A view from the saddle

A view from the saddle: Our personal hunt stories.

All ODH Subscribers are welcomed to send their personal hunt stories to the webmaster for publishing here.

Boxing Day 2004.

Boxing Day, 2004 (that's traditionally December 26th), was a particularly eventful hunt. The air was very cold and crisp the day after Christmas. The overcast Virginia skies were no particular comfort to the riders and their mounts either as their was to be no let up from the cold and a guarantee that the ground would remain slick in many areas. Beginning with a small cup of Port to warm us all up we started out from the ODH Kennels. The ground was still fairly greasy from recent rains so very few coups were going to be jumped. About an hour into the hunt the pace was somewhat leisurely, many of the riders talking about what they had done Christmas day. One of the Joint Masters, Douglas Wise remarked to the field that she was annoyed that the kids staying at her home were planning on staying in all day playing video games rather than enjoying the outdoors.

The hunt at times seemed like a trail ride, and then, hounds picked up the scent and took off. The field followed hounds and Huntsman and the pace changed instantly from calm and jovial to frantic and serious; the chase was on. While galloping down a dirt road, this author learned the meaning of the expression “here’s mud in your eye!” first hand as a huge clod of mud from the horse in front of him was launched from his right rear hoof. In a high arc, almost in slow motion, the gravel encrusted clump reached a maximum of eye level before it began dropping, hitting the author on the collar bone and detonating like a hand grenade, blasting mud everywhere. Spitting the mud out of his mouth, without slowing down in the least, he and the field continued around a bend in the road and then suddenly slowed to a canter, then quickly to a trot and then after a minute the field stopped dead in the middle of a farm driveway, the hounds having trapped a fox in a drainage culvert that crossed the road.

The hounds were blocking both sides of the culvert when the field came up upon the scene. Gerald Keal, the huntsman, desiring to press on with the chase, called the hounds to one side of the culvert. Minutes ticked by with no moment; the fox was having none of this. He was safe and he knew it. The huntsman decided then to call off the hounds entirely; a another few minutes passed; still nothing. He dismounted and grabbing a branch that had fallen from a nearby tree, began to rap the culvert, alternately poking the stick inside and growling at the fox. Again, still nothing.

Gus Forbush, ODH’s other Joint Master, who was leading this field was becoming a bit more anxious at the delay and decided to take some personal action. He had watched what had just occurred and decided the solution was to get an even bigger stick. Dismounting, he too began poking at the culvert as the Huntsman remounted his horse and tended to the hounds now grouped about 20 feet away . . .

Again, minutes went by and still nothing.

Meanwhile, the field was watching with a mixture of humor and amazement as the Gus, now down on his hands and knees continued to poke at the culvert. Showing signs of exasperation, he laid down at the opening of the culvert to have a look. He yelled out to the huntsman that the fox was still in there. He then began yelling into the culvert, growling at the fox “ouutta there!”, Git!” and “go on!”.

The same result ensued; nothing. That fox wasn’t just not going to budge. Finally, on his belly, stick in hand, the Master shoved his arm as far as he could reach inside the culvert, banging on it and yelling at the fox. As this exhibition of fine huntsmanship continued, a group of vehicles had slowly driven up from the other direction; they were following the progress of the hunt. Seeing the Master on the ground, a pickup truck door opened up and out stepped Clair Palmer, a whipper-in who was recovering from a recent surgery and unable to ride that week. She walked past the Huntsman, another member of the hunt that was now holding Gus’ mount as well as his own and stopping about 20 feet from Gus Forbush, in a very proper English voice she stepped forward to talk to the Master who had just got back on his feet, asking him “May I be of some assistance sir?” Gus explained what had been happening prior to her arrival, and Clare requested that he remount and that she would try to flush out the fox.

Getting down on her belly, at the same end of the culvert that Gus and Gerald had worked to no success, she shoved her face into the culvert and yelled at the top of her voice, “get out of the bloody culvert, you bloody fox!

It was like the fox was shot out of a cannon with its ass on fire. The fox bolted at high speed out of the culvert and went screaming down the pasture, with the field tracking the fox by eye until it disappeared from sight but not before this author was able to get off two shots of the fox with his camera, as the field sat incredulous, watching what had just happened. The pause in the pace of the hunt by watching this event unfold for the last 15 minutes lulled some of the field to what seemed to be an altered state of consciousness. With everyone tracking the fox by eye until it disappeared, someone finally got the bright idea to give chase. And, hounds leading, the field was off and the chase was on again. Chasing the same fox another mile, it slipped under a hay roll in a nearby pasture. At that point, the fox was run to ground, and the chase concluded, but not without a good a good story to tell for years to come.

This page was last updated on 01/10/2010 .