Carrie's Foxhunt Season (The Backlog!)

Carrie has been riding a lot. She's wanted to join a foxhunt group and she found one in Oak Ridge.

Jessica and Indy went along for fun at first until Jess signed up, as well. They are the two youngest members of the club.

I haven't been on any of the hunts, but Carrie's taken her GoPro along several times.

She could tell the stories much better than I could.....but she's asleep. 

I downloaded a bunch of pictures from her Facebook and I'm going to tell some stories. A few may even be correct.

Carrie has been trying to ride three days a week. Wednesdays are trail ride days. Here, she's out with Laura on Eowyn, Barbara on Maddie, Person IDK1 on Horse IKD1, and Person IDK2 on Horse IDK2 (though one may be Karen?).

The trail rides have frequently been at Kim S' place up the road from us. We're trying to sell Eowyn and a few people showed up and rode her on one of these trail rides.

Friday and Sunday mornings are Hunt days. In the beginning, Carrie and Jess didn't have their full kits.

A bunch of deliveries later, I know Carrie's at least kitted out!

She's found deals online that she's proud of. If she's bought a lot of gear, I can at least rest easy she never pays retail and loves gently used treasures. The husbands of other riders have asked her for help tracking down Christmas presents for their wives, ha!

Lilly is Carrie's main ride. Jess was trying out Eowyn here.

Eowyn eventually went off to Sarah G's farm for training, marketing, and (hopefully) selling. More on that later.

For those who don't know, fox hunting is basically an excuse to off-road in a social group on horses.

The hunt master has dogs. The dogs run off sniffing, barking, and trying to scare something up to chase. All of the riders then charge after the dogs trying to look good as they do it.

The dogs are trained to look for foxes ("fox" hunt...). Deer don't factor into the equation other than watching out for them on the road over.

Depending on the day, different kits and even braiding of horse manes and tails could be required.

Carrie's been trying to show how serious she is about being an active member of the hunt. There's a chance she could be trained as a whipper-in. That would mean she would be counted as staff and help keep the hounds together. She might have to run off from the group to bring stray dogs back to task.

Every hunt ends with a tailgate. Carrie skipped those in the beginning, but she's more sociable now.

PS - Braiding a horses hair is a lot of work. Carrie 'cheated' and paid someone to come out and braid Lilly's hair for "Opening Day."

Jess did Indy's by hand and it took her hours. He's got a lot less hair than Lilly, too.

Oak Ridge is a smaller hunt club. They had the option for Carrie to join as a single rider ($). Farmington is a large hunt group in the area, but they require married members to join at the family level ($$$$$). The price difference went from hundreds to thousands of dollars for membership. Since Shane and I aren't going to join any rides or go to any social events, Carrie didn't spare more than a moment's thought about Farmington.

Carrie has felt right at home with Oak Ridge. They've had different social events that she's gone to.

Which is big if you know Carrie! Jessica's gone with her to a lot of events and I count that as a blessing, too.

So...I didn't tell the story about Carrie helping an older woman who nearly fell off her horse. Nor did I mentioned there was the clay pidgeon shooting event where Carrie showed off her markswoman skills. I didn't mention her cool canteen, any crazy jumps, or when she trailered out to ride with Farmington to represent Oak Ridge. For all those details, you'd have to ask the rider herself.

She's got a beautiful smile.

The rider. Not the horse.