The Hunt Ball

Each of you has asked about the hunt ball on Saturday night:

• The ball was a smashing success -- we had a ball! The men were resplendent in their scarlet tails with canary lapels, the women were elegant in their black and blue floor length gowns.
• The bartender was a bit surly but we won him over.
• The food was smashing.
• The band was excellent.
• The whip cracking contest was thrilling. My friend Robbie won by cracking a whip something fierce without ever cracking a smile -- very serious cracker. There was actually a "crack-off" because my other friend Rebecca, who had never cracked a whip in her life, almost beat Robbie, the honorary whip, ironically. Robbie's prize was .... a whip. Very excellent.
• Roger, the master, tried to get me up on the floor to compete but I demurred. Then I went out into the foyer to practice for next year.
• I was deemed the "woman with the best hair." My hairdresser did my hair to much oohs and ahs from everyone. It took me hours to get undone later. Hundreds of little rubber bands and bobby pins. He told me that I was "not exactly flame retardant" due to the amount of hairspray he used but that I "would withstand a category 4 hurricane."
• Someone committed a major faux pas by wearing a red dress -- only female masters can wear a red dress so she was castigated by the staff. TRADITION!
• The next day we went hunting at Hardwood, the site of opening day. Roger congratulated those of us who made it out and said we all got little check marks in his black book for having such excellently strong constitutions.
• The day of hunting was fabulous. We "drew the pond" early in the day and pursued the fox over some very large manmade jumps -- the largest I have yet done on Burton. Then we jumped innumerable logs in the woods, definitely the most jumping I have done out hunting.
• I learned how to foxhunt in snow and ice -- a little slippery in the woods but the footing out in the wide open cornfields was excellent.
• We got as far as Pleasant Prospect -- quite a ways -- and then had a fabulous gallop across three open cornfields at top speed. It may have been the fastest flat out gallop I've ever done.
• Beautiful sunny day -- blue sky.
• During our fierce gallop, my friend Jonathan came up next to me and we turned to each other and said, "Well, hello! Beautiful day, what? Excellent sport!" We remarked how far we've come that we can chit chat on the back of horses going 35 mph over snow and ice without a single worry.
• Funniest thing about the hunt was Jonathan borrowed a crop from Dale before the meet.
• We gave him a nice black crop with a handle and a tassle. By the end of the day the handle was gone as was the tassle -- totally destroyed. He said, "Here, you can have this back, uh, thanks." Hilarious.
• I also got to drive one of our trailers (we had five going on Sunday) with horses in it. Very fun. First time I had driven a trailer fully loaded.
• Now we are all getting ready for the race meet and the old fashioned point to point that occurs two weeks before the race meet (we all ride in the old-fashioned). We expect no hunting the rest of the week due to the snow storm.