Silly Questions Sorry!!

[cobmum]

I know nothing about hunting apart from thinking looks amazing fun.

I do know that you can never let your horse go past the field master or the hounds but if your horse bolts or tanks off how do you stop this? Especially if it is your first meet and you dont know how horse will behave.

Can you attend a hunt to just follow and watch?

Do you have to have your own horse to hunt ? (I did see a programme once that said that sometimes you dont)

What are hunt rides?

Sorry just have always dreamed of hunting one day!! OH is getting rather sick of me watching you tube videos of my local hunt.

 

[JenHunt]

Firstly, there's no such thing as a truly silly question! The stickies at the top of the forum may help answer a lot of them though!

Secondly - most horses don't want to go past the field master, they just want to be at the front! the vast majority stop when everyone else does. if you do go past them you turn a circle as quick as you can, and apologise to the field master at your earliest opportunity!

You can attend just to follow and watch (not mounted) - you'd still be best to contact your local pack to introduce yourself so that they don't get too suspicious that you're up to no good. Some hunts take a cap from foot followers, so it's worth asking about that too. On the day, ask them if they can introduce you to one of their regular foot followers who can explain what is going on, and show you the ropes.

you don't need your own horse, but hirelings for more than the odd day can be very expensive!

 

[arizonahoney]

It is tremendous fun - I went to my third meet yesterday and even though it was a proper mudbath and there was a gale blowing, it was an experience

Hirelings do seem expensive, but when you consider what you are getting for your money, it's actually pretty good value...use of the horse for as many hours as you stay out, plaiting, transportation and petrol AND someone to escort you in most cases. I looked into getting a hireling at the end of 2010 after my cob royally tanked me out autumn hunting . Luckily for me, I now own a very sensible spotty chap who really knows his job out hunting and shows me the ropes!