OK so we’ll be cubbing but I am so happy! Checking my tweeds, found two buttons that need to be sewed on. Got all my hunt tack out and checked. (Off season I use different tack). Found my flasks. Charging up my radios. Brown field boots freshly polished. Horses all have had their shoes drilled and tapped. Now need to start practicing my 4:30 AM wake up calls! I am NOT a morning person EXCEPT on hunt days. Then I somehow manage to stumble around and get to the fixture, but once I’m in the tack, I am so thrilled to be there. Just plugged all the fixture info for the fall into my iPhone calendar and am totally pumped!! Tally Ho!!
Yeah for you! We just started hound exercises on horseback. Cub hunting starts in about 30 days. 
Painting kennels this weekend. Harvest coming in…
Cubbing starts for us mid-September. I’ve cleaned the tack and washed the saddle pad. Need to check the tweed. New Market boots don’t need polish, just a good brushing. Been working with the hunt horse to get him fit --he’s quite fat at this point, however. Like you I don’t mind getting up in the dark if it is a hunt day!
Foxglove
I’m getting so excited! We start the end of the month!
Tack checked, billets replaced, shoes drilled and tapped, getting everyone fit, trailer inspected, Coggins pulled, pulling out the tweeds to check them this week. Yesterday I tried on my field boots (I ride in half chaps and paddocks at home) and they hurt and pinch in all these places that didn’t bother me last year! I am hoping this is just me not being used to them yet…
But either way, ibprofen will help if needed because I am so excited!!!
oops, double post
Thank goodness, it has been a long off-season. Showing is fun, but I <3 hunting.
I am ordering a new tweed cubbing habit this week, so looking forward to it arriving!
All very well for you lot! :winkgrin: Our hunters’ shoes have just been pulled off and they and our hounds are on holiday til November. I’ll have to do my summer hunting through you.
You all sound very prepared for your upcoming season. I wish you fantastic weather every time out this season! I would love to go on a hunt. I need to get in with someone that will bring me as a guest so I can give it a go!
Just giving this thread a bump because I hope it will continue and grow! Total outsider on this forum, have never hunted and now realize probably never will, but I am really enjoying this thread, and wish all of you a wonderful season!
I always get a sense of dread too at this time of year…:winkgrin:…that my horse & I are not ready, not fit enough…shoulda started earlier…shoulda done more hills/trot sets/canters…shoulda lost weight (me AND her!)…shoulda tried that new bit…shoulda bought that new jacket…shoulda done more riding overall…and so on and so forth!!! It won’t deter me but gives me some anxiety… I know this is gonna hurt!!! Yikes!!! We’re gonna payyyyyy!!! :eek::lol:
Oh and I shoulda gotten that new truck battery sooner too! but we’re not gonna talk about that!
Booo yah!!
Buckskin and Wellspotted, where there’s a will, there’s a way! Just Do It. There are plenty of enablers here. I just arranged for a friend to go hunting for the first time in Tennessee in a couple of weeks, welcomed by a Master I’ve never met. Go for it!
walk walk walk walk walk walk trot trot trot trot trot trot walk walk canter canter walk up the hill down the hill up the hill down the hill grid work grid work checking tack and stitching walking hounds walking hounds walking hounds cleaning kennels worrying about young entry cast hounds cast hounds count 'em - all on! whew brought 'em back then home to walk walk trot trot walk walk gallop gallop gallop gallop GALLOP oh crap maybe too fit it’ll be ok the season is upon us!
Two outings so far, and it’s been AWESOME. We haven’t technically had Opening Hunt yet, but it’s still been a great start to the season. Tally Ho!
I am looking for cubbing fixture cards for various hunts in my area, including Old Dominion, Thornton Hill FT Valley, Blue Ridge, Keswick, etc. I would love to see links to contact phone numbers etc., so I can explore a bit.
My horse is boarded about a mile from one of our local kennels and we are in their territory. My early morning rides can be made quite interesting by the sweet music of the hounds working. :-/
Unfortunately, while I had hoped to prepare him this summer for a debute in the hunt field, it won’t be happening. So, my hunting will probably be kept to occasionally get a ride on a friend’s horse, at the very most! But even when I’m clinging for dear life to my horse while the hounds work in our neighborhood, I will certainly be enjoying it, in my own unique way!
Winding Down, you’ll want to contact the individual hunts you’re interested in, and perhaps check for Facebook pages or web sites for more info. Fixture cards aren’t typically posted publicly, since it doesn’t work for people to show up unannounced, you need to affirmatively ask the hunt if you can hunt with them as a guest. The answer is almost always yes, but you do have to ask, or be invited by a member who has asked to bring a guest. Among many other things, it’s because they need to know that where you want to go has adequate parking, and that the numbers participating won’t overwhelm the particular land being hunted.
Yellowbritches, there is nothing wrong with taking your horse for a hack and ‘accidentally’ running into a hunt in progress. Provided of course you are careful not to interfere with the hunt in progress. It’s good exposure and when I hunted in VA and neighborhood hackers were encountered, they were often invited to join in if they wanted to. If they didn’t, just sticking to the road on their hack still exposed the horses to hunting, just from a bit more of a distance.
We are 3 hunts in to our Cubbing season. It is so great to be out there again, with all the old hunt friends out once again. Our first hunt of the season, when everyone is already a bit high on adrenaline and excitement for the first cubbing hunt, our landowner came out to observe us and sort of “Hilltop” with his beautiful Haflinger pulling him in a cart. It was a picture to behold, and added a lot of excitement to the horses that don’t fully appreciate a horse pulling a cart! LOL! By end of season it will be “Ho-Hum” to them, but wow - quite exciting for the first hunt!
[QUOTE=Beverley;7727479]
Buckskin and Wellspotted, where there’s a will, there’s a way! Just Do It. There are plenty of enablers here. I just arranged for a friend to go hunting for the first time in Tennessee in a couple of weeks, welcomed by a Master I’ve never met. Go for it![/QUOTE]
I started to do some research on how to get involved in a hunt. There is a hunt club that goes out off a road about 5 minutes from my barn. I have also been taking my horse to Hunt Valley to ride the trails with a friend and school jumps in and out of the fields. He’s 14.3 so I have been practicing opening and closing gates while mounted as well. It’s like I’ve been practicing without realizing it. :lol:There is a hunt club near the trails that I have walked my horse through. I’ve taken him by the kennels where the hounds are kept to see what he thought of the sounds. He seems rather unfazed by them so that gives me confidence he could do well. He’s a generally unflappable horse and adapts to new situations very well even if he is a bit nervous. If I don’t go out this year I will definitely be looking to go out next year!
I’ve been out four times so far and what a bang up start to the season! The hounds have been great! All the hard work staff put in this summer is really paying off. My main hunt horse has been a dream boat…beautifully rate-able, going on the buckle, relaxed and happy to a degree I’ve never seen before. This is my sixth season hunting this one and I think all the pieces have fallen in place, he totally gets it. Tally Ho!
