Foxhunting in NH with longtime friends, on an Interwebz-famous horse!

By now you're probably wondering what I'm doing in New Hampshire when I was in Vienna and the Czech Republic last week, but I promise it makes perfect sense! My husband's family was spending the last weeks of summer up in Cape Cod, so on my way back from my work trip I flew into Boston to join everyone. Not a bad way to end a trip!

The fox hunt was really just a happy coincidence. Some of you really old-school bloggers may remember Brego, the original Eventing Percheron. He had his own blog back before blogging was cool, and he was barefoot before barefoot was A Thing. He and his mom used to live in Austin, and I think she was the first blogger I'd ever met IRL. She and I once went cross-country schooling together, and I got to ride him once before they moved up to their current location in New Hampshire.  He is one super-cool dude - not only does he have the best airplane ears EVAR, but he's got tons of experience hunting and eventing, and he's as honest as the day is long.

Hubby and Brego. Note The EARZ. How can you not love those?

So imagine my excitement when Brego's mom contacted me a month or so ago and, after exchanging a number of emails, kindly arranged for hubby and I to go hunting with her! Hubby got to ride Brego (lucky man), and I got to ride a fantastic Pinto named Trinidad (we all know how I loves me some spots!) There is truly nothing more fun that riding a horse that knows his job and loves it, and both Brego and Trinny fit the bill perfectly.

Hubby on Brego and Brego's mom on Sterling.

This was the first drag hunt we've ever been on, and it's quite different than our hunts in Texas. Whereas Texas hunts are huge open fields with smaller copses of trees, the hunts up here are in thick forests criss-crossed by trails, with the occasional field that one must go around the edge of (out of respect for the farmer's crops). I can't even imagine trying to get through such thick country on a live hunt - you'd lose the dogs in minutes. But the super amazing fun part of such a hunt is that there are loads of smaller jumps along the way, instead of the 3' coops set on fencelines that our regular hunt has. Riders can also choose to "gap" (go past) the jump, and it's really nice to have that option. I was a tad worried about how we'd do since neither of us has jumped seriously since this spring, but Brego and Trinny were foot-perfect, jumping everything in stride just as nice as you please. Hubby even did a log with a pretty big drop on the off side, and was grinning ear to ear after that one!

A quiet moment on one of the trails. Lookit all the trees!!! (And Trinny's ears and Brego's butt, lol)

Edging 'round one of the fields. You can sort of see the hounds down at the bottom of the hill.

Our lovely hostess on Sterling.

As an extra bonus, I met the owner of the Foxhunting Fresian blog!  Totally random, I had no idea she was even in the same part of the world. She and her mare were both lovely and very welcoming - it was such a pleasure to meet them! It's definitely been a whirlwind blogger meet-up for the past week.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled blogging at Wyvern Oaks. My travels are over, for the time being - it will be nice to be home!