Some beginner hunting questions

[beaujolais]

I ride h/j and don’t know much about hunting. I followed a drag this weekend on foot & car. What a blast!!!

Does hilltopping mean foot followers or those who go on horse but don’t jump?

Do women ever wear black boots with tan tops? Are field boots o.k. or you have to have dress boots?

They first sent out two riders with spray bottles of fox scent. Do they spray the ground or bushes or trees and at what intervals? It must be a pretty strong spray. Where does one buy fox scent? Do the dogs bother the horses & riders who were out putting down the scent as they must get some on themselves?

How is a hunt ended? Meaning who says what to let you know it’s over?

Then the hunt tea - do the horses get cooled out, brought home & the riders then meet somewhere for the tea? Where does it normally take place, how long is it & what is served? Does everyone usually bring a dish or beverage?

I thought it was Great!!!

Thanks so much!!

[Hinderella]

Does hilltopping mean foot followers or those who go on horse but don’t jump?
Hilltoppers are riders who follow the action more slowly and at a distance. It is often (but not always) riders who are less experienced, or riding greenhorses.
Do women ever wear black boots with tan tops? Are field boots o.k. or you have to have dress boots?
Tops (tan or patent are worn by members who have earned their colors, or I believe in some cases by staff only, though I’m not certain. You would check with the master of the hunt with which you wish to ride, but at least for guests field boots are usually acceptable.

They first sent out two riders with spray bottles of fox scent. Do they spray the ground or bushes or trees and at what intervals? It must be a pretty strong spray. Where does one buy fox scent? Do the dogs bother the horses & riders who were out putting down the scent as they must get some on themselves?
I’ll leave this answer to someone with more knowledge of the details of a drag hunt

How is a hunt ended? Meaning who says what to let you know it’s over?
The Huntsman generally indicates when the hunt is over, when the quarry has gone to ground or when they have determined that they will discontinue the chase for some other reason

Then the hunt tea- do the horses get cooled out, brought home & the riders then meet somewhere for the tea? Where does it normally take place, how long is it & what is served? Does everyone usually bring a dish or beverage?
The hunt tea is sometimes hosted at the home of the landowner where you are riding. In other less formal situations, it is set up outdoors at the trailers. The horses stand on or near the trailers & relax while the riders enjoy the tea.

Hunting is a wonderful, exciting, amazing equestrian sport. Please visit the MFHA web site: http://www.mfha.org/home.html where you will find a lot more detail. You can also contact the master of the hunt that you visited to find out more about how you might experience their hunt. Good luck!

[gypsymare]

Does hilltopping mean foot followers or those who go on horse but don’t jump
Horses that don’t jump. Can be green horses, green riders, or sometimes riders who just don’t want to jump for whatever reason. Sometimes people just enjoy the view and camaraderie of the “leisure field” instead of the adrenaline and fast pace of first flight.

Do women ever wear black boots with tan tops? Are field boots o.k. or you have to have dress boots?
Depends on the hunt. Some allow female staff to wear tan tops and scarlet coats but both of these are usually reserved for men only. Most allow female members with colors to wear black patent tops instead. Field boots are acceptable for most hunts, especially for new or young members. Dress boots are preferred. Call the secretary to be sure. Brown field boots are perfectly acceptable with informal attire. “Colors” are awarded to members after several years of hunting with the club and are “earned” by attending hunts and helping out with other club activities. You are then allowed to wear the club color on your collar and wear boot tops. Some hunts at this time allow gentlemen to wear scarlet, others reserve that for staff only.

They first sent out two riders with spray bottles of fox scent. Do they spray the ground or bushes or trees and at what intervals? It must be a pretty strong spray. Where does one buy fox scent? Do the dogs bother the horses & riders who were out putting down the scent as they must get some on themselves?
I’ve never drag hunted but I understand many drag a rag or bag soaked in fox scent behind a 4 wheeler or horse instead of spraying it. Some add another distinctive scent to it to train hounds to stay on the laid trail and not go off on live quarry.

How is a hunt ended? Meaning who says what to let you know it’s over?
Huntsman and staff confer on the ending, usually when you’ve been out long enough and the last fox of the day has been lost or gone to ground. Sometimes early when footing is too bad or the hounds are exhausted. The field master will let the field know it’s ending and most take the opportunity to thank/congratulate the huntsman and staff at this time.

Then the hunt tea- do the horses get cooled out, brought home & the riders then meet somewhere for the tea? Where does it normally take place, how long is it & what is served? Does everyone usually bring a dish or beverage?
This completely varies by hunt and day. Sometimes the land owner provides food in their home, sometimes it’s potluck at the trailers and sometimes someone is assigned to bring a meal and sometimes there’s nothing at all. Usually there’s a hack back to the trailers from where the hunt ends so horses are mosty cooled out by their return walk. They get coolers/blankets thrown over or sponged off if it’s hot and hang out on the trailers or tied to them with access to hay.

[Beverley]

To add additional info- yes, if a female is wearing scarlet, either as staff or MFH, then tan tops on the boots are required. (Stated a slightly different way, with the exception of Old Dominion Hounds which wears brick breeches, if your hunting attire includes white breeches, you must be wearing tan tops regardless of gender). Patent tops for ladies not wearing scarlet though not required, even if you have your colors, plain black dress boots are fine. As for field boots, they are ‘technically’ not correct except brown ones for cubhunting, but folks have been wearing them for formal hunting for years now, so it’s grudgingly accepted by old farts, though you still get brownie points for checking with the particular hunt. To say it another way, if you want to give hunting a try, don’t go out and buy new clothing if you can come reasonably close with what you already have, including field boots. Neat and tidy and able to control your horse are far more important!

Laying the drag is typically as the name implies, ‘dragging’ a cloth laced with scent, I don’t know offhand of anyone who uses spray bottles so can’t speak to that, unless they were spraying the rag as they went, maybe. There is quite an art to laying one, to make it as realistic as possible and make the hounds work a bit rather than just charging pell-mell with too generous an amount of scent. That would include lifting the drag and re-setting it a ways further, to make the hounds regain the scent. Of course the convenience of the drag is that the line of the fox can be predetermined by the huntsman to maximize viewer enjoyment and know where you’ll be ending up for checks, and for end of day.

I do have a friend who laid a drag for Myopia decades ago, using a retired hunter. She had not a spray bottle, but a bottle of the fox urine. After laying the first part of the drag, she was holding up for a specified time before resuming, and opened the bottle to freshen the rag. At that point, the retired hunter heard hounds in the distance and quickly got on his toes, ready to rock and roll! So yes, she did a good job of dousing herself with fox urine, but other than her own misery, she was far enough ahead of the pack that by the time they got to the drag line, she would be long gone.

[beaujolais]

Thanks so very much, Hind, for your awesome post. I truly appreciate your effort, time, knowledge. I can’t go hunting for awhile, alas, as I’m dealing with a bad back injury (sigh).

“The Huntsman generally indicates when the hunt is over.”

Is there a certain lingo the Huntsman uses for this or more like a general, “well, let’s call it a day”?

Oh and what does it mean when they are taking a break (is there a word for the break) and they blow the horn?

Thanks tons!!

Oh, any recommendations on intro. books/sites things to read?

[tangledweb]

Practically everything about hunting varies from club to club and region to region, but hilltopping most commonly refers to a non-jumping, slower mounted field. I’ve heard people use it to describe what I’d call foot followers or car followers too.

Women don’t generally wear tan tops. Attire varies greatly from club to club but tan tops are generally worn with white breeches and a scarlet coat. I don’t know of any clubs where women field members wear that, but at some hunts female staff or masters wear scarlet so might wear tan topped boots too.

Black field boots are not the most traditional item. There are supposedly hunts where everybody looks perfect all the time, but the majority are somewhat relaxed with members and very relaxed with guests and new members as long as you make enough of an effort to look right from a distance.

Scent is not normally applied directly from spray bottles. It’s usually put on something that can then be dragged along the ground. Doing it well is a skill on its own. Too weak and it will be hard to follow, too strong and it will too. Somebody has to do it the right amount of time before the hounds are cast.

Nobody necessarily tells you hunting is over, but you’ll be following a field master, so if they lead you back to the trailers it’s a pretty good hint. It will generally be the master telling the huntsman that it’s time to go in, because as a rule huntsmen want to keep hunting till it gets dark. If you pay attention you’ll learn what horn calls the huntsman uses to gather the hounds up, and see him counting them to make sure they are all there before going in.

Catering arrangements probably vary too much from hunt to hunt and week to week for anybody to tell you what you might find. For a formal meal people might take their horses home, but generally it would be an informal thing where you mostly cooled your horse down by returning to the trailer at a walk, then gave it some brief after-care and water and left it on the trailer to eat for half an hour while you go and eat.

[gypsymare]

It’s more of an informal announcement.

As for colors/boot tops/etc call the secretary of the hunt you wish to join because there are so many exceptions to the rule! Green Spring is an oddball… Brown-topped black boots are reserved for staff, Masters, ex-Masters, Hunt Secretaries and ex-Hunt Secretaries. No members.

Full members with colors awarded get black hunt buttons but do not get colored collars. Brass buttons and colored collars are for masters only.

It all gets so confusing so ask the hunt! I also just learned that some hunts do not wear ratcatcher at all after Opening… most still wear it during weekdays.

[beaujolais]

Thanks again, so much, dear friends!! (I think several of you were answering at the same time is why my above post only thanked Himderella.)

The big social event for the year is the Hunt Ball, correct? Who is able to go to that?

[ISR]

Thanks so very much, Hind, for your awesome post. I truly appreciate your effort, time, knowledge. I can’t go hunting for awhile, alas, as I’m dealing with a bad back injury (sigh).

“The Huntsman generally indicates when the hunt is over.”

Is there a certain lingo the Huntsman uses for this or more like a general, “well, let’s call it a day”?

It can sometimes be difficult to know when he/she is done. Sometimes, once we’ve collected all the hounds, they will draw one last time! I’ve often thought the day was over, only to go on one last blast! I think only the huntsman knows, the whipper ins are rarely privy either :lol:

A safe bet, is when you have all the hounds, and are headed back to the trailers!

Oh and what does it mean when they are taking a break (is there a word for the break) and they blow the horn?

This is called a “check”

Thanks tons!!

Oh, any recommendations on intro. [COLOR="#FF0000"]books/sites things to read?
This book is a great intro:

http://www.amazon.com/Riding-Hounds-America-Introduction-Foxhunters/dp/B000QSXB0W[/COLOR]

[gypsymare]

[QUOTE=sonomacounty;7826699]
Thanks again, so much, dear friends!! (I think several of you were answering at the same time is why my above post only thanked Himderella.)

The big social event for the year is the Hunt Ball, correct? Who is able to go to that?[/QUOTE]

Any members, staff or invited guests. It’s usually a bit of a fund raising event, too so the more the merrier in some cases.

[Kodiak]

I’ve heard of the spray bottle method in terms of being able to place a more regulated amount of scent in a specific place (greenery holds scent differently from bare ground or tree bark, for instance, and it’s easier to place a scent point every X feet).

[wateryglen]

Reading favorites besides the Masters of Foxhunting America website and most any hunts website : “Riding to Hounds in America” by William Wadsworth and “Foxhunting in America” by Mackay Smith. Do a search on this forum and you should be able to get most any of your questions answered!

[skydy]

Here is a program about drag hunting in England. There are 4 or 5 episodes.
http://www.horseandcountry.tv/episode/cheshire-farmers-drag-hunt-episode-1

I enjoyed them!

[beaujolais]

Awesome. Thanks Sky!

[Equibrit]

There is a wealth of information available for you to research on the interwebs, including this; http://www.mfha.com/foxhunting.html

[ecileh]

When we drag, we mix scent (urine) and water in a squeeze bottle (in this case, it’s a Dawn dishwashing detergent bottle) in a set ratio and then they either use the bottle to drip/squirt scent or to soak a pad that gets dragged behind a horse. We hunt both coyote and fox, so we have scent for both. When dragging, there is an agreed upon ending spot for each line–and thus also the end of the hunt for the day.

When we are hunting live, it’s a combination of the masters and the huntsman that make the call to retire for the day. Sometimes, the huntsman will request it, sometimes the masters will ask the huntsman to pack them up and head home–depending on a variety of factors like temperature, footing, how the hounds have been running (both good AND poor), etc.

There was one day last season when we had most of the pack back in the hound van and were just kenneling the last of them up when a coyote decided he was not done playing for the day and came trotting up to the van. We lost the pack and hunted for another hour and a half after that! (And I got to see my huntsman vault back onto her horse from behind like they do in the cowboy movies–it was amazing.)

[McGurk]

One of our retired masters would confer with the huntsman and say “It’s time to draw towards the liquor.”, ie, we’re still hunting, I expect you to draw a covert (put hounds in and ask them to find a fox) if we pass it but let’s head to the trailers.

This was live hunting, I’ve never been drag hunting. Live hunting is much less predictable.

Everyone else has covered the other questions.

Oh, in the hunts with which I am familiar, the only women who wore scarlet and tan tops on their boots were paid hunt staff. Lady masters usually wore exactly what a lady member with colors wore, gentlemen masters wore the same as gentlemen members with colors. I think that’s changing, I know at least one lady MFH who got the scarlet coat and tan topped boots.

I have a very vague recollection that patent tops were worn with shadbelly only, but I could be mistaken. They fell out of favor because George Morris said he didn’t like them because the horizontal line tended to break up the line of the leg.

Most hunts award colors and buttons, meaning you add the hunt’s colors to your collar and change out your buttons for ones with the hunt’s emblems. One hunt had the charming tradition of awarding buttons to active, capable junior members, and awarding colors later.

[ecileh]

@McGurk

Oh, in the hunts with which I am familiar, the only women who wore scarlet and tan tops on their boots were paid hunt staff. Lady masters usually wore exactly what a lady member with colors wore, gentlemen masters wore the same as gentlemen members with colors. I think that’s changing, I know at least one lady MFH who got the scarlet coat and tan topped boots.

My hunt (Limestone Creek in NY) has three lady masters and all wear scarlet and brown tops, as does our lady huntsman (who is our only professional staff). They only wear the brown tops when they are in scarlet–during cubbing they wear either brown boots or black (one has patent tops, the others do not).

[McGurk]

Thanks for this nudge -

They only wear the brown tops when they are in scarlet–during cubbing they wear either brown boots or black (one has patent tops, the others do not).

I think I have it now - black patent tops were to be worn when a lady member had her colors, not necessarily just with shadbelly. But for whatever reason, they fell out of fashion, while the tan tops on gentlemen’s did not.

I think more and more, female staff, both honorary and paid, will wear the same thing as male staff.

[ecileh]

@McGurk

I think more and more, female staff, both honorary and paid, will wear the same thing as male staff.

As much as I personally covet a pair of brown-topped boots, I am of mixed feelings about the amount of scarlet in our field. I do think that lady masters should have the same right to wear it as the men, and I do agree that professional staff should also have that courtesy, but I don’t know that I would extend that to honorary staff, were I the one making the decision.

I can’t quite articulate why, though.