Easter Egg Hunt

It was the day of the easter egg hunt which is organised by the local riding club. To be more precise: it is organised by 'Tom', 'Lillian's partner.

After a night of heavy rain, the morning wasn't looking much more promising. Although I sort of agreed to partake in the easter egg hunt, looking at the weather I wasn't so sure. Still, after yet another warming cup of tea (I will regret that later I am sure!) I went out to fetch 'Mr F'.

What I found in the field was best described as "Victor Meldrew". 

'Mr F' did come to greet me but he realised that I was somewhat dressed for riding ... which wasn't in his interest at all. 'What?! In this cold, wet and windy weather you want to go riding!?' 

With his nose up high, 'Mr F' decided to make for it up to the other end of the field, shooing 'Luke' to go ahead. Ah well, I can't blame him. I sure wasn't motivated myself. I busied myself with matters in the field and 'Mr F' couldn't leave it alone and came to look at what I was up to several times. Yet as soon as the head collar came up to his head, he was off.

Just as well I thought. I wasn't keen on going out either. I wandered back indoors to make myself yet  another warming cup of tea and decided to ring 'Lillian' and inform her that we admitedly were lacking the enthusiasm to partake in the easter egg hunt, solely due to the cold and wet weather.

However, when 'Lillian' turned up to fetch her horse she managed to 'twist my arm' and I decided to join last minute. Partly because I didn't want to let her down, and partly because I wanted to excersise 'Mr F'.

'Mr F' upon seeing that there was some action with moving trailers etc, decided that it was now suitable to turn up in the stable. He stood there with the face of: 'So come on, when are we leaving?' - 'Sigh ... temperamental horse!'.

With all this 'not making up our minds' business, 'Mr F' and I were of course late but we managed to be ready in record time. Booted and suited (hoof boots and tack) on in all of 35 minutes and all done camly but decisively.

Once we were on our way in the car, I realised that this will be a group ride of about 10 horses. The last two group rides I joined were quite disasterous - with me having a great deal of a struggle to keep 'Mr F' in check, and several times failing to do so, resulting in voluntary dismounting twice due to safety for both myself and 'Mr F'. If you want to know more, have a look here and here.

For a short moment I thought "Oh bummer ... I forgot all about the other participants!" But immediately I realised that this is exactly my problem: thinking what might happen, or what might not happen. Having expectations of myself  and of 'Mr F'  as well as intentions. I had already images in my head. All of this was limiting and not a good mental start point. While we drove to our start destination I was working on letting go of it all.

We unloaded, both 'Kitten' and 'Mr F' were relaxed and no sweating up. Both started to eat grass while everyone was trying to find some place to park their trailers in the fairly mudy fields.

I had to apply quite some diclipline not to letting my mind interfere with all its doubts and negativity, I wasn't allowing my ego to interfere. What is is ... and that's the end of it. We can only ever deal with the very moment.

And so the ride began.

Usually 'Mr F' would be dancing and jogging on the spot, wanting to be at the front of any group of horses he was part of. That is what he was trained to do as a race horse and he behaved like this on all the group rides before. 

This time however, he was much much more calm but I also realised that my ability to communicate with him through my seat / posture had increased by a great deal. We were communicating clearly, straight and simple.

We went into a little bit of wooded land where the easter eggs were hidden in tress, dangling off banners and other 'scary' (deliberately so to make it a challenge for the horses) objects. I have to say that 'Tom' did an excellent job thinking up of the little challenges and placing eggs all over the area.

'Mr F' (and I!) love exploring the woods and moving over or under obstacles. We went underneath the banner (which was very low, even he had to duck his head down), we went to pick up a bottle of wine guarded by 'scary' objects such as the plastic windmills, flags that were flapping in the wind and even a shopping bag which seemed especially intimidating. 

With people doing various challenges it meant that there was a bit of waiting time. Now waiting is one of those things 'Mr F' doesn't do when out in a big group. He suddenly was very unruly. Although there had been a bit of an incident: one of the other riders had fallen off and her horse was making a run for it, followed by one of the other riders on horseback. This may have unnerved him a little, seeing other horses run off while he couldn't.

I needed to distract him so we took on the wine bottle challenge. 'Mr F' thought that the little plastic windmill was rather frightening but he just stood still long enough for me to reach down to grab the bottle. 

As I no longer drink, the bottle was donated back to the riding club - and later on presented as a gift to the owner of the fields we were allowed access to for this event.

Homing in for the wine bottle, 'Mr F' not so sure about the plastic bag, the flags and the windmill.

 But he stood still-ish long enough for me to grab the bottle ... still a little pre-occupied with wanting to follow that other horse that had lost its rider and made a run for it.

And we also got a cream egg from out of one of the trees. That I ate of course!

After the easter egg hunt we continued with the ride and returned back for some lunch just in time before the heavens opened up again.

A very successful and fun day out. I learnt a lot today.