Waterford Hunt

19 February 2013

Up early, Áine and I left New Ross and drove to Shirley O.’s in Waterford. Shirley was the Irish chaperone last year (2012) when the US had hosted. Knowing as many international hunters as she did, she had come along with her daughter to England for the first half of the exchange. She had graciously offered to take me hunting with her local hunt when I mentioned I would be traveling in Ireland afterwards. How could I pass up the opportunity?

Once at Shirley’s, we had a bite of breakfast (with tea) before Áine  left for work while Shirley and I moved out to pick up Charlie, the horse I would be riding. After the quick pick up of the big bay, we drove off to the pub, where the Waterford Hunt would be meeting that day.

At the pub, I had some lovely warm port and was introduced to some even more lovely people. As Shirley was not hunting that day, she instructed me to follow her friends Tim and Jo, who would be sure to keep an eye on me and make sure I didn’t get lost or left behind too much.

Charlie and I at the first draw.

Then, we mounted up, and I made it twenty feet across the road only to realize that one side of my running martingale was already broken. I’d only been walking so far. Hoping it wasn’t an ominous sign that all my tack was about to fall apart, I made a mental note and then we drew our first covert.

Almost immediately, the hounds chased out a fox who went just into cover on the other side of the field. And to ground. Seeing as how he hadn’t gotten much a chance to run around and be foxy, we called in the terrier men. After climbing through the bramble, the few burly Irishmen had located the entrances to the fox’s den. Then the fox was bolted, meaning the terrier men captured him live and gave him another chance to save himself with a head start before the Huntsman cast the hounds again in pursuit.

This however, must have been a super lazy fox. He popped over one more field and back into yet another ground. Annoyed, the hunt decided to simply move on and find another fox.

Not sure what to put here yet.

It seemed like every covert we picked that day had a fox, however, and despite our first lazy friend, we picked up several incredible runs for the five foxes that we found around the countryside. All wound up outsmarting us (as foxes usually do), and found their ways back to ground after a fast-paced run in the sun. Charlie the horse was magnificent as well, listening closely to where I was steering him around fields and over hedges. Having been on a few hunts with Àine already, I was thankful I was no longer used to queuing as we had done in the English hunts–it was all up to the rider to choose which section of the hedge to take and the two I was ‘following’ were certainly not responsible for making sure I arrived safely on the other side!

At the end of that first long run, both Tim and Jo were happy to see me, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say surprised. I was still considered the plucky (or is that lucky?) American as we passed around flasks. Then the hounds were cast again and away we went.

There is a fox in that covert somewhere… if only we could flush it out for more chase!

We encountered lots of wire as we continued, and only once or twice did one of our whips horses decide not to wait while he was handily cutting the wire before letting the fields through. As the day progressed, we started to lose members however, as some people decided it was best to go one way or another to keep around fields and follow the hounds and Huntsman. We crossed and recrossed several drains and small brambled hedges covering dangerous wire, until finally jumping down off a road, over a drain, across a large open field, and to a sudden halt on a dirt road overlooking a forested valley and mountain in the distance. There, we paused, letting our horses catch their breaths, passed around flasks again, and let stragglers trickle in with news of the fallen.

Apparently, the most notable had been a member who seemed to have broken his collarbone while going over a drain… ‘that big one.’ Try as I might, I couldn’t recall where a big drain had been, to which it was slowly pointed out that I had been practicing on drains in Wexford, which had much bigger ones. To me, the newbie American, even the ‘big one’ had looked normal. (This story, when recalled to my friends with the Wexford Harriers, brought more laughter than I had anticipated.)

A good example of the Irish countryside. Very green.

As the day was drawing to a close, it was just a few of us diehard hunters left. Some had tumbled, some had gotten tired, and a few had had horse difficulties (Jo had to leave early with a lost horse shoe). A this point, I noticed that Charlie’s noseband was now broken. Add that to the martingale from our first twenty steps. As he had been a perfect gentlemen the whole day, I wasn’t too concerned about my control over the big man, but I was now worried that I’d feel obligated to replace all of Charlie’s tack after riding him bareback to the pub with random strips of rotting, mud-splattered leather in my arms that may have once been pieces of a saddle and bridle.

Luckily, it was at that point in time when the hunt decided to return to the pub anyway, so we walked back to the village in the late afternoon sun. It was one of those beautiful moments of camaraderie and a job well done between people and animals in beautiful countryside and warm sunshine. Also bittersweet as I knew it concluded my last hunt before I had to return home to the States.

Once back at the pub, Shirley (and the horse trailer) had disappeared, so I managed to track down a phone and her number (thanks Tim) to let her know we had returned. Luckily, she had timed it right and was already on her way. I untacked and brushed down Charlie, we loaded him up, and then headed into the pub for Guinness and sandwiches. Another reason to love hunting in Ireland.

Shirley and I took Charlie home and then I went back to New Ross. While I had no more foxhunts to look forward to in England or Ireland, I still had one more day in which I been promised a beach ride on Grey Horse before I had to leave my new favorite country.

Thank you to the Waterford Hunt for letting me ride with them!