Vets doing vital work for hunting

Representatives of the Veterinary Association of Wildlife Management enjoy a fun day with the Grafton, but their work has a very serious point to it

- By OCTAVIA POLLOCK

WATCHING the rain lash the windscreen as we waited for our hirelings, we did wonder, as sportsmen have done since the first wet dawn broke, what we were doing. Half an hour later, turning into the first field to be faced with a substantial hedge, we knew: trail-hunting... and there is no better way to spend a wet Saturday in November. I had come to join the Veterinary Association of Wildlife Management (VAWM) for their annual weekend of hunting and discussion. The host pack on this occasion was the Grafton, where joint-master Tam Leeming is an equine vet with Towcester Vets.

"I joined VAWM some 15 years ago," said Tam, who has been recently elected to the committee. "It's so important, it's about the reality, the survival of the fittest.”

The Grafton gave us a splendid welcome, with dinner at The Crown Inn, Weston, on Friday night, a “pre-meet” in John Thame MFH's party barn at Stuchbury Lodge and a quintessential meet proper in the redbrick yard of joint-master Charles Smyth-Osbourne's Rectory Farm.

A substantial field assembled, from old hands to six-year-old Bunty Leeming on her diminutive pony, led by her grandmother Sorrel Shepherd-Cross. Her elder siblings, Pearl, 12, and Thurston, 10, were enjoying their first day over hedges. Their father, Tom, completed the Leeming lineup – and put experienced hunters on their mettle by flying everything in sight.

There were plenty in sight too, as we skipped around the Grafton team chase course on land owned by the hospitable Magnay family, with beautifully presented hedges and rails. Pauses to swap hip flasks were few and the rain was barely noticed as Charles Smyth-Osbourne led the field with bold grace, his son Archie a chip off the old block on a smart chestnut.