Serious bragging rights

Zippy and I were somewhat surprised to be brought in early by a stranger this afternoon. It turned out Sarah was here to ride Zippy - evidently Sarah and Zippy used to go on amazing adventures together.

Anyway Lynette finally turned up too and we were both tacked up and Lynette jumped on board, which is always when I breathe out, so Sarah had to do my belt up quite a few notches, otherwise we would have been trying side saddle again !

It turns out we were going for a hack. Sarah waited to mount Zippy until we were out the gate and Benji dog was safely left behind. Zippy had other ideas and decided to run away when she wasn't looking; so I got a bit confused about which direction we were supposed to be going. Lynette had me pointing one direction and Zippy was going the other way. Sarah was not impressed and told Zippy she was supposed to be setting me an example, but it was ok I didn't mind.

Finally with Sarah on Zippy facing the right direction we headed off down the lane. Not 20 yards down the road just before the railway bridge a cyclist popped out of nowhere with a dog, gave me a bit of a fright so I turned to head home, well Zippy thought that was an excellent idea as that was the direction she wanted to go in anyway and bolted after and past me!

Lynette asked me to stop and turn around so I did and we started to go investigate the cyclist, she was a lovely lady with a very well behaved dog and they stopped to let us past. Sarah had by now persuaded Zippy to turn around but she wasn't keen at all. Then on top of the bridge a huge cargo train went underneath us - that was ok because we quite often to stop on the bridge to watch the trains - I think Lynette's a secret train spotter.

I didn't realise hacking could be so exciting so off I marched to see what else we could find with Zippy trailing after us. She finally caught us up when we had to stop to let a car and van go past, then because another car was waiting Lynette asked me to trot up the hill, so I took the lead and trotted to the top past the waiting car.

Then we went past Uncle Eric's yard and carried on up the lane. I think Zippy must have been very full of grass and all this rain makes her joints ache so she was on a bit of a go slow and was somewhat taken by surprise when Lynette suggested another trot. Such fun. I was loving it trotting ahead on my first hacking adventure, no sooner had we really got going then Lynette decided we had to head home.

Gutted I was not impressed and walked very slowly to show my disapproval, I wanted to carry on on our great adventure. Ok so Lynette might have been right because I was getting quite tired by the time we got home. Benji was there to welcome us and said we really hadn't been gone that long, only half an hour or so.

Wow what a day can't wait to go out again and I have passed my hacking exam too. Just cantering and solo hacking to go, bring it on!