The Sunshine Coast Equestrian Club hosted the 16th annual opening meet of the Fraser Valley Hunt (FVH) drag fox hunt with more than 30 hunters and five “couples” of hounds on Oct. 31.
A drag hunt involves no live foxes and is purely for sport. Hunt hosts Kenan and Lynne MacKenzie rode ahead of the hunt and laid the scent of foxes on the trail for the English foxhounds to chase.
“Most hunts now are drag hunts. I don’t know of anybody who’s foolish enough to do a live hunt,” Kenan MacKenzie said.
Fox hunting season starts in early November when the crops come off the field, MacKenzie said, and ends when the farmers start to plant again. It’s a sport that has existed for hundreds of years and has maintained many of the formal traditions that it began with.
There is a ceremonial toast before the hunt begins, the hounds are blessed – by the Rev. Esther North at this hunt – then the horn is sounded and the hunt is off.
Longtime FVH member Roger Bates was at the hunt for his 35th year of fox hunting.
“The whole business of fox hunting is an ancient, ancient sport,” Bates said. “It’s a sport, in many ways similar to polo, in that horsey people and hunting people – for hundreds and hundreds of years, all over the whole wide world – have pursued foxes on horseback, with a big bunch of hounds.”
FVH master and huntsman Karen Hatch trains and looks after the hounds. Hatch said she trains them from puppies.
“They are trained individually to come when they’re called; they learn their names. Then they get integrated into the pack and they learn to go as a pack,” Hatch said. “Then we take them out and the pack basically teaches them to hunt.”
In a drag hunt such as this one, the trail is scented with fox urine to lead the hounds, but Bates said that there are still live fox hunts that take place.
“Large parts of England are still hunted – although it is against the law. There’s still a great deal of pursuit of live foxes. But we here regard the hunting of live foxes with dozens and dozens of hounds as being bloody cruel to animals,” Bates said.
“But they’re a damn nuisance. They kill chickens 10 a penny. So it’s dubious whether it’s better to chase them with hounds or to try to shoot them. They’re very difficult to shoot. But much the funnest is doing it as we do here, over a prepared course with enthusiastic hounds. It’s just a joy.”
Bates said that he and the FVH are always grateful to the people of the Sunshine Coast who host them in their favourite sport. Then he went to cheer on the hounds that were devouring their reward of tripe.
