Autumn hunting/cubbing question?

[poiuytrewq]

Posted here in the hope of not starting a riot as it's a very genuine question!
I know very little about hunting!
Daughter loves it and go's fairly regularly over winter but she's not actually been before the opening meet before.
I was talking to some people today who had been up at rediculous o'clock to go cubbing this morning and asked if my daughter had been out yet this year. I said no and she wouldn't be at that time of day, that they must be mad. I then mentioned that she is going to join them at an evening one coming up.
They said "ah yes but that's not cubbing it's just hound exercise"
What's the difference?!

 

[Fiona]

In these post ban times, I don't actually know what would be the difference between hound exercise and cubbing, I'm guessing when they say cubbing they try to follow short trails or something???? And that hound exercise is just a nice jolly over some stubble...

Fiona

 

[Meredith]

Our ridden autumn hunting is the same whether it is morning or evening. Sometimes though the evening ones are 'on foot', i.e. no horses, so it would be best to check.

 

[spacefaer]

When our local pack does "hound exercise", it is like a mass hack, following hounds as part of their fittening work on lanes and stubble fields. If it's in the evening, it's usually followed by a BBQ.

Autumn hunting can take place in the morning at stupidly early o'clock, or at the very beginning of the season, in the late afternoon/early evening. It's early as it's cooler for the hounds and more likelihood of scent sticking around (it evaporates as the temperature rises).

It's all part of training the young hounds to find a laid scent - to know which scents are Good (as the older hounds are interested in the man-made fox-like stuff) or Bad (like deer or rabbit!) It also helps them get fitting, crashing about through the undergrowth of the wood/covert and they also learn useful stuff like how to jump a wire fence etc without any rush.

I would check with the Hon Sec whether it genuinely is hound exercise, or is just an autumn hunting evening meet (which I would suspect, as once they've started, it's very unlikely they'll go back to mounted hound exercise).