, spin, starfish, get bug-eyed and startled by such horse-threatening unusual items as:
\nGrass
\nTrees
\nBirds (but I’ll admit that one in particular was an immensely large woodpigeon)
\nCows (b*st*rds)
\nCyclists (other b*st*rds)<\/p>\n
Yet the aforementioned\u00a0horse will remain completely calm when:
\n* asked to trot underneath two scary railway bridges
\n* a huge tractor goes past towing a long trailer carrying a combine harvester’s blades. Or (a few minutes later)
\n* we are passed by what (even to me) looks like the world’s largest combine harvester (it’s so large that we have to get off the lane!)<\/p>\n
Horses, you see… <\/p>\n
Very complex.<\/p>\n
Anyway, to get back to my theme… <\/p>\n
All these things are for the horse.<\/p>\n
A hack – for the seriously competitive owner\/rider – is a rare opportunity to:
\n* unwind a little
\n* ride for idle pleasure rather than for the pleasure of competing or preparing to compete
\n* receive some excellent mental therapy (horses are brilliant listeners, you should try it some time!)
\n* admire the wonderful English countryside
\n* do some wide-ranging thinking
\n* make some unlikely plans
\n* hatch a short story plot development that’s been incubating for a little while
\n* examine the newly-built barn conversions and wonder when, precisely, the brand new residents will realise they’re living in the middle of a working farm which also hosts a three-month-long shoot.<\/p>\n
Hey ho.<\/p>\n
Today was no exception.<\/p>\n
Once we had returned to the yard I untacked, groomed, treated and turned out Big Vin.<\/p>\n
Then I groomed and treated Beech.<\/p>\n
Then set to the biggest tack-cleaning operation I’ve done in many moons:
\nBroke down Vin’s bridle
\nBroke down the jumping saddle
\nBroke down the dressage saddle
\nThen wet-cleaned
\nThen saddle-soaped
\nThen oiled
\nThen reassembled everything
\nAnd had a hot chocolate.<\/p>\n
In amongst all of this hearty fun young Laura arrived.<\/p>\n
Fresh-faced and not-very-tanned from her week in Gran Canaria.<\/p>\n
We chatted.<\/p>\n
She showed me some snaps.<\/p>\n
And her tattoo (henna paint-job, it’ll be gone in a couple of weeks).<\/p>\n
And some video clips.<\/p>\n
Then I amazed her with my sole piece of trivia about the Canary Islands.<\/p>\n
Then she went and amazed her mum with my sole piece of trivia about the Canary Islands.<\/p>\n
See what an effect I have on people?<\/em><\/p>\n It’s a good job I wasn’t bullsh*tt*ng her!<\/em><\/p>\n I left the yard at 13.20, arrived back at the house at 13.40 via a quick stop at Morrisons.<\/p>\n As soon as I got in I vegged out.<\/p>\n Flumped on the couch and did… <\/p>\n I don’t know what.<\/p>\n Time passed.<\/p>\n Oh yeah.<\/p>\n I\u00a0sent a text to one of the girls at the yard saying she could borrow my horsebox next weekend.<\/p>\n And I did some email stuff.<\/p>\n And… <\/p>\n Then it was 17.00 and time for me to go and fetch The Lovely S.<\/p>\n And now it’s nearly 18.30.<\/p>\n I’ve still got to clean and polish my leather riding boots, but apart from that I’m ready for tomorrow.<\/p>\n Now then.<\/p>\n Just got to sort out tea.<\/p>\n Brennig<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It is a tradition (in my world anyway) to give one’s horse a gentle hack around the immediate countryside on the day before a competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}