LOVE the photos! you guys still went out on snow! here the ride would have been cancelled. Frozen ground, snow or to wet would have cancelled it for us.
Agreed. I have capped with Beaver Meadows Fox Hounds in Ontario and they most certainly have a pack and hunt/chase (live, even).
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Um, not it’s not OK. And it’s certainly not perfect. You have your OPINION. These other posters, who actually hunt, have facts and tradition. Your opinion that your club is hunting is just an opinion (and it’s not based on fact).
What I’m wondering is, why does your riding club call itself a hunt club when it doesn’t hunt? Why not just call yourselves an across-country riding club? If indeed you are riding across country and not just out in some big field?
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Foxglove, those pictures are beautiful! They look like a dream of a Boxing Day hunt (do y’all observe Boxing Day in Canada?) 
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Something that just occurred to me that may or may not help this discussion:
People who follow hounds (aka HUNT) know that hunting is not a horse sport–it’s a DOG sport and the only reason we are on horseback is so that we can keep up with the pack. That’s a nuance that can be hard to really understand until you have actually hunted with a pack and are subject to the machinations of such a thing. It’s all about the hounds while you are out there.
If they are blazing, you are blazing to keep up (generally speaking, semantics of the types of fields aside). If they are having a bad scenting day, you are most certainly not blazing…you are standing there in the sun/wind/rain/snow/fog/whatever, waiting for them to do their thing. Hounds always have the right of way and it doesn’t matter if your horse thinks he or she should have it. Or if they don’t like standing around. If your horse disturbs the hounds, you may very well be asked to retire.
Some hunts forbid members from wearing perfume and/or deodorant in the field, as it can bring up the hounds’ noses and confuse them. Some hunts refuse to use radios because the sound of voices over them can also pick up the hounds’ noses. This is also why you’re not supposed to be chatting in the field and why you’re never supposed to talk directly to a hound unless you’re staff. If you disturb the pack, you will most likely be asked to retire.
Yes, there is a social aspect to hunting. Yes, we are all riders and horse people and many of us love a good gathering of friends for a ride, but it’s a dog sport at the very core and if there are no hounds involved, then it simply can’t be hunting.
When I first started hunting, one of our Masters said “There are people who hunt to ride and there are people who ride to hunt” and, at the time, I thought she was being a little pedantic. And I also thought that I would be one of those who hunts to ride, but then I heard the hounds open for the first time and then I started to fall in love with our pack and now, I ride to hunt.
We can dress up in traditional garb and follow all the etiquette of the field, but if there are no hounds with us, we’re just out there having a nice ride with friends.
It’s all about the hounds.
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Fantastic information! thanks for the post!
The hounds look so happy in all the photos…
What a beautiful piece of country you have to ride through! That looks like a blast. Kudos to your videographer, too. Stunning video. That makes me want to go get a better drone.
The argument here is really just symantics. We don’t have anything like that down here in the US that I know of, but if we did we’d call it a field master chase (but these you typically race the last 200 yards to a finish line), or field master hunter pace. We have a series of hunter paces when the hunt season is over. You go out in pairs or small groups over a set course of jumps. Each hunt in the area holds one on a different weekend so you can travel around to different territories.
For your question about attire, that depends on the hunt. Some are very strict, others not so much. You would contact the secretary prior to arrival and understand what is expected. The member who is sponsoring you as a guest would make sure you have the proper attire. Most hunts are very welcoming to new riders and understand that a full proper turnout is expensive. Typical English show clothes are close enough for a start and early autumn hunts are casual due to the heat. Polos or technical fabric show shirts are common in August and September, or a collared shirt with a tie. These hunts are also much shorter in duration so that is when a newcomer is likely to start.
In a fox hunt here your horse’s job is to get you where you need to be to best view the work of the hounds. Jumps are set in pasture fences and high enough to contain livestock, 3’+. A formal season hunt can last 4 hours, 12-25 miles, 30+ jumps. Since your horse’s longevity is of utmost concern, larking over unnecessary jumps is frowned upon and considered poor horsemanship.
It’s just different, but as what you do is more closely related to Hunting than to Eventing it makes sense to share it here. The differences that have been explained make people prickly when you insist that these are exactly the same things.
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Beautiful photos you guys! I feel like a thread should be started just for photo sharing. thanks for the posts folks!
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“We can dress up in traditional garb and follow all the etiquette of the field”
All of the “traditional garb” by and large served a purpose at one time. In my neck of the Hunting woods “tradition” is holy.
“People who follow hounds (aka HUNT) know that hunting is not a horse sport–it’s a DOG sport and the only reason we are on horseback is so that we can keep up with the pack”
I don’t completely agree with this. It is both. I think I will have to ask my friends in England and Ireland who have been hunting for generations what they think of this statement. Pretty sure I already know the answer.
“you guys still went out on snow! here the ride would have been cancelled. Frozen ground, snow or to wet would have cancelled it for us”
lol, in my neck of the hunting woods, SE PA . If Hunting was called off due to snow, frozen ground we wouldn’t get out much. Most meets that are canceled is due to soft ground because newbie land owners don’t want their “golf courses” torn up. The “scent” is usually much better in cold and or sub freezing weather. Great long runs over hill and dale, lots of jumps. River, stream/creek crossings can be a bit dodgy. Jumping downhill on frozen, greasy ground can be a bit nerve testing at times, lol.
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“People who follow hounds (aka HUNT) know that hunting is not a horse sport–it’s a DOG sport and the only reason we are on horseback is so that we can keep up with the pack”
Except that hounds are never called “dogs”! Hounds are always “hounds” and one is “half a couple”! 
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It’s also holy in my hunt. And it’s actually one of my favorite things about the sport–even though I absolutely hate show clothes, it somehow makes so much more sense to me to wear them while hunting.
Certainly horses are an integral element to the sport, but you can (and people do) hunt without them…beagle packs and bassets go out on foot because it’s easier to keep with with the shorter legged hounds and the prey does not cover the kind of distance fox and/or coyote do. To my mind, you can hunt without a horse, but you can’t do it without some form of canine (hound/beagle/terrier, etc)…ergo, it’s a canine sport.
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Well, I guess you could say she’s wearing hunting pink! :lol:
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I agree with you about the attire and the way some of the riders have shown up on hunts, but what does a club do when someone does show up that way? kicked them out and asked them to leave?
At a minimum they would be “spoken to”.
If they did it a second time, and were not a landowner they probably WOULD be “sent home”.
At our club, in the time I’ve been there, we only suffered one “almost member” who persisted in coming to hunts oddly turned out. As others have said, members will offer correct attire for borrowing or sale to those who are interested --she was not. An intelligent older woman who taught upper level subjects, she seemed more to relish in the “anti-attention” than be properly turned out. When asked (privately by her sponsoring member) why she was wearing flannel PJ pants over her boots and breeches, she said it was because she wanted to keep them clean. Asked about her rainbow snood which stuck out from under her helmet as in, “goodness, that’s a bright color,” she said it had been her mother’s (or grandmothers). If ignored, she’d draw attention to her turnout --“I like my (day-glo) gloves (pink) because they are easier to find if I drop one.” For me – after one or two offers to loan correct attire, I avoided riding where she was in my view. However, as one of the the go-to people on the field for broken tack (I wear a spare stirrup leather as a belt --old fox hunting tradition) and have a small thong of leather is in my pocket (will fix a bridle, if necessary) --I was almost every hunt asked to supply her with one or the other. Putting her tack back together --I pointed out that it was in serious need of replacement (dried, cracked, worn where leather met metal). Her reply was that it had been her grandfather’s tack and she didn’t want to replace it… Ultimately, she stopped coming before she came up for membership. I think once we all stopped giving her the extra attention for her unusual turn out, the thrill was gone. For most who work to become members, turn out and traditions are part of the motivation.
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:D:D:D It’s nice to see you here again Major Mark.
Ware rude! The poster who joined the COTH forums a few months ago, that started this thread, may call you a “keyboard ninja” and tell you to go away.
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No hunt club connections here, however, my riding instructor would have kicked her right out of a general lesson for wearing flannel pj bottoms. :lol:
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That Spectator cartoon is great, Major Mark! :lol:
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Inspired by a different, but similar cartoon to the one Major Mark posted, my husband and I dressed as a “drag hunt” for our hunt’s annual hunter pace costume contest this fall. I was the hound (with ears, tail, and a painted on hound nose), my chestnut pony wore a fox ears and tail, and my husband wore a VERY sparkly floor length dress. His horse was just a horse.
It happened to be a very sunny day and a few of the steady eddy, not scared of anything type horses in attendance were terrified by the man in the sparkly dress and required much reassurance and some feeding of treats from my husband before they decided he was not a threat. You don’t think about how those sparkly dresses will truly shine in the daylight!
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When I was a newbie foxhunter, I learned an important lesson about judging turnout. I was horrified to see a man in a shabby tweed coat and rubber boots, on an unclipped horse with an unpulled mane ride up at the meet and then surprised to see and hear him greeted warmly and with great deference by the members and staff, including an invitation to ride up front with the field master. I learned later that he was one of the last of a dying breed, an actual working farmer/landowner who allowed hunting on his land and that the special treatment was absolutely his due. Plus he had actually done a full day’s work before allowing himself the treat of an afternoon hunt.
I had a friend who was a bit of a daredevil and put on a loud pink plaid Saddle Seat show coat to appear at the meet as a joke. But even then, after everyone had a good laugh, she went back to her trailer and put on a plain block coat before hounds moved off.
I was hunting as a guest at another hunt and was surprised to see a senior member wearing full ski googles. It was a very odd look, with the strap of the googles secured over her helmet. I assumed that she had eye problems and had gotten permission from the master to wear this unconventional gear.
But in the last two cases, the individuals knew exactly what the conventions of turnout and attire were, and had very specific reasons for breaking them. That’s different from claiming you’re following the conventions when you’re clearly not aware what they are.
I also want to make the point that the OP’s riding club’s activity seems to be all about galloping and jumping, which is fine, but actual hunting with hounds and live quarry has lots more variation in activity. You may jump a little or jump a lot, depending on the territory and how the hounds run. You may have a blank day and never get out of a trot. You may stop and start frequently because of scenting conditions, which would be frustrating for horses and riders who are used to just galloping and jumping. The best day I ever spent hunting (not riding) I watched hounds in a small covert of cut over timber, working out a scent trail on a gray fox. The field master re positioned us several times on the surrounding hills to get good views of the hound work, but we never got out of a trot and never jumped. We did watch incredible hound work for almost two hours because the cut over gave us a clear view of the fox and hounds. I actually watched this grey sit down and look behind him and watch the hounds working, and trot off when they got close. Once, the hounds got within 12 feet of his brush without seeing him because they had their noses down working, and the fox then turned on the afterburners and got the heck out of there.
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