Help me out with this, please!

[Martin Chapman]

I've just registered on here using my real name - I know absolutely nothing about hunting, horses or anything else equestrian. Bear with me......

Today I was driving along the A45 between Daventry and Braunston in Northants. The traffic was fairly heavy and it was raining. It is a notoriously difficult bit of road, 60mph limit with a hill with blind bends on it and accidents here are commonplace.
Today as I approached the top of the hill, the drivers brake lights ahead indicated something was amiss. The actual cause of all the panic turned out to be two huntsmen on horses, and (I would guess) about forty hounds running up and down the middle (and it was the middle) of the road. This brought all the traffic on this major trunk road to a standstill - luckily without anyone being hit.
My first reaction was one of disbelief, followed by anger that these two apparent 'half wits' clearly in a state of uncontrolled panic had seen fit to take their sport on to the middle of a busy and dangerous A-road, apparently expecting everyone else to slam on their brakes to avoid a disaster.
As I waited in the queue, with dogs running amok in between the vehicles, and the huntsmen desperately galloping up and down the carriageway, trying to find an unchained farm gate through which to make their escape, I joined the other drivers in making my feelings known to the huntsmen by way of 'interesting' hand signals.
I was furious, but now I have calmed down, I wish to educate myself as to what exactly went on here. Rather than hold a permanent grudge against those responsible for what I see as a totally stupid, selfish and reckless act, which could easily have resulted in the deaths of drivers, horsemen, horses and dogs, here is your chance to educate me.
Over to you.....

 

[Sanolly]

Were the huntsmen in dress, IE red coats, white britches etc? If not I would hazard a guess that the hounds got out somehow?

 

[Martin Chapman]

They were dressed in the traditional hunting gear - red tunics (tunics? - I don't know), white britches, and were blowing their little trumpet at the traffic.

 

[Jenny923]

I know exactly where you mean, i don't live far from there!
That is a very strange and dangerous place for them to be riding and i would hazard a guess that maybe some hounds got onto the scent of a fox and followed it to the main road, so the huntsmen had to chase after them to get them to safety. I wonder which hunt it was...
How very odd. It would definitely not be on purpose, any rider in their right mind would not ride along that road! Far too dangerous, must have been a acccident and thank god no person or animal was hit/injured.

 

[Sanolly]

The hunt horn is used to direct hounds, much like a sheepdog handler and a sheepdog so they wouldn't have been blowing at the traffic.
I can only suggest that the hounds had gone off course, unfortunately they don't know about busy roads etc and when they get on a scent then they follow it. Even with drag hunting I believe (and I am not entirely sure so please don't quote me on it) that a lot of packs still use the scent of a fox ie urine so it may be that they got the scent of a real fox and followed that. I'm sure they weren't intentionally in the middle of the road and were working as fast as possible to get the hounds off.

 

[MerrySherryRider]

I'm afraid you are quite right, some hunts do pose a threat to motorists by not being in control of the hounds near A roads. There have been reports of motorists being injured and hounds killed in local newspapers (and Horse and Hound also. )
Fortunately, as a rider, I know when the hunt is out, so tend to drive with caution, but even so, have had a few hairy moments when driving esp in poor visability. Quite agree that it is unacceptable, particularly with the volume of traffic on main roads.

 

[EAST KENT]

Well..it WAS a Wednesday.............

 

[houndsplease]

need a "like" button for EAST KENTS comment made me chuckle

 

[QassiaDeTouzaine]

Pretty sure it would have been unintentional, hunts try hard to avoid main roads

 

[Herne]

Martin, although I am not connected to that hunt, I can assure you with absolute certainty that not only was the incident you witnessed entirely unintentional (the "halfwits" did not "see fit" to do it) but also that it happened in spite of precautions being taken to prevent such incidents.

As you rightly say, such incidents present a risk of death or injury not only to passing motorists but also to the riders themselves and the horses and hounds. Hunt Staff spend there whole time looking after the horses and hounds in their charge and there is no way that they would be so cavalier with their safety - and the safety of others - by deliberately taking such a risk.

I know it is the easy course to envisage the stereotype of the upper-class twit in the silly costume who is arrogantly assuming that the peasants in their silly little cars should bally well get out of the way of the gentry in the pursuit of their pleasures.

The reality however, will have been of two very hard-working, poorly paid men having raced their horses across country in pursuit of the hounds which have taken off across country from where they should be in the direction of the road, desperately trying to make sure that no accident occurs.

It would also be easy to make sweeping statements about how people should not carry out activities if they cannot guarantee that accidents will no take place. However, the reality is that in every sphere of human endeavour, **** does indeed happen, no matter how many precautions one takes to prevent them. Each time we get in our cars, we cannot guarantee that we are not going to cause an accident ourselves. We can take every precaution, but we cannot guarantee it.

The reality is that hunts do take great pans to try and ensure that incidents such as the one you witnessed do not take place - mainly by conducting their activities as far away as possible from main roads and by placing people in-between the hounds and the roads to prevent them from going the wrong way. Sadly, however, they cannot get it right every single time.

The fact that the hunt staff were there on the road actively trying to remove the hounds does demonstrate that they were actively trying to alleviate the problem rather than arrogantly sitting back and just watching.

The statistics also back this up. With 350 hunts hunting twice a week or more for 26 weeks of the year, that’s over 18,000 hunting days taking place in England and Wales. The very limited number of incidents compared to the vast number of roads show that Hunts do in fact carry out their activities with a very high level of responsibilities.

The anti-hunt protestors make a big noise about the number of incidents that they manage to film of hounds going onto roads. They never, however, seem admit that this is because they sit on roads in their vehicles blowing hunting horns with the sole intent of luring the hounds away from the control of the huntsman and into danger.

So, yes, what happened should not have happened, but the motives of the mounted Hunt Staff that you saw would in no way have been as black as you imagined.

 

[Maesfen]

Like button for Herne please. Very well put and sensible answer.

 

[tootsietoo]

Well said Herne. I hope you're still here Martin. Sounds like a really horrible incident for all involved.

 

[Daddy_Long_Legs]

Like Like Like Herne's reply. An honest and well constructed reply.

 

[Simsar]

Well done Herne.

Martin thank you for taking the time in putting this post on and thank you for doing when you had calmed down!!

 

[Stacey02]

Must have been a very urgent reason for them to be on a busy road, especially when they would have known the area/roads etc ...but silly i agree! could have caused an accident. From my experience with hunts they never use main roads, just land and country lanes.

 

[Simsar]

Belstone fox comes to mind!!!!!!!!

 

[JenHunt]

thank you Herne for being so polite, and to Martin for being reasonable and doing the decent thing in trying to understand.

 

[Martin Chapman]

I'm still here and reading with interest.
Thankyou all for your contributions to the debate.

 

[houndsplease]

fantasticly )sp*) put herne and yes very much so with regars to the belstone fox.

 

[Simsar]

I'm still here and reading with interest.
Thankyou all for your contributions to the debate.

Martin maybe we can get you to have a day out on foot with said Hunt??

 

[Martin Chapman]

I always enjoy a day out in the countryside - thats why I live there and have a vested interest in its preservation. I do actually believe that rural Britain is far better off with the local hunts than without them.
I was careful to use the term 'halfwits' in inverted commas in my original post. The intention was not to be provocative but to portray hunters as if through the eyes of the uninitiated motorist (like me) who may have been there that day and got as cross as I did.
This is actually the second time I have seen the hunt on the main A45 road - the first time was on boxing day a few years ago. As I sat at my wheel shaking my head, one of the huntsmen blew me a kiss as he rode past! For what it's worth, I actually found that part very funny - it still makes me laugh when I think of it.
No, this is purely a rant about a dangerous situation witnessed first hand.
Can hounds be trained to stop on command when they head towards the traffic, or are their instincts just too strong to listen when on to a scent?