EQUESTRIAN - Sponsored by Brickfields and Froghill Tack
of the hunting fraternity,”
says Stuart approvingly.
Indeed the lobbyists have
been so persistent that Stuart
anticipates an early repeal of
the law. “David Cameron has
pledged to give a free vote
to MPs, if he becomes Prime
Minister.”
Hunts up and down the
country still meet. “But on the
Isle of Wight so much of the
land is owned by bodies such
as the Forestry Commission
and the National Trust that
all we can do is trail hunt,”
Stuart says. Legally, in
England, hunts are allowed to
flush a fox to guns with two
hounds. If more are used the
law has been broken. “Which
is completely impractical,” he
says.
“In my opinion the most
efficient way to control the fox
population is to use the hunt.
In fact the Isle of Wight is
very well keepered, so the new
law - the shackling of the Hunt
– won’t have had too much
effect. But in more upland hill
areas where foxes represent
real predators, it has been
devastating.”
The appeal of Scotland to
Stuart – who is originally from
Yorkshire – is that some sort
of fox control is still able to
be carried out. “If the guns
miss, you are obliged to hunt
in case the animal is injured,”
he explains.
The other attraction of
course is the sheer open
space of the border country,
where there isn’t the pressure
of sharing the land to the
same extent. “There’s a lot of
country in the borders!” he
says.
When he leaves he will take
away some good memories.
Like the time, before the
Hunting Act became law, when
a 12-mile hunt culminated
in the whole mounted field
chasing up Wootton High
Street before accounting for
the fox.
He has fond memories too of
the day after the ban came into
force, when the entire hunt
rode up Newport High Street
before returning to base. “Even
then, we were within the law –
and you couldn’t say Newport
High Street was hunting in
woods – the anti-hunting lobby
tried it on. They said we were
walking dogs without leads!”
Island Life - www.isleofwight.net
life
Photo: P76: Top - Stuart pictured with Harold George. Bottom: Stuart
pictured with the hounds. Photo P77. Stuart pictured with members of the
IW Hunt.
77