Question:
Some hilltopping Field Masters take their field to a few high vantage points in the day’s hunting country and stay there. Other hilltopping Field Masters try to keep up with hounds as best they can using the gates and not jumping the fences.
What is the proper way to lead hilltoppers? Which of these fields is more likely to turn the fox? Foil the line? Get in the huntsman’s way?
Donald Anderson
Boyce, Virginia
Discussion:
Hilltopping seems to take as many forms as there are hilltopping Field Masters. Those who move to selected vantage points and wait may very well see more of the quarry and may be catering to the least adventurous riders in the field. Those who try to keep with hounds as best they can are certainly offering their fields more riding excitement and giving newcomers the experience needed to eventually advance to the first field.
There is probably no right or wrong way. However, whichever way a hilltopping Field Master chooses to lead his or her field, there will undoubtedly be some disgruntled and dissatisfied field members. One solution, of course, is to have more than one hilltopping field. In fact, there are many hunts now that offer three fields to satisfy a wide range of desires and capabilities.
Malcolm Matheson, MFH, a longtime member of the first flight at the Orange County Hunt (VA) and former honorary whipper-in there, now leads the hilltoppers. FHL asked Malcolm to weigh in on the subject.
“I like to keep the hilltoppers not too far away, but there are a lot of places you can’t take them. Of course, having hunted here as long as I have, I have a pretty good idea where they’re going to run. I’ll cut a short-circuit if I need to. And you do catch a lot of views of foxes when you’re lagging way behind.
“If I have a few people that don’t want to go quite as fast as I go, and if they want a third field, I’ll appoint someone to take them. I’m not opposed to taking my field over small jumps once in a while. If I have someone with me that doesn’t want to jump, I’ll have my field go on, and I’ll take this person through a gate myself and catch up with the field when I can. You’ve got to take care of the people that want to hunt.”
FHL wanted to know if cutting a short-circuit, lagging behind, and viewing the running foxes increased the chances of turning a fox. Huntsmen tend not to appreciate that!
“Yes, it happens,” said Matheson. “The worst thing you can do is turn the fox back into the hounds, but in my twelve to fourteen years leading hilltoppers, that’s happened to me only once.”
On the subject of the field foiling the line of the quarry, FHL remembers Orange County’s legendary ex-huntsman Melvin Poe’s response to that question many years ago.
“If my hounds can’t recover a foiled line, they’re no damned good anyway, and the field isn’t to blame!”
A nice attitude from the standpoint of the guilty field members!
FHL would like to hear your comments—Field Master, field member, or huntsman. Can you add to this discussion?