Whatever, Monster is in a much better mood tonight after 30 minutes letting off steam.

I’ve been using the Endomondo app on my iPhone to log the distance of our usual hacking routes. One of the other things it tells me is the speed we get up to. Which means I could now, if I wanted too, tell you Mabels top speed. Or at least the canter speed she’s comfortable at on a hack. Rather surprisingly it is not as fast as Monster likes to go, so I have to hold Monster back. Still, this is better than teaching Mabel to rush off rather than use her power. I’m sure that the hacks and the chance to stretch her legs and horizons does her good rather than being permanently restricted to arenas where a corner is always coming up. It’s not doing Monster bad either who went copied Mabel and went into into extended trot the other day. Rather odd.

This mornings hack was little on the cold side, and rather treacherous underfoot. Even some of the off-road sections were slippery. Still, it’s better than the conditions our friends back at the Vale of Lune have been facing. They’ve done well to get as many meets in as they have so far this season, but last Wednesday they were defeated by the wind and rain. I’m looking forward to seeing them all at the Hunt Ball.

Settled into their new home it’s been time to introduce Mabel to the joys of hacking out. Being a world-weary H=hunt horse Monster has seen it all and makes a good babysitter – so long as we don;t tell anyone about that stream crossing. Anyways, traffic has little respect for a youngster, even if she is nearly 17 hands and with an even bigger presence. Normal hi-viz helps you be seen, but sometimes you just need a little more.

These Polite jackets form Equisafety are just the ticket. Now even the doddery old fool in his Volvo 440 slows down. It has to be said that the boy racers round here have, so far, been the drivers who have behaved best. Mums with fraught kids in the car and just plain stupid older men who don’t think they need to slow down on the way to getting to the newsagent for a Daily Mail are the worst offenders.

Pastures New

I didn’t expect Moster to settle in quite so quickly, especially with daily turnout, but she has made herself at home. Since the snow melted we’ve done some exploring of the local bridleways. Hmm, we need to learn to like heavy clay.

Mabel OTOH is still not quite settled. Hopefully a bit of work – fortunately there’s a lunging paddock and a spiffingly surfaced arena – will give her something to think about and calm her down. In the meantime it seems like every day we get a text of “What Mabel did next” including eating fences, trying to escape fields, pulling her rug off…

Me-Moing