Eggesford Hunt ended the season last Thursday with a replay of their opening meet: a pathetic roadside gathering at Chulmleigh Beacon, followed by an attack on sabs and a digout of a fox.
The main difference? Many of the quad riders, without whom Jason wouldn’t have had any luck finding a fox in the warm, dry weather, had to be drafted in from other hunts. Alongside Richard Elliott and Jake Crabb, Rhys and Matt Welham came across from the Silverton Hunt, and a group of masked morons arrived in a work van with the signage “ALS Civil Engineering” (a company based in Kent). One of their quads was transported in the back of the van. Two of this group later used their quad to ride down one of our sabs.
Jason’s own quad following has dropped over the course of the season. Terriermen Tom Leary and Seward Folland don’t show their faces much anymore, with the former deciding to spend more time at the Mid Devon, and Seward often going home after a couple of hours on the rare occasion he decides to show up. Jason’s latest kennelman, Ash Symons, left this season after only a few months with the hunt, which at this point is pretty on-brand for Marles. He’s now been replaced with Jade, who seems to be attached at the hip to Jake Crabb when out with the hunt.
Jason lost his group of other adolescent fanboys to a series of silly incidents in the first half of the season, including blocking and vandalising our vehicles, throwing firecrackers at sabs and indecently exposing themselves. Their parents got a knock on the door from police and the boys were slapped with Community Resolutions, forcing them to write apology letters to us for their behaviour. The boys then made some unfounded accusations against our driver, which were quickly dispelled by our dash cam footage, and police are now investigating them for wasting police time! We’ll be sharing some of this footage in the off-season. Jason himself has been warned that the hunt are well on their way to a Community Protection Warning.
Another quad goon, one of Jason’s long-standing terriermen, has been conspicuously absent recently, almost certainly because of a pending court case based on our video footage. More on this and other live cases against other Eggesford terriermen to follow!
The only quad-rider whose loss Jason acknowledged in his closing speech last week was Martyn Tucker, who died just before Christmas following a quadbike accident on the main road near Coldridge during an Eggesford Hunt meet, in which another person was critically injured. We’ve not mentioned the details of this incident before, out of consideration for their families, but frankly it’s clear that no lessons have been learnt by the hunt and it’s only a matter of time before the Eggesford’s reckless quadbike-riding takes another life.
Last Thursday it could have easily been a sab’s life, as two masked-up goons deliberately drove their quadbike at high speed at one of our sabs. They repeatedly reversed and drove at the sab again and again, laughing and whooping as they did, and knocking the sab over at one point. We’ll be sharing footage of this incident shortly.
The other main difference between the Eggesford’s opening and closing meets this season? Whereas the number of riders at opening meet at least ran into the double figures, last week Jason had just TWO riders, both of whom gave up halfway through the day. Some of the followers joked that Hugh Trerise had recently had a fight with a tree while riding his horse and was therefore unable to get back in the saddle. However, Jason No-Mates Marles was very insistent that everyone else was just busy farming and therefore couldn’t attend.
The hunt took a pretty predictable route at this meet: They started with the gorsey slopes of Horridge Moor, where signs on gates ask people to keep dogs on leads due to the presence of vulnerable ground-nesting birds. Clearly the hunt consider themselves exempt from this. From there they went north in direction of Beara and Bycott. Desperate to rouse a fox for hounds to chase, terrierman Richard Elliot sent his terriers into a large bramble patch ahead of the arrival of hounds. They drew a blank and the hunt moved east across the road towards the western side of Lower Vipershill Plantation. As the hunt carried on south through the woods, and knowing that the warm, dry conditions meant Jason didn’t have much of a chance of finding a fox without the assistance of terriermen, sabs checked known setts in the area as they went.
The hunt carried on further east towards Darland Plantation and Lower Thornham. This land, belonging to AE Chudley & Sons, is where they spent most of the afternoon, terrorising flocks of sheep with their young lambs and deliberately casting hounds into South Moor Plantation, where the hunt know full well they have been banned. They spent a good couple of hours in this area, with hounds going in and out of the plantation. This is when the incident with the quadbike happened, as one of our sabs was filming the hunt trespassing in the plantation. This incident tells you about the value these idiots place on the lives of others and the enjoyment they get from causing suffering. It’s no wonder then that digging-out nursing vixens is the other way they choose to amuse themselves at this time of year.
Hounds ran north towards the road and crossed towards Langley, marking a fox to ground at a badger sett on land belonging to PA & MEM Chudley. While Jason stayed south of the road, terriermen went to the sett and dug-out the fox. When sabs caught up, the digout had concluded and the terriermen and other quad goons sped out of the field, along the road and straight back down the track towards Thornham.
Our drone was deployed but struggled against the high winds. A few fields away we heard hounds erupt into full cry for the first time that day and our drone filmed them running at full speed on a line across the field with all the quadbikes in tow. Sadly we strongly suspect that the dug fox was thrown to hounds to secure a chase. Unfortunately, we don’t know the fate of this fox. We hope that the warm weather helped dry up their scent and that they had enough energy left to run, but obviously we fear the worst.
Foxhunting is unavoidably cruel. Especially at this of year, when many of those foxes are vixens with dependent young, who will either die of starvation, be ripped apart by terriers underground or be taken away to throw to hounds later. Chasing a terrified fox to ground, digging her out and throwing her to hounds for a second chase is simply cowardice and desperation. It won’t surprise anyone that the other main source of amusement for these grown bullies at the closing meet consisted of making playground insults and misogynistic comments about sabs.
After a couple more laps of the same area, and a bit more trespassing in South Moor Plantation, Jason headed cross-country back towards the meet, drawing a few more coverts along the way.
It’s the end of a long season, but if Jason was in any doubt as to whether we’ll be sabbing him again every week next season, after the events of last Thursday he no longer should be.
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