On Saturday, we paid a visit to the South Tetcott Hunt at their (not so) early morning cubbing meet at Highweek Farm near Black Torrington.
The hound van arrived at the meet shortly after 8:30am with supporters and riders slowly dragging themselves to the meet for the next hour or so, smiles wiping from their faces the moment they realised we were there to greet them. Even serial badger sett violator Ben Vincent of the recently exposed Axe Vale dig out made an appearance.
Thanks to the delayed arrival of some of the field riders, the hunt finally left the meet well after 9:30am. They made their way westwards and then north along the road towards Highweek Wood, where they entered through a supposed ‘Conservation Area’, a strange place to drag dozens of hounds, horses, and a handful of quadbikes through…
Huntswoman Amy Parkin attempted to draw the woodlands eastwards, but sabs were on her tail to keep the hunt moving. They proceeded to exit the woodland into a vast area of scrubland, which is where it all began to go wrong for Amy. As she attempted to draw the hounds through the scrub, tongue rolling as she went, the hounds began to scatter far and wide! Hunt members then had to spend ages going backwards and forwards, trying to gather the wayward hounds that much preferred the sights and smells of the surrounding woodland, to anything that Amy had planned.
After spending a significant amount of time attempting to gather the stray hounds, the hunt moved east back into the woodland. Whilst keeping up with the hunt, sabs had to deal with quadbike riders trying goad one another into running a sab over (one of which had a young child with them on the quad) and whipper-in Richard Trewen threatening to “mow down” a sab with his horse if they didn’t get out of the way.
After dawdling in a field just north of Black Torrington, the huntswoman took the hounds and the remaining field riders south of the road. One last unsuccessful attempt to draw was made between Blackley and Hayne Farm, with the hounds only managing to disturb a couple of roe deer.
One fox was seen fleeing the area. Fortunately, the sun was shining bright helping to worsen the scenting conditions. Hunt staff spent most of the morning gathering hounds that were scattered over both sides of the road. After an uneventful morning they returned to the meet and boxed up around 12 noon.
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