How to get a job in hunting

The British Hound Sports Association's apprentice scheme is providing young people with excellent all-round training in the skills required - and many others besides, as Tessa Waugh discovers

- Tessa Waugh

HOW do you go about pursuing a job in trailhunting in 2024? More importantly, does anyone want to pursue a job in trailhunting in 2024? The answer is an encouraging yes.

We are at a point in history where many of the people employed in trail-hunting have no experience of the sport preban, and even the challenge of a Labour government is failing to deter young people from getting involved. In July of this year, six new apprentices joined the British Hound Sports Association (BHSA)'s apprentice scheme at packs across the country, including the Taunton Vale, South Devon, Belvoir and West Norfolk.

For the past 19 years, this apprentice scheme and its precursor, the Masters of Foxhounds Association (MFHA) bursary scheme, have attracted an average of seven or eight applicants per year.

The majority complete the programme and most go on to a full-time job in hunt service.

Former huntsman of packs including the Heythrop and North Shropshire, Julian Barnfield's role at the BHSA includes supporting hunts and apprentices who embark on the programme and helping to place apprentices in a job when they complete. Like many of his generation, Julian has witnessed the traditional route into hunt service become eroded over time.

"When I started as a young man, lots of hunts had good staffing levels. You could start at the bottom of the ladder and work up at the correct rate.

Nowadays, even the larger hunts are operating with less staff, so the natural system and progression is no longer there," he says.

He recalls a conversation he had with Nigel Peel, respected former amateur huntsman, in the early 2000s about the lack of people coming into hunt service. It was generally thought that something needed to be done to formalise a route into hunting.