Sunday 17 April 2011

Epic day's hunting, and a visitor's take on barefoot

Still tired after a monster day's hunting yesterday - 39.9 miles on the GPS (about 65km), by far the longest day I've ever had. 
I was supposed to be having a short day on Felix but cutting short and leaving for home rapidly became impractical as we headed further and further out into the moor and further and further away from the trailer...
We covered an amazing variety of terrain, as always, from good old pasture to woodland, open moor and stony lanes.
I was pretty amazed when I looked at the GPS to find we already had 30 miles on the clock, and were in the middle of nowhere, with miles and miles still to go.
We met some surprised stags and hinds - maybe they knew we'd started the day about 15 miles away...(!)   Fortunately Felix was full of beans and although it wasn't what I would have chosen, he was none the worse for his epic day.  In fact as I creaked around the yard when we'd eventually got home, he had more than enough energy to trot off round the track at speed, then try and lead Jacko astray and escape up the lane instead of going out to the field .  He was hungry, but apparently 40 miles across Exmoor is just no big deal...
Quote of the day came from a well-turned-out visitor, who was riding back at the end with us.  She had followed Felix all day and noticed he had no shoes, and said "I suppose you can get away with that on the moor".  

I try to always be polite to visitors, so I just smiled, instead of pointing out that several horses who'd lost shoes had had to go home early. 

I also didn't remind her that as well as being on the moor, we'd done a considerable part of our 40 miles over very nasty flints, old droves paved with  big pointy rocks and along the roads - all at trot or canter.  

I also didn't say (as I would have liked to) "You don't need to shoes horses for Exmoor - tell you what, lets whip the shoes off and your horses can try hunting across the moor without shoes as well!  Oops, they appear to be crippled..."

9 comments:

clairesgarden said...

excellent job on your horses hooves!!
also excellent job on being polite....

Dare Gothic Clothing said...

Bless you Nic, it is hard to just smile politely sometimes - I have to do it quite a lot at the moment as people ask after Isha to see how she's doing, and when I say 'brilliantly' they reply, 'you must be so pleased, so you'll be able to put her shoes back on soon?' Cue forced smile!!!!

jenj said...

Wow, it sounds like an amazing day! Glad to hear that Felix was the Poster Model for a barefoot horse, regardless of what said visitor thought you could "get away with." Teehee!

Val said...

Well done!

It is so difficult when any success is undermined by a casual comment. Sometimes onlookers comment that horses do not need shoes around here, because there is so much sand. What I wish to reply to them is that the sand is riddled with stones which constantly push up from below when the arena is dragged and my horse happily trots over rocks on the trail. He also jumps without a second thought and has excellent traction in mud and snow. One can only hope that some visitors do notice those details (and those of your hunt) and draw more impressive conclusions!

Lucie said...

Go Felix!!

I have no end of people saying to me 'so, when are you putting the shoes back on' to or assume that, just because he is barefoot, that I simply 'plod' round the roads. It just gets very fustrating, I think it hard to just nod and smile sometimes!!

Cristina said...

Or like the dog walker I got chatting to when hacking along one of our tracks. She turned out to be horsey and noticed Frankie was barefoot but said "well it's OK for you as he obviously has naturally good feet".

Nic Barker said...

LOL Cristina! So "naturally good" that he was lame in shoes ;-)

Nic Barker said...

Val, you are quite right - there was a lovely older gent there who was also asking about Felix - his comment (much more astute): "It takes a special horse and special feet to do that sort of mileage" :-)

Nic Barker said...

Jen, we have some US visitors out this week - must try and tempt you over sometime!