3C sabs headed out to a few different places yesterday for the Boxing Day meets with two of us going to the Ross Harriers, having said hello to the Ledbury Hunt in town on the way.
The Ledbury huntsman Mark was obviously still upset by the killing of the fox on Christmas Eve, making a comment to one sab about making gravy out of the “giblets” that sabs had picked up after the kill (see our last posts for pictures) with his sidekick Tim (a whipper-in) making a similar comment to the other sab. ‘Cooksey’ drove by with terriermen-types as usual in his vehicle, trying to hide their faces.
As we headed off to the Harriers in Ross, one of our regular sabs hitched a ride into Ledbury to see the hunt off. Mark spotted him in the crowd, pointing at him and loudly stating “that man is an anti” to the people all around him. Tim, meanwhile, was calling Cooksey and one of his boys in to try and intimidate him… the sab then managed to get the guy’s face on camera. Oops. Looking around the crowd, there seemed to be a lot of people out who never actually bother to go to a normal Ledbury hunt meet. So much for hundreds of people supporting the hunt – proper support isn’t about showing up in town to something conveniently placed and timed on the way down to the local pub!
Over in Ross-on-Wye, the market place was less busy than we had anticipated with many of the people looking like they’d just stopped by whilst going out for a coffee or to the shops – some even complaining about the lack of parking when heading for their morning coffee. Hounds left some poo outside shops and in and around the crowd, people being happy for the dogs to jump up on their legs and get attention until some realised that they had poo on their paws. Instead of a clever “clean-as-you-go” policy, it was left for a considerable time then cleaned up after the hunt had moved off (though how they picked some of the more watery stuff up we don’t know…). Huntsman Simon and huntmaster Anna found complaints by locals about the poo funny… What mature people.
The hunt itself felt like a bit of a non-event for much of the day, although as we always try to make clear, if you’re not with all of the hounds all of the time, you can’t promise that it was a no-kill day. With foot-sab still being injured-foot-sab she was happy that she ended up inland for so long, the hunt drawing and re-drawing the same covert and fields surrounding it for around 2.5 hours(!) Car support and even members of the field can’t have found that particularly interesting. They did pick-up a few times and even chased, but considering fox-hunting was always about the long chases across large amounts of land, it’s certainly changed a lot in this part of the world! To be fair to the hunt, it was wet and they seem to have lost a lot of support and therefore land recently, so they’re doing their best… We’re just wondering how the rest of the season will go.
We’ve made a silly video about the day, so check it out. What else can you do on a dark Boxing Day night? There’s nothing upsetting in it unless you’re scared of poo…