Hit report 24/9/22
Chaos at the Flint and Denbigh hunt.
The Flint and Denbigh hunt met 8am at Green Isa in Trefnant, one of the few places they have left to go. They started with quite a number of field riders (by their standards) until a few got fed up and packed up early. They’d even brought out extra hunt supporters, including bringing Max (the serial sab grouper) out of hibernation. Thankfully the only times we saw him was driving into Green Isa in the morning and leaving when the hunt packed up. Not all the hunt supporters behaved themselves unfortunately, the occasion seemed to get the better of Alex the Honeymonster, swerving his car in a threatening matter at one of our sabs, then his usual infantile name calling, we’re sure he’ll enjoy explaining himself when he’s being interviewed by the police.
The hunt set off and headed towards the dismantled railway at the back of Green Isa, which is one of their favourite places to get onto foxes, but this time with sabs surrounding the area it was incident free. The hunt then crossed the road and headed towards Tyddyn Lunt farm. The huntsman Robert Medcalfs behaviour was quite bizarre, allowing his hounds the sniff all around as he used a number of horn calls. The field riders all hunched together. This went on for a few minutes until a sab walked over to Medcalf just to let him know they’re being watched, at which point Medcalf did round his hounds and headed for the A541.
The hunt crossed the road with terrier men acting as chief gate operators today, who knows why they need terriers with them to open the gates, but it is always better to have some brains with you….
The hunt headed in the direction of Berth Bach, they’re not really welcome in that area but that doesn’t seem to bother them, before heading to Perthewig woods, which is another of their favourite places to flush and hunt foxes. As always Medcalf put the hounds into the woods and Whipper-in Wilby stood on-point on a fox run on the bridleway that runs down and through Perethwig. Wilby couldn’t come up with a reasonable smokescreen as to why he always stands on a fox run, coming up with I’m stopping the hounds crossing the bridleway into the smaller wooded area behind me as they aren’t allowed in there anymore…. before they later took the hounds into that area. The hounds had picked up on a scent and Medcalf did nothing to discourage them, a young deer had been flushed and separated from it’s mother taking refuge amongst some calves in the next field. Hunt supporters holding up their baby “aww look the baby deer has lost his mummy”… YES because of the bloody hunt you’re out supporting! The hunt realising we had them on film from all angles now rounded up the hounds and moved on. They headed up the driveway of Ty Coch and Ty Coch Farm in the direction of the dismantled railway line where they killed a fox last November. Sabs positioned themselves ideally to make sure there wasn’t a repeat of that horrible day. The hunts smokescreen trail layers weren’t very convincing. We covertly filmed them pretending to lay a trail in a field next to where they’d killed in November, they dragged their rag across the filed, but the hunt never even entered that field, apart from whipper-in Wilby who was sent to stand on-point and was witnessed beating his saddle a tactic used during cubbing to scare foxes back towards hounds, and one stray hound that entered the field and headed towards where the rag had been dragged but shown absolutely no interest in the pretend trail. Huntsman Medcalf was attempting to hunt a small woodland with the field riders bunched together in a field, well the few that were still left as half the riders had had enough by now. Toby Dunn had been demoted from whipper-in to field master today, and his face told his disappointment. My now Medcalf was fuming and taking out his frustrations on his regular victim Wilby. The huntsman was randomly casting the hounds into fields then shouting at Wilby for not getting the other other side quick enough. At this point around 10am things got more chaotic as hounds got onto the A541 Bodfari roads, one vehicle witnessed swerving to avoid a hound, and a scream that sounded like a hound had been clipped by a vehicle, we couldn’t get onto the road to see at first as the riders had blocked us in. The police were however on scene and witnessed hounds all over the road running in every direction. Even the field riders were discussing amongst themselves how dangerous the road is, and field master Toby told the riders to turn back and head the other way as “sabs have called the police”.
It’s hard to tell what Medcalf and Wilby were upto now, surely they weren’t deliberately trying to cause an accident but it’s clear they’d lost complete control of the situation .
The hunt headed back towards Perthewig with hounds all over the place, some on the A541 and some running through the fields in the opposite direction to the huntsman. By now there were 2 police cars witnessing this sh#t show. The hunt then headed through the land Wilby had previously told us the hounds weren’t allowed on (when he was stood on-point waiting for flushed foxes). Medcalf wasn’t having a good day, when one of our sabs pointed out to him “We’re better at staying with you than your whipper-in is” Medcalf replied “This is the first time I’ve seen you all day” which was fantastic to hear as we’d actually been with him from the off, he’d not been out of our sight all days, and it’s when he thinks we’re not there that he attempts to hunt foxes. Clearly our tactics are working a lot better than theirs are. The hunt crossed the A541 again towards Tyddyn Lunt and took the long route back to the meet point, presumably looking for hounds and riders they’d lost on the way. The hunt had packed by 11am and Medcalf rode the terrier mens quad back to the kennels.
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