Oakdale

Amusing and/or interesting items re this mornings ride:

• The scene at Dale's in the morning as quite calm. We loaded two trailers of horses in about 10 minutes (7 horses total). Pretty impressive. Dale has a white board in the barn with that day's hunt horses listed and columns for who's riding them, whether they are in, whether they are clean, whether they are tacked, and whether they are loaded. Only problem was when we arrived at Oakdale two of the horses had managed to literally turn all the way around in their stalls and were facing backwards out of the trailer. ? Dale said we should take a picture and post it as an example of "improper trailering." No clue how they did that, ride was only about .4 minutes long. Dale also said, "well, I guess I'll take these two out the back and not the side." Pretty funny.
• We also arrived at Oakdale without Burton's running martingale. Dale said, "he doesn't really need it, I guess. Although he was in all night and will be peppy." I said, "oh great." Then Dale said that actually I wouldn't need it but that if Crystal were riding Burton they would scurry and find one. She said, "won't be necessary the way you ride." I made some snide insecure comment. She said, "no you dingbat, you don't need it because you ride well!" Turned out I really didn't need it -- Burton was totally fine. Though bored because ride was so slow.
• On hunt, which was mostly walk with only 3 short-ish canters and lots of standing around, we were approached by a herd of deer through some sort of thicket. Roger calls out to staff -- "are they with antlers or without antlers?" It was funny.
• A hound got stuck in a paddock. For a while.
• Ryan was wearing the same stock tie as me -- which, by the way, I tied perfectly.
• Burton tried to pay a social call on the horse in the paddock the hound was stuck in, even though we were trotting by. Bizarre. Don't know what he was thinking.
• At one point I accidentally tossed Burton's reins over his head whilst trying to fix my hair. I felt vaguely like Pattie. Time to buy a hairnet. Fortunately Burton was occupied eating a cornstalk at the time so nothing happened
• Dale admonished me for starting in the back with Adrian. She flailed and smacked at my arm -- "what were you thinking being in the back?!?!" I told her it was all moot anyway since we mainly walked and halted. But next time I guess I will be more in the front. I ended up in the back of the front field, with Carter and Ryan. I was trying to avoid Crystal on her skinny gray thoroughbred. Don't like her.
• Carter taught me some things about hounds. Puppies are the ones with collars. The "H" litter is terrified of horses (that's the one that got stuck in the paddock). A dog that won't move is said to be "smelling and dwelling."
• At the end we had to wait around forever for Dale and Barry to get back because of the aforementioned hound that was STILL stuck in the paddock. Then a hound sat just inside the cornfield staring at Barry and wouldn't come out. Hound sat there staring for a while. Barry crouched 20 feet away making strange noises. Dale eventually had to go get another hound on a leash (i.e., lead line) to fish the scared hound out. Then Barry picked it up and carried it to truck.
• Turns out Barry lives at Pleasant Prospect. Don't tell Petra.
• Dale has an ad in the Equierry for "an aspiring professional foxhunter." Only way you know it's Dale is the phone number. Oh, and the fact that the ad says "thick skin and sense of humor encouraged. Horses must be your #1 priority." (see page 94 of current issue).
  Shipping on hunt days just gets put on my boarder bill. Pretty easy.
• I learned to drive the Gator. Burton has poor Gator manners and trots along side it. I almost fell out of the Gator as a result.
• I talked to Lori in the Gator. She turns out to be okay. She taught me things about how the barn works that I was too afraid to ask Dale so that worked out pretty well. There are very few boarders there. There is one tack room devoted to hunt tack and you don't need to buy your own hunt tack because they have oodles and Dale doesn't care. Then there is another tack room just for boarder tack. The cleaning supplies in the hunt tack room are for communal use which comes with the price that one is actually expected to help clean ALL the day's hunt tack before leaving. So I had to clean 4 bridles and hang up 7 girths. Hanging up the girths would seem easy except they don't have sizes on them anymore so you have to stand there in front of the rack and try to figure out which ones are 52s, which ones are 50s, etc. It took me a long time to do that with seven girths. I felt like I was on Sesame Street.
• The infamous Scrantons are Stephanie and Rob who ride Dale's horses. Dale won't let them meet her at the barn because she doesn't think they're good enough. Dale is scary. Stephanie rides Giggles and Rob rides Thor.