David Lewis and the Lamerton Hunt had the company of two sab groups on Saturday, DCHS plus Plymouth & West Devon Hunt Sabs. The meet was at Burnville House, not far from Lydford Gorge and Brentor Church. As usual, we were greeted with looks of disappointment from hunt followers and the words “don’t you lot have anything better to do?”. (The irony…) It was pretty frosty and conditions were good for scent, so we were braced for a difficult morning as we knew the hunt were likely to head to the gorse-covered slopes of Gibbet Hill and Smallacombe Bottom, which have been quite challenging to sab in the past.
The hunt with its two field riders set off from the meet and tried to give our foot sabs the slip by riding straight onto Black Down and then towards Gibbet Hill. What they hadn’t anticipated was the tenacity of our runner sab plus the other foot team they ran straight into on the hill. The hunt stopped for a brief conflab and then announced that they were just going to go for a ride. No hunting, ‘just a hack’. As we all know, hunters are perpetual liars. Sure enough, a few minutes later hounds were cast into the gorse at Smallacombe Bottom and were encouraged to find a fox.
The hunt crossed the valley into the woods to the south and began drawing in direction of Brinsabach Farm, with hounds occasionally speaking. A fox was seen fleeing but fortunately hounds didn’t pick up on the scent. Foot teams caught up with David Lewis and challenged him to explain how drawing the wood- and gorse-lined slopes constituted going for a hack, as opposed to hunting. “I’m doing a bit of both”, was his response. Next question: how do you lay a trail in this enormous patch of gorse? “How can you say we didn’t lay a trail, did you see a trail-layer??” Well no… That’s precisely the point. When was the trail laid? “Half an hour ago”, we were told by Lewis. One of the quadbike goons was asked the same question a few minutes later and responded “oh, about two hours ago”. Perhaps they should just go down the path Jason Marles has taken recently and pretend to be rabbit-hunting instead of trail-hunting. It would (almost) be more believable. Lewis didn’t like it when a sab started interfering with the draw by rating hounds out of the gorse and threatened to “put him on his aaaarse”.
David Lewis likes a bit of gaslighting and argumentation. He’s not particularly proficient, but while he’s arguing, he’s not hunting! Some of our foot sabs were quite happy to keep him entertained. For the next twenty minutes Lewis’s unmistakeable voice could be heard up and down the valley, helping several other foot teams converge on his location. As often happens with these types, the conversation quickly turned into more of a rant from Lewis and his quadbike goons, descending into a confusing mix of overt misogyny, comments about vegan butter and terrierman Steve Mitchell’s knockout argument about how if we think foxhunting is cruel then we should stop cats killing mice. It’s amazing how quickly they forget they’re supposed to be pretending to be ‘trail-hunting’/’on a hack’ and revert to arguments about the merits of foxhunting. Meanwhile, a fox made a discreet getaway in an adjacent field, seen by other sabs.
Eventually Lewis ran out of steam and decided he couldn’t be bothered with the hacking part of the day anymore either. The hunt headed out to the road via the airfield and packed up at barely 1.30pm.
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