THH, Thornton Hay Field, February 8,2023

 

Wally and I had a fun morning with THH. It was a joint meet with Blue Ridge today and we were running their hounds.

We started off pretty strenuously by pretty much climbing Turkey Mountain straight to the top. I really mean straight to the top. No switchbacks or gently curving trailers. Just a straight climb. We looped around through The shade and then came up the backside of Turkey.

We came off the backside of Turkey and the hounds hit. I'm pretty sure it was a coyote. It headed a little back up the mountain and then turned east. It pretty much followed the line of Rock Mills Road and then made a left up Hunters Lane. It was a pretty good run.

Meanwhile, back in the second flight we headed down a trail only to come to a solid wall f fallen trees. We looped around and met up with the rest of the hunt and then were off and running again. It took us a long run to come around and we were back the Shade. we also heard at that point that the hounds had lost on Hunters Lane.

Wally was pretty good. He had a lot of climbing (2892 feet) and covered 11.1 miles. He topped out at about 20.6 MPH. I think that is the first time he has topped 20 MPH since he did a run away with me two years ago. He has learned that he doesn't have to go full throttle which is good since he was a racehorse. He is pretty fit and I think he is going to appreciate the flat terrain of Aiken in a couple of weeks.

All reactions:

9Jenn Schuessler, Kelly Tower Yoder and 7 others