It was the North Cornwall Hunt’s turn to pay a return visit to the Eggesford for a joint meet at Kingsland Farm on the edge of Wembworthy, owned by barrister Amanda Sutcliffe. Not a good look for a barrister to be hosting wildlife criminals! The two hunts together mustered a field of about 15 riders. A small group of us attended alongside Plymouth and West Devon Hunt Sabs.
Visiting terrier boys, including Ryan Johnson, Sam Morrish and Tom Bounsall (who often goes with Eggesford Hunt anyway) were champing at the bit to get a head start on the hunt by flushing and blocking up a badger sett on Kingsland land before the hunt even set off from the meet. Clearly Jason hadn’t warned them that we might be wise to these sorts of tricks, nor that badger sett interference is again not such a good look for the hosting barrister! Needless to say, there will be more info to follow about their antics when it’s sensible to do so. Perhaps bolting foxes from badger setts is what Jason meant when he said a while later that “trails” had been laid…
The hunt set off into the valley next to the meet and soon got onto a fox who was chased towards Wembworthy and then into the valley north of the kennels. The route from here was via Labdon and Collacott towards Cleave Copse and Gosse’s Farm. Then they headed via Forestry woodland towards the valley owned by the Daws, south of Eggesford garden centre, and towards Pigsmoor and Leyland, before entering the Hayne Valley. The last part of the day was around Kitchadon and the airfield owned by the Skinners at Trenchard.
Newly single North Cornwall huntsman Gareth Frain spent most of the day scattering his hounds all over the area, upsetting road users and local landowners who have repeatedly warned the Eggesford not to access their land. In addition to actively hunting on Forestry England land at Heywood Wood, North Down Plantation, Burrowcleave and Great Wood (all land the hunt are not allowed to draw), they caused distress to landowners in Wembworthy by allowing hounds to rampage all over their fields, despite being banned from there. Gates were left open into fields of sheep (if any farmers want to enquire, we do have video evidence of this) and traffic was held up on the surrounding roads by the hunt arrogantly blocking the roads with their horses and vehicles. We had an unusually high number of messages about this throughout the day. Some hounds even ended up unattended on the railway tracks at Eggesford station, holding up traffic at the level crossing, as can be seen in the video shared by Plymouth & West Devon Hunt Sabs last week.
In addition to hares and large herds of deer being flushed by hounds, several foxes were seen running from the pack, their scent mostly foiled by the eau de slurry that was being sprayed on the fields all day by farmers. At one point a fox had a two-field head start on the pack. While one sab covered the fox’s scent, another rated the hounds when they arrived and turned them onto the fox’s heel line, sending the hounds running in the opposite direction. Jason and Gareth, having misread the situation, encouraged the hounds, taking them even further away from the fox. Many foxes were marked to ground over the course of the day and we monitored as many of these locations as we could.
Towards the end of the day the terriermen grew increasingly bored and pushed one of our sabs off a bank at Great Wood. Baby-faced Jake Crabb, who was on horseback on this occasion, filmed the incident on his phone whilst giggling to himself like a small child. Elsewhere he spent the day showing off in front of his mates by dropping his favourite misogynistic lines whenever he rode past one of our female sabs. Tell people you’re compensating for something without telling them you’re compensating for something, Jake!
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