A proper cracker

A last day’s hunting before lockdown turns out to be a special one as hounds fly on a screaming scent

- CATHERINE AUSTEN

A GOOD friend and I have a sort of code expression for a disappointing day’s hunting.

“How was it?” one asks.

“It was lovely to be out…” replies the other.

We know exactly what we mean; barring disasters, an unexciting day’s hunting is always better than not going at all, but not every day is a great one. Of course, this makes you appreciate the really good ones even more, and my reply in the lorry on the way home from the North Cotswold on 30 December was, “It was a proper cracker.”

In the seven-and-a-half years I have lived in the Heythrop country, until recently I had barely ever had a day with our neighbours, the North Cotswold. There was no good reason for this, except that if you pay a subscription to a pack and aren’t rolling in money, you tend to want to get as much bang for your buck as having one horse allows, and paying a visiting cap makes the overdraft wobble rather.

However, I now live and keep my horse within sight of the North Cotswold border and thoroughly enjoyed my few days’ autumn hunting with joint-master and huntsman Oliver Dale, who is in his third season with them. The Heythrop kennels are in Oxfordshire, which went into tier four on Boxing Day, meaning that Christmas Eve was my final Heythrop day before lockdown. But as I live in Gloucestershire and the North Cotswold were meeting just a few miles away in that county, I was allowed to go out with them.

There was snow on the ground and I had no real expectations – I just wanted to go hunting; to get that mind and brain reboot that a day in the fresh air on a horse with a pack of hounds gives. It was going to be “lovely to be out”, regardless of what happened.

LIVING IN HARMONY