Wayne-DuPage drag hounds head to covert. / Chris Carney photo
Drag hunting, according to conventional wisdom, is what a hunt does when its country is constricted by suburban development. Sometimes that’s true, but, more often, hunts follow a dragged line of man-laid scent because the Masters want to. And a few hunts have been doing it for more than a century.
Each type of hunting—live or drag—has its pluses and minuses, depending on the needs and priorities of the participants. Drag hunting offers a controlled hunting experience to the benefit of hounds, riders and landowners. With a judicious laying of the drag, hounds are safer because roads and other hazards can be avoided; farmer’s crops are protected from horse’s hooves; homeowners’ lawns and yards are not trampled; and small pets are safe from the attention of hounds (all assuming that hounds don’t riot).
For riders who seek a gallop over fences, drag hunting offers a more efficient use of time, with no standing on a windy hillside while hounds search a covert for a fox (which may or may not be found). Thus the drag-hunting day typically lasts about two to three hours, with guaranteed galloping and jumping, better suiting those with a busy schedule, rather than the three- to five-hour day usually consumed by the ebb and flow of live hunting.
Alexis Macaulay, MFH and huntsman of the Misty Morning Hounds, blows for hounds at Gator Pond. / Carolyn Carnes photo
The drag hunter can also be pretty confident about the obstacles he or she will be jumping. Riders who don’t want to jump are better able to keep up with the hunt, since the jumps are mainly built for the riders’ enjoyment, many with go-arounds. The fences in a drag-hunting country aren’t built to contain livestock, requiring gates for the non-jumping field, which must be opened and closed.
What the drag hunter loses is that delicious uncertainty of searching for and finding a fox. Live hunting is anything but predictable, controlled and time-efficient. The view of a fox leaving covert, the hair-raising halloa of the whipper-in viewing it away, the randomness of the track the quarry takes over the country, and the sometimes surprising obstacles riders confront are all integral to the live-foxhunting adventure.
But draghunting—whether it’s the only alternative or the preferred alternative—is a legitimate sport with a long and proud history apart from live hunting.
Choice Or Solution?
While suburban development and loss of open space is a common reason for Masters to decide to hunt drag, it’s not the only reason. The Myopia Hunt (MA) organized in 1882 and soon thereafter added a drag pack to their kennels because they found the country too rough for live hunting. It wasn’t long before they abandoned live hunting altogether. The Norfolk Hunt (MA) started out as a drag hunt in 1895, despite the availability of wild game and a rural countryside at the time. Today, of course, both hunts find themselves situated in the suburbs of Greater Boston and couldn’t hunt live if they wanted to.
The Woodford Hounds in Lexington, Kentucky enjoy a symbiotic relationship with the residents of Shaker Village, an historic and enjoyable fixture. They very much want to hunt that fixture two to three times a month, but they’ve had four hounds killed on the roads chasing coyote there. The only solution was drag hunting at that fixture.
“We plan to maintain a separate pack of six to eight couple to hunt Shaker Village,” said Jane Winegardner, MFH.
When Alexis and Walter Macaulay organized Misty Morning Hounds in Gainesville, Florida, in 1997, they had no experience with drag hunting. But they didn’t have an option. The territory they were able to secure for their sport was public land, and the regulations clearly stated that “taking of fox is strictly forbidden.”
Although that regulation is no longer in effect, Misty Morning has remained a drag hunt. “We have such a steady pack at this point on the drag that I just hesitate to go live,” explained Alexis Macaulay, MFH. “Also, we hunt on several small, privately owned fixtures that are extremely popular with the members because of the interesting terrain and abundance of jumps, and in those fixtures it would be impossible to hunt live simply because of the size.”
What is real to the hounds? was Gail Andersen’s mantra while MFH and huntsman of the Norfolk Hunt in the 1990s.
Think Like a Fox
In the late 1960s Richard Byron, MFH and huntsman of the Norfolk Hunt, introduced some of the basic concepts practiced today in the mixing of scent and the laying of the drag to closely simulate the line of the fox. Kerry Glass took over the Norfolk pack as Master and huntsman in 1970 and further refined Byron’s ideas.
According to the late Peter Winants, former president of the National Sporting Library and long-time publisher and editor of The Chronicle of the Horse, Kerry Glass was the expert in laying a drag for foxhounds. Always ready to share her opinions, Glass mentored drag huntsmen at Norfolk and at other drag hunts, including Gail Andersen, who whipped-in to her before taking the horn as Master and huntsman at Norfolk in the 1990s.
Andersen’s mantra was, “What is real to the hounds?” If she was hunting in the time of year when visiting foxes were likely to make a straight-necked dash back to their own country, she would tell her “fox” laying the drag to pick up the pace and straighten out the line for a stretch.
She would watch foxes in her hunting country and note where, amid the moss and lichens on the old stone walls, they were most apt to lie up. Where would the fox cross the wall up one side and down on the other? What were the routes taken by the fox while it was hunting? She would encourage her “foxes” to mimic the real thing as much as possible, so that it would seem genuine to the hounds.
One day, one of her “foxes” enthusiastically described seeing a fox some days earlier crossing a swamp that they often hunted by jumping from one tuft of grass to the next tuft. “If you try to reproduce that, you’re going to get your feet wet,” warned Andersen.
“I don’t care,” retorted her “fox,” “I’m going to try it.”
“The hounds came to the swamp and went wild,” recalled Andersen, “screaming on that line from tuft to tuft ”
Laying The Drag
The intent of almost all drag hunters in America today is well expressed by Myopia huntsman Brian Kiely: “I want to make it as real as possible. People shouldn’t know whether we’re hunting live or drag.”
Most huntsmen use a mixture of fox urine (which can be purchased), glycerin and water. Both Kiely and Norfolk huntsman John Elliott each add a dash of anise to the mix as an identifying signature to the hounds, so they will recognize the mixture and discriminate it from live fox and other riot. Both Kiely and Elliott hunt in built-up suburban areas close to Boston, and they train their hounds to consider any scent other than the drag as riot.
Glycerin helps the mix to stick to the leaves and grass, thus holding the scent. Since glycerin emulsifies (doesn’t separate) in the mix, it’s usually preferable to vegetable oil, used by some hunts, because it adheres to the scent molecules and slows the evaporation process.
On windy days, Elliott soaks some kibble in the mixture to absorb and hold the scent. The kibble is dropped at intervals on the line.
“Scenting conditions are the most underrated consideration in drag hunting,” Elliott explained. “Our enemies are wind, heat and dry, parched ground. Scenting conditions really matter to us.”
For drag hunts in highly developed areas, huntsmen must know exactly where the drag has been laid. “I have very little time to stop hounds if they go wrong,” said Elliott.
Huntsmen who have the luxury of more spacious country often don’t want to know where the drag’s been laid. “Start here and end here, I tell them,” says Paul Sherman, MFH and huntsman of the Wellington Waterloo Hunt (ON). “I don’t care what they do in between. I like to be surprised.” Sherman does admit, though, that in tight country he needs to know more.
The method of laying the drag varies: by people afoot, on horseback, and on a motorized four-wheeler. Some drag it at the end of a rope, some spray it, and some dribble it from a bottle.
At the Aiken Hounds (SC), they lay the drag both from horseback and on foot, using a spray bottle or a rag, sometimes a combination of the two. “Foxes” on foot will even crawl under bushes on their hands and knees to add to the realism.
At Norfolk, the drag is laid on foot in the belief that it can more closely simulate the perambulations of a fox. A different person lays each section. Kerry Glass would recruit local college students because, as she said, they were young, energetic and inventive.
One advantage to laying the drag from horseback is that the “fox” can wait until he or she hears hounds coming closer, then move swiftly off again, staying just ahead of hounds. Although this system can produce longer runs, a horse cannot cross the country as a fox would, except in the open.
Kiely likes to start the drag lines with a weaker scent, to make hounds work to find the line and then get steady on it. To accomplish this, he takes the rolled-up drag towel from the previous hunt that had been hung to dry and wets it in water without adding any fresh scent. After perhaps a half-mile, the towel is dipped in the fresh solution, and dipped again every half-mile or so. It’s dragged behind a four-wheeler and allowed to bounce along the ground. “We tried using a spray, but we got it all over ourselves ” he said.
Huntsman Antony Gaylard, who used to hunt the drag pack for the Ottawa Valley Hunt (ON), believes that hounds should be made to work to find the line. “That’s where the cry comes from,” he said.
When hounds start off flying, their heads are up and they have less voice, Gaylard maintains. Cry can increase fourfold when their heads are down, working, and steady on the line.
The consensus of experienced drag huntsmen is that when it comes to the application of scent, “less is more.”
Fred Iozzo, MFH and huntsman of the Wayne-DuPage Hunt (IL), and visitor Tony Leahy, MFH, keep up with hounds running the drag. / Chris Carney photo.carney
Pick Your Hound
As in live hunts, drag hunts use all types of foxhounds, according to individual preference. Myopia huntsman Kiely prefers American hounds for their eagerness to please and their ability to learn from each other. Aiken uses Penn-Marydels, a breed that huntsman Katherine Gunter finds steadier on deer. Aiken breeds one litter per year and adds with drafts from other hunts.
The Wayne-DuPage (IL) pack is comprised mainly of Midland Crossbreds, but MFH and huntsman Fred Iozzo is considering introducing Penn-Marydels to his pack. Wellington-Waterloo has a Crossbred pack and takes drafts from nearby live hunts, which Sherman says integrate very well with their pack.
Norfolk also uses Crossbred hounds. “I want a hound that is looking over its shoulder to make sure I’m there,” Elliott said.
While many drag hunts leave hound food or some type of treat (sometimes called “the worry”) at the end of a line as a signal for hounds that they’ve reached the end of the line, that practice posed a problem for Elliot. “They’d check out every place where a hunt has ever ended on their way past ” he said.
Posted January 13, 2014
This article was previously published in similar form by The Chronicle of the Horse in its annual Foxhunting Issue dated November 18 & 25, 2013.