A hunt of two halves.

The rain that was forecast - very heavy - held off, though we heard thunder close by. The ground was superb. The first two jumps were hedges (far from small) with big drops and although I certainly wasn't ready to start like that Radar was. Thankfully we had hacked half a mile on the road so we were all warmed up, otherwise I would not do it, it's asking for muscle or tendon strains. Three  more legs had some wonderful long grassland runs, a few hedges, timber and a partcularly tricky bank down into a stream and out again, which we also did in reverse.I'm not sure you can imagine it, but in reverse we jumped a small timber, had about ten feet of flat ground to land on before a sharp right hand turn to avoid trees followed by a plummet down a ten foot bank to cross a stream deep in mud and then kick hard to get up a 15 foot bank of nearly verticle mud which we had scraped all the grass off coming down it the first time. I clung onto my breastplate at that point and still lost my stirrups!

We were half way through the last leg when Fred's horse in front of me seemed to catch a foot in a hole and crumple up. When he didn't get his legs back under him and ran on for a couple of yards on his knees and hocks, I knew he was in trouble, and he fell over trapping Fred's legs underneath him and thrashing madly with all four feet perilously close to Fred's head. People jumped off and sat on Harry's neck to stop him thrashing and hurting Fred, and then, with a lot of difficulty and a couple of bruised ribs for Nick, they got the lashes of two hunt whips around Harry's hind feet and pulled him up enough to get Fred out from underneath. As Harry lay there twitching and obviously dying of a heart attack, I went off with  the field to further away where people would not have to watch, and to tell some worried onlookers that Fred was OK but Harry was not.

It was a horrible thing to happen, but Harry was nineteen and a seasoned hunter and there is no death that he would have wanted more than to go out in the middle of the last gallop of the last leg. It's a good end for a horse, but I feel for Fred and I have tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat thinking about it.