CASTLETOWN Square was the meeting point for this year’s Boxing Day hunt which attracted around 20 participants.
Riders enjoyed stirrup cups of hot port courtesy of the George Hotel before riding out across Scarlett and Great Meadow.
Field Master for the day was Sam Leahy who thanked land owners for accommodating them.
‘Castletown Square is a great place to meet and the George Hotel was fantastic bringing the drinks out for everyone who was on horseback.
‘Officially we are the Isle of Man Bloodhounds Drag Hunt but sadly we don’t have any bloodhounds any more. We used to use an obliging fell runner who would use a rag to trail on the ground and lay a scent for us. We have never actually hunted animals. But now as we don’t have dogs at the moment the route is pre-arranged.
She added the hunt tried to meet every two weeks, setting out from different locations around the island, between autumn and spring.
‘But of course the weather plays a part and we are always grateful for the land owners allowing us to use their land,’ she said.
The Boxing Day hunt is perhaps the most prominent one on the calendar.
‘It’s really nice because it’s the one the public turns out to come and see,’ she said.
‘Castletown Square is a really nice place to meet, so you get family, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends – everyone congregates.’
She said at one time the hunt had used a pack of blood hounds but at present had none.
‘They aren’t really pets so someone has to have the responsibility of looking after them,’ she said.
‘It would be nice to have some more dogs in the future but at the moment we don’t have any.
‘We did still have some until not all that long ago. They would follow the scent that had been laid. The beauty of that is that it looks like a hunt and the riders get a good ride across country.
‘It means they get to cover some ground and tackle some natural obstacles – banks, walls and ditches and so on,’ she said.
‘As we don’t have hounds any more I had to go down the day before to plan a route. I know which way we are going but the others don’t and they have to follow.
‘All in all we had a really good day and we timed it well before the rain.’
She said they were extremely grateful to the landowners concerned for allowing them the use of their land at Scarlett and Great Meadow.
Next outing for the hunt is on new year’s day at Ballacallin Moor thanks to the co-operation of the landowner Walter Gilbey.
In the UK it was estimated that around 300 Boxing Day hunts turned out around the country. The practice now has to take place in the form of a drag hunt since the hunting ban became law in 2005 under the then Labour government.
While it has been a big issue in the UK, fox hunting has never been an issue in the island because there are no foxes here. However, there have been a couple of sightings of foxes and at least one body found in the eighties. It must have been imported.
The UK environment secretary Owen Paterson recently announced they would not be having a free vote on whether or not to repeal the legislation.