A Grand Day Out
The East Pennard Fun Ride - Sunday 5th September 2010

Neil MacKinnon and Harry Brownhorse

Well, we made it. We had promised Ginnie that we would attend the East Pennard fun ride, and we did, despite the fact that when we left Weston – s - Mare it was precipitating down.

‘We’ consists of myself, my wife Wendy and our two ponies Folly and the infamous Harry. Folly is seventeen and has always been a bad loader, but as a result of a lot of work, she is getting better and better, mind you, things looked like they were not going to work out when we arrived to hook the trailer up.

To start it was raining, actually it was pouring down and the ponies looked extremely nonplussed to see us. I drove over to hook the trailer up, which meant I had to move some electric tape and let the ponies into the lower field. As soon as they were past the tape the two of them were off; bucking, rearing, farting and tearing around at pretty much a flat out gallop. Oh good! They are going to be so keen to go in the trailer this morning.

As it turns out, my fears were unfounded and after Folly loaded without any problems, Harry joined her and we were on our way by 8.15am (ahead of schedule). By the time we reached East Pennard, there was very little rain, and so we said our hello’s, booked in, tacked up two wet ponies and headed off.

The initial riding was on grass, road and field roadways. After a short while we came into the field where the photographer was waiting to get shots of us at full tilt. This seemed unlikely to happen, as Harry decided the RIDE sign in combination with the photographer sign were defiantly Tigers and they were, without a shadow of a doubt, going to eat him. I managed to convince him otherwise and once we realised where we were supposed to be going, it was not too much trouble to persuade Harry to take off like a scalded cat. What was not so easy, was to convince him that the photographer really didn’t want to see his Thelwell pony impersonation. You know the picture, the one where the pony has his head between his front legs and his back legs ten foot up in the air (anyone at the Trec day will know how good Harry is at this impersonation!). In the end he did settle into a nice canter, and I have the pictures to prove it.

We were overtaken a few times; one rider keeping us company for a little way, everyone was very courteous and friendly, which is not always the case on fun rides. We had some great uphill canters on the land around the Glastonbury Festival site, I wish I had land like this nearer to home, I would take some of the work out of keeping Harry fit instead of fat.

The paths were many and varied and included what appeared to be an old drovers road, as well as bridleways, which had obviously benefited from the work of the MBBA. There were also some paths around very tempting orchards. You have no idea how hard Wendy and I worked to prevent attacks on both the trees (Folly loves trees…yum yum) and the fruit (Harry loves apples). I’d also like to say ‘hello’ to the two MBBA walkers we past. It was really nice to see you both and it makes a great change to see people on foot as well as hoof, enjoying the landscape. (These two walkers were in fact Dawn and Jo who are in training for their great Trek to Machu Picchu in October to raise funds for the Mark Davies Injured Riders Fund).

One thing both Wendy and I though was great, was the availability of water troughs. H is not a great drinker, but Folly really appreciated the chance to have a little drink and so we stopped a couple of times at nice clean troughs and saw other riders doing the same thing. Nice one MMBA team. I also thought the route marking method, of bright tape on trees and poles was excellent, another feather in the organisers cap.

Of course, the VERY best bit of the ride, was the egg and bacon roll and the coffee at the end, Harry’s not the only one who likes his grub, and that coffee hardly touched the sides.

I think it’s a bit of a shame that the weather appeared to keep some people away, it only rained for a short while and the rest of the day was perfect riding weather; warm and dry with just enough breeze to keep the flies away. Ah well, maybe we’ll see you there next year.

A big Thank You to the organisers and marshals, the four of us had a great day, topped off by Folly loading on the first attempt and in about two minutes flat, RESULT all round I’d say.