Be kind to yourself

Tessa Waugh’s first post-lockdown meet is a tense affair on pent-up horses, and she resolves to revise her typically manic Christmas schedule to involve some genuine festive downtime

- Tessa Waugh

WE all know that if a horse isn’t getting enough work, it will mess you about. I hadn’t really considered this fact when we set off for hunting after the four-week lockdown. Strangely there were only 10 of us out, although plenty more on foot. I was expecting more after the long lay-off, but apparently it was the same elsewhere. My mother reporting on the South and West Wilts surmised that the weather didn’t help, concluding that the modern foxhunter is a softer specimen than the ones of old; a few drops of rain and wet going being enough to put them off.