Another hunting nightmare!

Radar is good, so am I.

But we had another hunting nightmare today, not of our own making. We had been out about an hour and jumped one piece of timber, (tiny, and the Field Master's horse refused and he fell off and the horse ran off, so not a good start) but the ground was good. A leg or two later, we had to jump another timber fence and as I took off for it, committed by this time, I realised that any horse that landed short was going to be caught on a plank and barbed wire lying on the landing side.

Shortly after, we came to a river.  The Huntsman forded the river in what I thought was a very nasty place, with very, very steep muddy banks down and particularly up the other side. His horse fell going up and he fell off. When he had got out of the way, our Field Master, who we are supposed to follow, tried to cross in the same place. His horse also fell and was scrabbling on its belly and then managed to recover.

The rest of us refused to cross there and went to look for somewhere safer. Meanwhile, the guy who actually owns the hunt, who fancies himself as a total daredevil, as you can see from his profile in last week's Horse and Hound magazine,  attempted the crossing at another place entirely and his horse got in terrible trouble getting out. The last sight I had of it, it was thrashing and I thought it was slipping into the river, but I have now been told that it had a heart attack. I hadn't been able to see it clearly through the trees.

We stopped at a large country house where the landowners lived, and I was grumbling with two friends about how unsafe the place we were first asked to cross the river was. Between us we decided never to hunt with the Cheshire Farmers again. My experience over the years is that they do not prepare their lines nearly as well as the North East, who I subscribe to. It's not the first time I have felt that I have been  in a dangerous situation out with CFDH, or the first time I've been expected to jump wire.

At this point, I was requested to apologise to the landowner for criticising the land. I said I had at no time criticised the land and had nothing to apologise for on that score. Then the person speaking to me changed her tack and said I had been overheard saying that the hunt had been dangerous. I said that was exactly what I had said, and that I had said it because it was the truth.

Three of us  then left the hunt and hacked back to the pub, leaving the rest to carry on. I had no desire whatsoever to put myself or Radar at any further risk. I had to wait for SH and some visitors we have this weekend to get back, and I took the car and drove home. I was frozen, shocked and just could not wait to get out of there.  SH asked another person what had gone on, and they said "we lost a horse". Which means that the horse at the river is dead.

So there you go. Another very eventful day hunting, and another one I hope never to repeat.

C