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Sunday 11th August 2002 dawned overcast but mild. First string horse being frogless meant The Flubbles was a late substitution into the twenty mile pleasure ride at West Moor organised under the auspices of Endurance GB. We loaded up and trundled off to the other side of Dartmoor, on the way we gaily noted that the weather was deteriorating until, on arrival at the venue, it was chucking it down with a high wind.
The designated car parking area was waterlogged so we unloaded on the adjacent cattle market's hard standing . Flubbles compared the six inches of lush grass on the original parking area with the lichen he was now standing on - unhappy cobby chappy, then he looked at the driving drizzle and mist, turned and gave me one of those 'Pleasure Ride? You call this Pleasure?' looks. Hetja, on the other hand, just cast a critical eye at the weather and said 'Pah! It's like an Icelandic Summer'.
All around us muscly Ah-rabs were being unloaded, vetted, tacked up and ridden off. More lycra than the Tour de France, headfuls of Troxels, some seriously scientific saddle designs and lots of good humour - especially as we wobbled fat cob down towards the farrier and vetting - The Thelwell Pony at The Races was the image I had as the lean, mean riding machines rolled their eyes in mirth at my lean, mean eating machine. )
Vetted (starting pulse of 60 as his girly was trotted away from him at the same time), tacked up and off to the start. '5,4,3,2,1, - go' said the starter whereupon Flubbles lifted his head from the grass and ambled off with Hetja flying wingman. First two miles or so he did the 'young horse pulls like a tank' thing wanting to catch up every, single, last horse in front. Soon he settled and the two of them took up an even pace.
We crossed Davistow Airfield and went onto West Moor. The visibility was not good and, fortunately, the route was really well marked with markers about every 200 - 300 yards - even then we sometimes had trouble spotting the next one and getting lost would have been pretty easy at times (still managed to lose the route twice). Up to the half way point the two horses were slowing a tad and thoughts of 'Fat Boy is knackered' were bubbling to the top until, on turning for home he put his 'going home' head on and we were off.
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The second half was a fair bit quicker than the first - this time the rain was on the other side of us just to keep the damp patches symmetrical. Hetja was working away like a little Trojan, totally nonplussed by the whole thing - even cantering off after a pair of nippy Arabs that came past. Flubbles showed his youth in places - quite noticeably crabbing away from the wind and rain (cannot blame him really it was naff) so loads of right rein on the way out and left on the return. He flung two really bolshie naps in at one point when we crested a rise and got the full force of the wind in our faces 'B*gger this for a game of soldiers' he cried doing a rapid 180 and crashing back down the slope, Hetja just sniggered. Also stopped by a sink hole for him to have a drink, a ten foot across, dark and mysterious puddle in the face of the moor - daft prat jumped in it. Stood there belly deep in the water and began to play with it splashing around with his dinner plate front feet like a kiddy in the bath.
Anyways - the rain stopped with about 5km to go and the two neddies skipped along the road back to the start. Both were feeling a little tired but nothing serious, Flubbles was definitely slowing but Hetja had the look of being able to extend to another 10 miles or so quite easily. We vetted and Flubbles got a 46 and Hetja a 48 - they both need to get used to being separated as the sight of one being trotted up tends to get the other excited and up goes the pulse (not a worry as the vets didn't really need to do pulse for us on the Pleasure Ride anyway).
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Fiona was chuffed as, not only did the vet spot that Hetja was an Icelandic Horse and ask to see tölt, but we met two other Icelandics to boot. She did get called a pony a few times though :-) [Hetja not Fiona - ones hairier than the other so even I can spot the difference]. We also noted that nobody made 'sizeist' comments which we tend to get a lot around here when riding out - I'm on a 13.2hh cob, Fiona on a 12.3hh Icelandic and you'd be surprised how many people think we've borrowed the kid's ponies for the day. I commented on how many BIG horses there were there until Fiona pointed out that there was nothing much over 16hh - we're just used to the compact editions so 15.2hh seems huge. I'd guess 14.2hh - 15hh would be about the average of the horses there (about 90-100 I'd guess) mostly Arab, some light, compact TBs, and sprinklings of other stuff.
Flubbles was still quite indignant as, not only was there still no grass where we were - he'd been out for three and a half hours and never got to go to the pub - I know the feeling.
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