Despite
a somewhat traumatic week for the Balding family, the Boxing Day meet went ahead
as planned, just minus our host as fieldmaster. I cannot resist to quote from
H&H - "Ian, 68, mental age 25, has always made James Bond look a bit of a
pansy". It was a pretty close shave but he still proceeded to walk to the car
park "in something of a state" before being rescued by his ever vigilant gallop
man, Bryan Coventry. Ian was home for
Christmas, delivering orders for the organisation of the meet and lines. As ever, the going was excellent and the jumps perfectly prepared, hedges greened-up and some new chunky timber fences on offer. There are so many fences to jump here but Ian is always keen to build more for our, and his, delight. The first line was a good warm-up of easy, inviting fences before a steep climb up the Phoenix Reach gallop. Nobody had a problem stopping! Some hounds had overshot the turn onto the gallop and ended up on the road. A screech of brakes alerted us and a holler brought the hounds
back,
but on a route that ended in gorse andhuge holes on the steep
bank. Robin disappeared from view, leaving Bones to stand patiently watching,
while he extracted hounds and heaved them up at least a strata! The second line
was circular, ending a little downhill with several ponies out of control - good
thing the gate to the car park was shut! The third line went up the scurry
course in reverse direction. This is always a joy to ride with inviting big
ascending fences - don't look down in mid-flight as they are just as wide on the
landing side as the take-off! The "picnic rug" hedge out onto the public right
of way seems to have grown, and there were no picnickers there to observe the
underside of flying horses as there were so famously a few years ago!!Port and mince pies awaited all at the next check, brought and dispensed by the hard working Coventry family, with some help from some long-
standing
foot followers. The fourth line looked like it could be fraught with problems
from deer, spotted at the check at the end of the second line, spotted by our
cameraman at the beginning of the fourth line and causing interesting diversion
to some of the field during the line. A new loop, which could only be ridden by
Robin, seemed the most likely place for disaster to strike (Murphy and all
that), but our luck was in and the hounds had no distraction from truly
following the line. Perfect timing engineered by Ian, as the runners (quite a
few of Ian's lads) only just completed the lines ahead of the hounds, requiring
strong finishing speed that the stable would have been proud of!