Sandford Dingley cancelled, replaced by  Barbury Castle 9th December 2007

Sorry,  no photographer present

Already very wet ground, coupled with the forecast of a lot more rain towards the end of the week, left Liz Pooley and myself with no option on Monday but to cancel the Stanford Dingley meet and on the day the water meadows were meadows of water! We were right. Fortunately, Penny and Nigel Bunter stepped into the breach once more and put the Barbury Castle estate at our disposal. Even though no longer organising, the rookie’s bad luck stuck with me when my lorry’s batteries died a sudden, unresuscitateable death! Was I pissed off??  Horse plaited, tail washed, immaculate – she sorted that in one minute of being turned out in wet mud! It seems that breaking down lorries were the order of the day!

CW 

 This promised to be a very wet and windy Sunday.  How fortunate then that the brave souls who arrived were treated to three great lines in completely dry weather!  Visitors included some from the Sandhurst, whose own meet was cancelled due to wet ground, and one from Argentina.  With the exception of two stubble fields, the remainder of the 10 miles or so consisted of old grasslands and gallops, without a deep foothold to be had.  A minor setback before the start of the first line was the hounds following scent that had been carried by the wind over to the second half of the line, but they were soon put on the right track and off we went over a hedge and up the grass to the top of the Downs, more solid jumps and a welcome breather for horse and rider as we walked our way down a steep hill (watched by 30 odd piebald cobs in the neighbouring field) to regain the lower gallops and set off once more for a good long pipe-opener straight into the December breeze, bringing colour and smiles to everyone.  A check was taken in the valley while we waited for the runner to gain distance along the next line.  This time, hounds were well on track and continued without fault up the long steady ascent to gain the higher ground by the road above Sharpridge, giving the riders the opportunity to tackle the variety of felled tree jumps en route, finishing with the challenging four “JonBoys” jumps.  Did anyone succeed in jumping all four I wonder?  The end of the second line brought an extraordinary conversation that was supposed to relate to Hunt buttons but the content of which only consenting adults should hear.  I shall not divulge except to say the instigator then got an unfortunate groin strain and chose, wisely, to return slowly to the boxes.

The third line brought a couple of hounds (one particularly black (Romford, of course!)) who opted to stay with Robin, our huntsman, before setting off so when I spotted a black creature running towards me half way through the third line I wasn’t overly surprised until I realised this one had quite long hair!  We had gained a spaniel in our pack!  But no, he was hot-footing his way back to his owners who were enjoying the colourful spectacle nearby.  The end of the third line saw tired but happy horses and riders with the only faller being one of our foot followers who slipped on to his backside when negotiating a down hill run.  We made our way back to the boxes in the sunshine to tend our willing mounts before tucking in to hot venison casserole and melt-in-the-mouth bread and butter pudding.

PB.