My favourite day out hunting
By Ellie Johnson - Ellie is nearly 13 and is a member of the South Berks Pony Club.
Eventually we get going. After a short trot down the road we are out in the first field ready for a canter. Then we stop for
a while to listen to where the huntsman and his hounds have gone. We then hear him, and we’re off again. There is
really too much excitement to put into one or even two pages. No day is ever the same!
At the age of eight and a half I used to come to the meets but not ride. But I had been riding and showing our very close
family friends pony. I first got inspired when I competed in the hunt show and came first in the M&M class. When I first
started hunting I used to ride the same horse that I had been showing at around the age of nine. Since then I have
been riding my Welsh x Connemara pony who is 13.2. When we first got him he used to “pull like a train” as my mum
said. He had a Pelham in his mouth and he was still not in control! Coming up to my 3 season on him I am going to try
him in a snaffle as I dint have time to last year! The biggest I have jumped on him is 4”2! I have also jumped a HUGE
hedge that I didn’t mean to jump but ended up jumping with even mum going around and through the gate. Some of the
adults nearly hit the deck!
My pony loves jumping so much that he will jump out of his field and trot up the country lane at 3.00am in the morning.
He has also been known to jump into next doors garden who have a lovely garden with really green grass! Too much
off a temptation I say!
I really miss not being able to hunt anymore but we still enjoy exercising the hounds.
Why I like hunting
By Elinor Fleming (aged 8), written at the time the ban came into force in 2005
The Exmoor hounds are wonderful, the viewing is terrific and you can watch them casting for a fox and when they get
on the line of a fox, they just go for it. There is a terrific scamper over the moor, sometimes over bogs, we canter up
and down very steep hills; you need a good, clever pony to go over some of the streams, bogs and rocky places.
The huntsman lets the hounds work it out for themselves. We watch him working his hounds sometimes from the far
side of a coomb, he has the confidence that they can hunt without him and he does not need to interfere with them. He
knows that they will kill a fox without his help.
I also have had some great fun watching the terrier men work. They travel on quad bikes with the terriers in the front of
their coats with just their heads sticking out. The terriers know where they need to go and how to flush out a fox.
With the Vale of Aylesbury with Garth & South Berks, my local pack, we do some jumping and you need confidence to
jump. This is terrific fun. I have seen our Field Master jumping wire. We also do a lot of galloping and I love overtaking
the rest of the field on my speedy pony. Sometimes we can get a kill in the open. This season, I was lucky enough to
be there first and was given a brush and pads, I was thrilled.
Next month there is a meet of The Wormstall Rabbit Hounds at my home, a children's pack that has been put together
since the ban. It is perfectly legal, Freddy Tett from the Craven Pony Club is Master and Huntsman and I am going to
be Field Master for the day.
