The Sunday Hooley Gang.....

Sunday mornings seem to be the time for those of us that like a fast ride to go out for a hack. We did 11kms yesterday in ridiculously mild weather for mid November, came back with some very warm horses, even the Thoroughbred worked up a sweat!

Mr Gandalf was keen to run as usual, after the previous day's amble when he was also keen to run, but my companion wasn't, so he contented himself with some piaffe-like trotting when told he couldn't go charging off......

So yesterday we had Gary the Fearless (typical bloke, only been riding about a year, no idea what could actually go wrong so he charges about the countryside regardless of terrain or conditions underfoot). He's very laid back, which is perfect for Le Sorcier who is a typical sensitive, big girl's blouse, OMG my rider's worried, what shall I be scared of? TB (sorry to any TB owners out there who have big brave ones).

Then my (over)confident daughter, riding Chester, who due to lack of exercise and excess energy has been doing entirely too much bucking and charging off recently - fine in the field but not so good when you've got a 10 year old on your back. Or not, as turned out to be the case by the time he'd finished........

And finally, there is the aforementioned 10 year old, Hollie, now fully equipped with air jacket, on Polo, who is a great little pony but also has his moments..

So off we went, the other three hooleyed up the stony hill in the woods (Mr Gandalf doesn't do hooleying on stones), then hooleyed on through some vines, the others seemingly oblivious to the muddy, slippery bits, Mr Gandalf doesn't like cantering on slippery ground either so we took it somewhat more steadily....

So, dodgy incidents included Sorcier nearly failing to see a ditch and swerving away from it at the last minute (Gary stayed on!), Polo spooking at a pheasant (Hollie stayed on!) and Ches doing his head down bucking bronco party piece (Ali stayed on!), and Chester bit the dog (she yelped!)

No one hit the deck at all, in fact.....until we got back and Hollie jumped off Polo - totally forgetting she hadn't unclipped her air jacket, and the force of it inflating knocked her off her feet!

Wonder how many times that's going to happen......?