Hunters In lockdown

There’s no hunting, yet many of us have fit, clipped horses. Let’s find ways still to enjoy them, says Catherine Austen

- Catherine Austen

TALK about all dressed up and nowhere to go. Nearly every hunting person in the country has a horse that’s fit and primed for the good spell of sport that so often follows Christmas. However, we’re in lockdown.

There’s no point trying to second-guess; we don’t know when we might be able to get going again, but let’s stay positive. Certainly if there is any chance of a few more days’ hunting, we want our horses to be ready to be able to make the most of them. And it’s January, it’s freezing cold and there’s no grass. Everybody’s setup is different, but just chucking your horses out doesn’t seem fair or kind.

Event rider and Beaufort field master Beanie Sturgis says, “I always think of [former Heythrop hunt secretary] Guy Avis quoting a poem called The Ten Commandments of Fox-hunting, which describes various ‘hunting sins’ as ‘abominations’, like ‘He that shall say that the day will be a bad-scenting one, or in any manner endeavour to prophesy evil, is an abomination’. Throwing clipped, fit, rugged-up horses out at the moment is, to my eyes, an abomination.”

So, what are we going to do with our hunters?

The answer, of course, for those who are lucky enough still to be able to do so, is ride them. While lots of us only tolerate hacking as essential to getting horses fit enough to go hunting and keeping them fit, it’s a lot more enjoyable when your other outside entertainment options are severely limited. And your horse isn’t the grass-bellied slug you plonked around the roads on during the summer; he or she is fit and on it, and more fun to ride.