Among the most satisfying things about hunting I’ve discovered is that you’re always learning new things, sometimes of the quite unexpected sort–for instance, that a rolling 18 hh pinto makes a most fearsome adversary for clumps of sagebrush infelicitously arrayed like a stand of bowling pins down the side of a High Sierra slope. My preferred use for such a mount is, naturally, as a mode of conveyance, but it transpires that when one collapses beneath his rider as though experiencing a cardiac event, no shrub is safe from his bulk as it careens side over side towards the valley floor. Clearly, the key to scoring a perfect strike with said mount is dismounting at the opportune moment, and not attempting unison with the suddenly orbicular mass in its ravaging descent, but provided one is clear-headed enough to recognize the moment’s destiny, the satisfaction in triumphantly marking his scorecard as that final bush crumples is unparalleled.
You will all apprehend, I hope, that I jest so darkly out of gratitude most profound for being alive to tell the tale, and pity most sincere for my dear livery mount–we’ll call him “Duke”–who clearly was not altogether up to the day’s sport, which went on rather unremarkably after the maladroit beginning I am alluding to. I’ve hunted Duke two other times, and on both outings, he was splendid, and as my prior reports will show, I have never withheld praise from him, and I won’t now, because he carried on in the most soldier-like way for most of the Christmas Eve hunt at Ross Creek, but not before he taught me a good lesson about asking too much of one’s horse.
We couldn’t have been out more than twenty minutes before what might have been a great catastrophe occurred (and I will pause here to proselytize the tiniest bit and affirm that there is everything to be said for regularly praying the Rosary if one hunts). There was nothing unusual about the situation at all. The first flight, where I’ve always ridden, was proceeding up through some meadows to the south of the kennels, and the MFH elected to ascend steeply. In fact, she had just rejected one route as too daunting and seemed to have found one (relatively) more accessible, so up we went. About halfway up, I could feel Duke struggling, so I put my cheek to his neck and gave him a couple of good squeezes with my legs to induce him to press on, but suddenly he collapsed with a great shudder.
I clucked. He didn’t get up. The rest of the line was disappearing over the crest of the—I guess we’ll call it a hill, but “cliff” is perhaps more apt from the point of view of an Easterner like me. Duke and I were getting left behind, so I climbed off, having it in mind that I would hand walk him the rest of the way up. Alas, the instant he tried to rise, he had what looked like another little convulsion, lost his purchase, and tumbled in the most heartrending, head-flopping, ABC’s-Wide-World-of-Sports-esque agony of defeat, side over side over side, leaving a whirlwind of roots, loam, and twigs in his path, all the way to the bottom of the declivity. I don’t remember the instant when I released the reins, but I suppose it was timely, as I didn’t get yanked downward.
I thought Duke might be done for, because I’ve heard stories of horses dying between riders’ legs during hunts, but by the grace of God, he rose on all fours and started stepping out, stunned but clearly not disoriented, back in the direction of the barn. I made my way down, anxious now because I noticed the reins were looped around both of his front legs. Fortunately, after I bellowed “Whoa!” a dozen or so times, Duke stopped and waited for me, perhaps responding to the hobbling as much as to my voice.
Once I got the reins sorted out, I needed to take care of a busted breastplate. My belt wound up working fine for that. The rest of the tack was in one piece, albeit badly scuffed, so I mounted up and hacked Duke back to the barn, got another breastplate, returned my belt to my waist, and headed back out to find my compadres. Luckily, after a half hour or so of poking around, I sighted the second flight, joined up with them, and carried on. Eventually, we met up with the first flight, and I resumed my original trajectory.
I had missed a pretty hot line, it seemed—no coyote sighted, but hounds in full cry, a nice long gallop, a coop or two. The next couple of hours yielded a more or less sedate tramp around the environs of Red Rock. I say “sedate,” but perhaps I’ve become spoiled and fail to give the landscape its due, and fail to report my delightful realization that I no longer feel my heart in my throat while cantering downhill, and a few other gains in presence of mind that have come from repeat visits to the hunt field. Duke, in any case, was bright-eyed and reliable after our early mishap, doing his job in his characteristically no-maintenance way, though he busted the second breastplate when he leaned down to take a drink of water at the end of the hunt.
Of course, there was a fine breakfast afterward, and a very pleasant carpool with friends back to the Park and Ride in Lincoln.
With any luck, I will report again in a few weeks. Merry Christmas to all!
