Satin slips into top spot again

A Blencathra bitch takes the championship for the second successive year at this feast of fellhounds and Lakeland life

- TESSA WAUGH and MATTHEW HIGGS

RAIN poured down in biblical fashion at Rydal this year but it didn’t stop last year’s fellhound champion, Blencathra Satin 19, from seeing off the opposition to retain her crown under first-time Rydal judges, Angus Crozier, joint-master and huntsman of the Haydon and Oliver Dale, North Cotswold joint-master and huntsman.

In the morning the fellhound ring played host to the Coniston puppy show, which was judged by Melbreak huntsman Edward Liddle. Edward surveyed a quality assembly of entered and unentered hounds, awarding the championship to muscular Solo, an entered bitch walked by former Coniston master Roger Westmoreland.

Roger was pleasantly surprised by the result, saying, “I’d describe her as the perfect smaller hound, but I thought the judge would go for bigger.”

Edward was fulsome in his praise of the bitch who he noted was in “tremendous condition” and ticked all the conformation boxes with “a nice head and chest, good front end and strong back”.

FELLHOUNDS

FELLHOUNDS are embedded in Lakeland communities in a way that foxhounds elsewhere are not, as they spend the summer at walk. It is the walkers, rather than the huntsman, who show them at local shows through the off-season. The rapport between hound and handler is very much on display in the show ring and is particularly touching when the handlers are children who have been reared alongside their charges.

Owen Liddle, eight, son of Melbreak huntsman Edward, was industrious in his positioning of Melbreak Gambler 23 for the judges during the entered doghound class and the bond between him and the hound was tangible. Sister Isla, 10, won the overall best walked hound with unentered bitch, Melbreak Cobweb.