Wally and I were out with THH. It was an interesting start to the day. When i went out to the barn first thing it was snowing. Later when getting wally going it had turned to freezing rain. So I had to scrape the truck. I kept going because the forecast called for it to clear out. About three miles from home the roads went from wet to dry and stayed that way. So that was a good sign.
When I went to bridle Wally realized his bit was in wrong. It ony took me four tries to get it right. Then I noticed that I had forgotten to attach his flash after I had cleaned the bridle. So we were off to a good start. Luckily the lack of the flash did really impact us until late in the hunt when he got a little tired.
Things started out a little slow but about 50 minutes in we got a run. Not a barn burner but a steady run and at the end the hunts put the fox to ground. About a fifteen minute run. Within minutes they were on a run again. Similar to the first the hounds were working hard to keep it going but they did and again after about twenty minutes the fox was put to ground.
About five minutes later, we were running again. This was a barn burner of a run. It was about 45 minutes and the hounds were loud and on the run the whole time. They covered about 3.5 miles on the run.
At one point n the run, it seemed like the fox had gone to ground. The hounds kept swirling about in a thicket. Then all of a sudden they took off loud and fast again. I'm wondering of the hole the fox went down had a back door. Eventually they did run him to ground.
Wally had some more of those really good moments as he continues to develop as a hunt horse. When the fox had seemingly gone to ground the first time on the third run, we were checked up on the trail near by. The hounds in full voice came surging right up to us with a couple under his nose. He never moved.
Later in the run, we were cantering along when the hounds crossed over a trail in front of the field and staff. We thought it was the whole pack but it turned out to be half. Suddenly, the other half was running on either side of Wally and the horse behind us. He was great, never flinched, never put a foot wrong. Just kept doing his job.
He also did some jumping. We definitely have to work on following others over jumps. He gets a little scrambly on those. When jumping by himself, he is a very quiet. His last step is always a big power step and I expect a big jump but he never over jumps. It does sometimes end up with me a bit ahead. Our last two I really stayed back and waited and it worked out well. The last was an uphill approach to about a 2' 6" or so with a downhill landing and it was good.
So a great day of hunting and more progress by Wally. We covered 9 miles, 2655 of vertical and he topped out at about 16.5 MPH.
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