With thanks again to Helen Dunn, we were able to sab another of Eggesford’s cubbing meets at Chulmleigh Beacon. The hunt set off towards Parsonage Cross to begin drawing thick hedges and woodland around Parsonage Farm.
Two foxes were marked to ground in the first hour. Terrierboy Tom Bounsall didn’t notice either of these marks, as he was too busy trying to impress the young blonde on the back of his quad by trying to run sabs over on the road. He also wasn’t aware of the fox who was later marked to ground in the valley by Horridge Moor. Having earlier threatened to “end” one of our sabs who merely said good morning to him, Bounsall tried to aggressively block one of our foot teams from accessing a footpath. To our surprise, he was told to pack it in by a female riders who was chaperoning a group of young kids on horses.
Having lost many of their older members over the last season, Eggesford are making an effort to groom the younger generation. When they’re not being brought along on ponies to witness animal cruelty, they’re riding around in Hugh Trerise’s Land Rover looking bored stiff. Hugh Trerise and Helen Dunn no longer ride to hounds and have now taken up the sport of road-blocking. In turn, they’re becoming regular features in the Operation Snap hall of fame!
Jason spent most of the day riding around with his bestie, Lloyd Heard, leaving Jade looking a little lost on the surrounding lanes. Between our foot teams and the drone we kept an eye on the hunt as they moved from Parsonage towards Horridge Moor, Beara and Bycott. At Bycott, Jason cast hounds into a large bramble patch and it was clear from the noise they were making that a fox was lying up there. We have witnessed these situations resulting in a chop (instant kill) too often. In fact that’s the point of ‘holding-up’ during the cubbing season: hunt staff and followers surround dense covert to ensure foxes stay put while the hounds find and kill. In these situations it’s best for the fox to bolt and run and fortunately on this occasion that’s what the fox did. Jason immediately hunted hounds onto this fox as they ran in direction of the road.
Several fields away another foot team saw a fox running from that direction, followed a minute later by another. Sabs covered the scent of both foxes, putting an end to the chase. Jason packed up a short while later.
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