YESTERDAY we headed to Wiltshire along with Bath Hunt Sabs and Southampton Sabs to kennel watch the Tedworth Hunt, who we haven’t sabbed since the start of the season.
The hound van and horse boxes lead us to their meet at Wilcot Manor, just north of Pewsey. We waited around, hearing of locals disapproval of the hunt, before following them out. The hunt headed north, trying to put as much distance as they could between us and them but we kept up meaning they didn’t have chance to properly draw any of the woods or coverts near to the meet.
It was then on to one of their favorite haunts, the Pewsey Downs, where they stayed for the rest of the day. With poor road access and steep hills, this meant a long and hard day on foot for sabs.
We kept on them despite their attempts to lose us, with the hunt bolting any time we got close.
We came across hounds in cry, incidentally next to a sign which read “Conservation Area: Keep dogs on leads.”
A fast and ferocious downpour of hail added to the atmosphere as sabs intervened with the use of a Gizmo, horn and voice calls.
Persistence paid off; at first we got the hounds heads up and a few heading in our direction (see video), before getting most of pack with us and riders coming over to try and retrieve them.
This stalled the hunt for a few minutes and got hounds off whatever they were chasing, result!
From then on we were using vehicles and foot sabs to keep eyes on the hunt, which wasn’t easy considering the terrain, their eagerness to get away from us and their invisible support (they literally had no followers apart the rapidly diminishing field).
We lost them for a while and caught up with them later on in Gopher Wood, before following them back to box up.
A difficult day for us but by no means a bad one, without our presence the hunt would have had a free pass to do whatever they wished.
Tedworth Hunt, see you again soon.