Luckiest squirrel

This is the luckiest squirrel in the entire world. She just dropped 60 feet out of the tree dropped ontothe Peacock pen, bounced on the game netting 30 feet landed on the ground and lived.  she might've just gotten the air knocked out of her she's making funny noises but then she climbed up the tree and is yelling at me because it is my fault I scared her. 

Pomfret Hunter Pace 2015

It is another year gone and another fantastic hunter pace. It was a lovely cold, crisp morning. I got up early. Fed Cher. She knew something was up and started to fuss in her stall and turned her nose up to her breakfast. (which is why I fed her at 6am- 2.5 hrs before we had to leave so she had time to relax) I tossed her hay, picked her stall and filled her water bucket. I sang to her as I did so, and she started to breath a little. She stopped weaving in her stall and I could hear her start to rustle in her bucket as I walked out of the barn. It was empty when I came back in two hours. She does best when ignored like this. Sometimes princesses need to have their temper tantrums and then eat their breakfasts.

She tried to walk over me as I walked her out of her stall. She hurumphed over her blanket coming off. She fussed as I braided her forelock, but she likes being fussed over. She started to warm up as I scratched her chin and curried her. Soon enough she was ready to have her blanket back on. She dove her head back in her blankie and helped me flip it back over her body. She does not appreciate being cold. She lead me to the trailer. I am not sure who put who on the trailer first, and it doesn't matter.

She came off the trailer and announced to the world she was an Arabian princess. She had her tail over her back and snorted. There was an enormous amount of both human and horse adrenaline and it instantly put Cher in heat.... brilliant. I longed her by the trailer for 3 or 4 laps to let her settle, she realized she was about to have to expel energy and quickly decided to settle. I tacked her up, putting the girth on backwards once, but luckily quickly seeing my mistake, and once I mounted up on my excited steed and met up with Doc, I  realized I had forgotten to put on my number but a lovely gentleman was willing to retrieve it from my trailer and hold Cher so I could put it on.  After my minor gaffes, we rode out to the start.

The horses were quiet to the Start. That all changed once we got going. There was a lot of running sideways out of the start, for about a half mile. I tried to straighten Cher out and get her to run straight, but she wanted to curl and threaten to buck. She could see other horses that were more than halfway finished runnining the the cornfield through the woods and she wanted to break through the woods and race. I started singing Christmas songs because they were the only things that could instantly come to my head and she started to settle into a rhythm and we say the path and started to canter in a straight line. From there on were were pretty golden for about 4 miles!!!

4 miles in, we came along 2 bay horses that were walking. Cher was intrigued, and being a busy body about it. I was able to keep her with me, until we broke out into the open fields with the cross country jumps. She started to buck and want to gallop. I apologized and asked to pass. Cher knew exactly were we were and pulled me up the hill. I tried to pull down the hill to folllow the arrow, but I had totally and utterly lost steering.

I grabbed her mouth rudely to try to spin her to the right. She adeptly showed me exactly how flexible she could be as she flexed her head to my knee and continued running on her planned track. "Nasty little bitch" I yelled. You taught me everything I know- show rolled her eyes gleefully at me and tossed in a buck. I slammed my heel into her left rib and then gave a less polite kick. She gave a very nice canter pirouette and started acting like she was listening again. So helpful. We galloped the rest of the jump field at a full gallop. I realized that the photographer was down at the bottom of the hill. This was both exciting and scary. I wonder what she heard me say... And I hope she got some good pictures!!!! 

The rest of the ride was brilliant. Once Cher had that very hilly gallop out of her system, she was very obedient for the rest of the ride. We ride 9 miles in 1 hr and 43 mins and 42 secs. We came in second place in trailblazers!