Yesterday we were intending to sab one hunt who didn’t end up going out, so with a full landy of sabs ready to go we promptly rerouted to the Stevenstone Hunt’s meet at Five Lanes, near Abbots Bickington. They had gone out on foot, without horses, and when we arrived they decided to pack up. Sabs walked huntswoman Jessica Harrison, whip Sean Watts and the hounds back to the meet. Here we bumped into Anthony Hemmings, who until recently was hunting one of the unregistered foot packs in Devon. He announced a few weeks ago that he’d had to give it up and would be distributing hounds to any willing takers. We wonder if any have gone to the Stevenstone to up their dwindling hound numbers?… Hemmings was keen to boast that “his hounds” killed far more foxes than any of the hunts we sab.
As we were watching the Stevenstone drag their hounds by the scruff back into the van, a tipoff came in that the Torrington Farmers Hunt were hunting around Huntshaw Water and hounds had been heard in full cry on a fox. As these are neighbouring hunts, we were there within twenty minutes and found the hunt (also on foot) in the valley below Guscott. They too stopped hunting as soon as they saw us and headed back to Millbrook at Huntshaw Mill Bridge to box up the hounds. En route we bumped into a hunt follower who, while trying to block the road, stepped backwards into a drain and then proceeded to blame sabs for it. Pretty standard stuff, although it might be the first time one of our sabs has been invited for a fight with the words “if you want to have a tally-ho, come and have a proper tally-ho”.
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