Y’all are far more experienced at hunting than I am, so please forgive newbie mistakes. This hunt report is really more for the novice who wants to try things out than it is for experienced hunters: choose your introduction carefully.
Disclaimer: I’ve been hunting only with two different hunts. One in Ireland, and one in Nevada, and by my comparison, I can’t figure why everybody thinks the Irish are crazy, when it’s the Nevadans that have nerves of steel and hunt far more dangerous country than the civilized Irish. I blame Mike Matson and his lust for funny videos. 8)
I went out with the Red Rock Hounds, a well-established hunt north of Reno in Nevada. FABULOUS hospitality, WONDERFUL horses. TERRIFYING territory.
The ground is covered in sage, which means there’s not a straight line to be cantered. You are pole-bending the entire time (something I did NOT prepare for, and did not have the lateral stability for). Now, add speed if you raise quarry, and steep hills to that, and you’ve got Speed-Racer dodgem cars going up and Man-from-Snowy-River doing blind-folded moguls straight downhill. And you’d better keep up because you’ll never find your way home by yourself.
The very experienced ladies who took me out must have been understandably puzzled by my abject terror, since they ride that country daily. But for those of us who can only prepare by riding school horses for an hour, max, in arenas, you are better off going to Ireland where the fields are just slightly larger arenas, than going west where there is no flat and there is no straight and you go for hours at altitude and chase faster quarry. Possibly for tens of miles. Alternatively, if you ride stock horses, cut cattle, go horse camping in the mountains, and live on adrenalin but don’t want to jump, Nevada would be more your thing.
I had no idea that preparing to hunt out west should include 1000 feet changes in altitude within minutes, marathon hula hoop or belly dance sessions (to strengthen you for the constant lateral dodging), and mind bending zen study so you can release your sense of control to the horse, who is going to go left, right or over regardless of your interference, and you have to figure out how to stick on.
I have never been so scared in my life. Funny. Some folks from this hunt went to Ireland and hunted there just after I did this year, so a natural question to ask others (at the MAGNIFICENT hunt breakfasts they offered) was, “Did you go on the Irish hunt?” And several folks there said, “Oh, no, I’m afraid to jump anymore”. I’m thinking, “You’re afraid to jump a 3 foot wall on flat ground from a straight approach but you’ll hunt THIS TERRITORY???!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!” Not enough exclamation points to express my incredulity.
Takes all kinds in the world, I know. But WOW, do I have respect for the ladies of the Red Rock Hounds who make it look easy. And let me tell you, it has little to do with my age. I am ashamed to admit it, but I was grovellingly grateful for the lady 10 years my senior who led me around in the second field like a kid on a pony. She’d taken up hunting (in THESE WILD LANDS) in her 60s in order to ride with her grandchildren. Fearless! Fearless!
Multiple thanks to my new friends there. Can’t wait to go again.
I almost got away with not owing a bottle until the horses owner ask me how he did. Darn whoopie wagons!
(and yes, I did stay on.) We also jumped barbed wire, and a gate that was hanging sideways by one hinge. The mare I rode was said to be, and I quote: “A real Mercedes Benz to ride” and while she was a lovely, honest ride, I’m thinking she was more likely a Chevy 4x4. And I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.