A rattling good day

A classic day in High Leicestershire serves to showcase the Cottesmore's country, hounds, huntsman and long-serving stalwarts

- ANDREW SALLIS

SITTING at the meet of the Cottesmore hounds, it was impossible to be offended by the unfolding tapestry. A well-mounted field was assembling in front of a traditional Rutland farmhouse. Stories of their recent red-letter day abounded as locals greeted visitors.

Yet it didn't bode well. The overnight frost was being sucked out of the ground by a bright sun, which looked as if it would lift scent without a care. But the hounds neatly arranged around their huntsman had a different idea and produced a rattling good day.

It was half-term and my son, Freddie, was wide-eyed at his first "open" season day in High Leicestershire; a Cottesmore Tuesday, no less. We both had excellent hirelings from Diana Jack for first horses and hacked to the meet with the chairman, Nicholas Leeming, who extolled the hunt's virtues.

"And we have a brilliant field master in William Bell. He has a real instinct for hunting and goes very well," he chimed.

Earlier, we had already enjoyed a proper hunting breakfast with Nicholas and his wife Emma, and Andrew Osborne, former master and huntsman of these hounds, now chairman of the Masters of Foxhounds Association.

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THE meet gave me a chance to reacquaint myself with a few old friends. I noted, too, several different collars among the 60 mounted on a weekday, which is a good sign, reputationally.

Bee Bell MFH, William's mother, arrived mounted and leading her grandson, George Tait. Her nephew, Archie Smales, was also nearby. Both children were armed with hunting horns in leather cases and hunting whips. The Cottesmore young are clearly prepared; you never know what might happen.