Island Life Magazine Ltd February/March 2008 | Page 72

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EQUESTRIAN - Sponsored by Brickfields and Foghill Tack

New Year's Day A Hunting tradition

I

t' s January 1, 2008 and an
unmistakable plume of smoke rises
over Gottenleaze in Calbourne,
the 100 acre farm owned by local
farmer David Biles, and acquired by
his father in 1928. It must, therefore,
be the joint New Year's Day meet
of the Isle of Wight Foxhounds and
the Isle of Wight Foot Beagles.
The 'new' tradition of holding a meet
on New Year's Day was the brainchild of
Richard Standing, huntsman of the Isle
of Wight Foxhounds from 1998 – 2003.
“Richard came to me and said he wanted
to hunt hounds on the last day of the
old century and the first day of the new
one,” explains David Biles. A New Year's
Eve meet was arranged at Alan Aylett's
Rolands Farm, Havenstreet, and David

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hosted the now traditional
gathering on New Year's
Day. “We set the meet
time at 12 noon so as to
give everyone an extra
hour in bed to recover
from the night before,”
says David. Since the
ban, most meets of the
Isle of Wight Foxhounds
are held at midday, but
back at the 'turn of the
century' it was more
usual to meet at 11am.
And the plume of
smoke? “This was David
Biles's marker that
hounds would meet by,
on the first day of the

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