What Is First Flight?

[Wellspotted]

Please tell me what First Flight means, in hunting as well as in a hunter pace.

Is it the same thing in a hunter pace as Full Cry?

Is it the group that does the hunter pace at full gait and jumps all the fences? As opposed to Hilltoppers and the other groups?

[crosscreeksh]

First flight riders are those that ride right behind the field master/Master and are capable of full speed over fences as necessary to stay with the Master…not for the whole hunt, but while on a run…unlike a hunter pace, which is an arbitrary, set timed ride.

[Beverley]

To gently split hairs- those in first flight following the field master are staying with the hounds, wherever they might go in pursuit of their quarry. The field master’s job is to stay with the hounds, at the distance worked out with the huntsman, while keeping the field in sufficient order to avoid interfering with the hounds as they hunt.

‘Hilltoppers’ are historically the ‘slow’ group, going literally from hilltop to hilltop in order to observe hounds from a distance, rather than trying to stay on the circuitous route of hounds and their quarry.

In a hunter pace, yes, it should equate to the term ‘full cry,’ because that is top speed for the hounds and the idea behind a hunter pace ‘optimum time’ is meant to be a pace sufficient to stay with hounds in full cry.