Spick and span

As thoughts begin to turn gradually towards the hunting season, spare a thought for your kit. Is it still in the state it was left in back in March? Never fear, Octavia Pollock has plenty of advice on how to get it in tip-top shape

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WHEN I consulted friends about tips for cleaning kit after a muddy season, one reported that her mother once admitted, after too much blackberry vodka, that she “would get in the shower wearing nothing but her boots and her hunt coat and her husband would hose her down”.

We pass no comment, except to say that the fundamental principle is a good one, to get everything clean as soon and as thoroughly as you can.

However, I know I will not be alone in having arrived at the middle of summer, when hunt horses are beginning to join hounds on exercise, without removing the evidence of the closing meet. It’s not too late to stave off a pre-opening meet panic. So, if you are similarly tardy, dig out that rag and get cleaning.

CUTLERY AND COAT-CLEANING

THERE are conventional ways of de-mudding a coat, with brushes and wire wool favoured, but the crucial thing is that the implement not be too hard, lest it damages the nap of the cloth.

“I was told a silver spoon is good for getting dried mud off,” says Orlando Bridgeman, who hunts in Yorkshire, “as it has a thin edge. It seemed to work when I tried it!”

Stylist Sarah Kate Byrne, known for cutting a dash sidesaddle, admits she is among the tardy cohort: “I will likely leave my kit uncleaned until the next time I go hunting, but I use a knife for thick mud.”