Hard work, but a time

As the country winds down for Christmas, hunt staff gear up for their busiest time. Madeleine Silver discovers how to keep the show on the road through the festivities

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LYING in an eye wateringly cold river when she was whipping in to the Dartmoor is a Boxing Day Claire Bellamy is unlikely to forget.

“Most people would have gone home after that, but there was no choice but to stay out for the rest of the day,” says Claire, who is now master and huntsman of the Lauderdale. “That’s the thing about being hunt staff, you have a job to do.”

While the rest of the country hunkers down as Christmas looms, hunt staff ’s workloads crank up as they are thrown into the spotlight for some of their biggest days of the season.

“It was always amazing hunting on Christmas Eve when people would wish each other happy Christmas at the end of the day and then say: ‘What are you doing tomorrow?’ And you’d think, ‘We’re just doing the same that we always do, looking after the hounds and the horses,’” says Andrew Osborne, a Cottesmore master who retired from hunting the hounds last season.

“Everyone always says that there are two days of the season you have to get through — one is the opening meet and the other is Boxing Day, because they’re always rather stressful.”

As huntsman of the Southdown and Eridge, Gemma Stanish says: “All eyes are on you, the hounds and your horses on Boxing Day, because you’re the only ones in scarlet.”

A SENSE OF CAMARADERIE

Minimizing stress relies on military-style preparation.

“We hunt four days during Christmas week, and so it’s a busy time of year,” says Robert McCarthy, huntsman of the Percy, where they save their best country for the fortnight over Christmas.