Great riders who crossed country
The hunting field has long been a nursery for equestrian talent, with many successful jockeys, showjumpers and eventers having ridden to hounds
Many top showjumpers, eventers and jockeys started off following hounds, says Michael Clayton
Plus: the Tumblers Club 2016/17
Dick Saunders was the first serving Master to win the Grand National
When Dick Saunders passed the Aintree winning post on Grittar to win the 1982 Grand National at the age of 48, he was hailed in the headlines as the “oldest jockey” to achieve this feat. In the hunting world, we cherished the fact that he was the first serving Master of Foxhounds to win the great steeplechase. He received a special award from the Masters of Foxhounds Association in recognition of his victory. Grittar belonged to a hunting man, Frank Gilman, chairman of the Cottesmore Hunt.
Saunders’ superb horsemanship was nurtured in the Pytchley hunting country in Northamptonshire, where his family had farmed for generations. His mother encouraged him to ride from infancy; at the age of five he rode home 10 miles from a day’s hunting and he was to become a Joint Master of the Pytchley from 1977 to 1984. Those of us privileged to follow Saunders as a Field Master knew we were crossing country in the wake of one of the greatest horsemen of his generation. He was deeply mourned throughout the hunting world, as well as in racing, when he died all too early, aged 68, in 2002, having performed many services for both after he hung up his racing boots.
Although the Grand National-winning amateur rider was a supreme example of the hunting field as a nursery for equestrian talent, he was following a tradition of centuries in which exceptional riders developed their skills in the saddle through riding to hounds. A firm seat and good hands, learning to jump natural fences at all paces and balancing the horse to cope with severe changes in the going and the gradient can be the rewards of riding frequently in the hunting field.
The link between the Chase and competitive riding has been heavily emphasised this spring. The winner of the Melton Hunt Club Ride, the Harborough Ride, two other leading cross-country rides and a member of the national team ’chase championship, is a current Joint Master of the Pytchley Hunt, Rowan Cope.
“I loved riding across country as a child with the Bicester and the Vale of Aylesbury Hunts, encouraged by my mother who was a keen hunting lady,” says Cope. He
recalls how fortunate he was to follow Derek Ricketts, the gifted showjumper, when he was Field Master of the Bicester. Cope later rode work for the leading point-to-point yard run by Caroline Bailey, daughter of Dick and Pam Saunders.
At the Pytchley, Cope is one of a team of Joint Masters doing their best to ensure that crossing the country fast behind the hounds, so well hunted by Daniel Cherriman, is a special thrill. Historically, the Pytchley country, with its oxer rails on both sides of stiff hedges, was considered one of the most daunting in the Midlands. “We’ve done our best to take down wire fences, keeping the obstacles as natural as possible, and we have a terrific lot of fun,” says Cope.
The long-held tenet in the world of foxhunting that there is a deep division between “those who ride to hunt and those who hunt to ride”, has always been well short of the truth. In more than 40 years as a hunting correspondent I saw many superb horsemen who used their skills to ensure they could keep as close as possible to hounds in a fast hunt because they enjoyed watching the pack work at all paces.
GREAT HOUND MEN
It is true that not all the great huntsmen were exceptional riders but there have been plenty of examples of great hound men who were great horsemen as well. Tom Firr, the legendary late-19th-century huntsman of the Quorn, “looked like a bishop and rode like a jockey”. His modern successor, Michael Farrin, the Quorn’s huntsman for 30 years (1968 to 1998), flitted across country that was becoming increasingly difficult but, equally, excelled at long, slow hunts in Charnwood Forest with the doghounds. He was the best natural cross-country rider I have seen. David Barker, former international showjumper, is another who showed us the value of brilliant horsemanship when he crossed the challenging Meynell country with tremendous verve while hunting hounds so effectively.
It is essential that Field Masters are good horsemen and I have seen far too many to produce a meaningful list of modern exponents of this vital role. One of the most thrilling to follow, if you could manage it, was Colonel Neil Foster, who led the Grafton for 27 years from 1950. A trim, reserved figure, Foster was an outstanding, lightweight rider on thoroughbreds, which he rode with an implacable nerve. I recall having to jump several locked iron gates in following him
all too soon after we left the first Grafton meet I attended as a scribe. I got the message about the hard-riding Grafton and its Field Master very quickly.
Ideally, Field Masters should not be jealous riders and should not seek to “lose” their mounted fields. Their ability to give followers an enjoyable ride while retaining firm control became crucial in the post-war 20th century, when modern farming methods made it far more important to avoid intensive crop cultivations.
Although any list is grossly unfair to many other excellent Field Masters I have followed, among those who impressed me most were Dorian Williams at the Whaddon Chase; John Woodhouse at the Portman; Trevor Winslade at the Blackmore Vale; Dick Brake at the Taunton Vale; Fred Barker and Joss Hanbury at the Quorn; Lord Belper, Robert Henson and John Blakeway at the Belvoir; and, of course, Master the 10th Duke of Beaufort. Lady Rosemary Samworth gave a tremendous lead field-mastering the Cottesmore, as befitted a four-times winner of the Melton Hunt Club Ride. The 10th Duke of Beaufort was a good horseman as well as huntsman. I was among a group who quailed after landing over a stone wall into the same field as hounds, when Master rapped out: “One more step – and you go home.”
If there is a way of stopping your horse at the exact moment it lands over an obstacle I have not found it. Some Field Masters became adept at shouting “Hold hard!” and then jumping the fence ahead immediately. It is a ploy to check followers from pressing hounds too closely, while retaining the Master’s place in front. I saw it used effectively by the late Lord Belper when he was field-mastering a Belvoir field; he gave a great lead on thoroughbreds, having been a distinguished amateur jockey who won the Cheltenham National Hunt Chase and finished fourth in the Grand National.
SHOWJUMPERS AND EVENTERS
The links between eventing and showjumping and the hunting field are just as strong as those with National Hunt racing. Among the “greats” of these sports who loved their hunting and were superb across country were Richard Meade, who field-mastered the Duke of Beaufort’s, and David Broome, Master of the Curre for 25 years.
Foremost among the great riders of the past was William Childe (1756 to 1854) of Kinlet Hall, Shropshire, who was credited with inventing the practice of leaping fences in a horse’s stride instead of stopping, craning and jumping. He brought the new style to Leicestershire in the late 18th century, using it to good effect over fences in newly enclosed country hunted by Hugo Meynell, founder of the Quorn Hunt. Meynell, a devoted hound man, was soon to complain of young thrusters over-riding his hounds.
Thomas Assheton Smith, who hunted the Quorn early in the 19th century, proved that a great huntsman could be a great horseman. He possessed riding skills plus “the most bulldog-like nerve ever exhibited in the saddle”, according to the hunting correspondent Nimrod. “I’ll be with my hounds. Over, under or through I will go,” was Assheton Smith’s precept. He developed the art of the in-and-
He possessed ‘the most bulldog-like nerve ever exhibited in the saddle’
out bounce jump that we see nowadays in horse trials. Squire George Osbaldeston, who succeeded Assheton at the Quorn, was also an astonishing all-round sportsman.
Steeplechasing grew out of the hunting field: the first race from one church steeple to another is claimed to have been between two Irish sportsmen, Cornelius O’callaghan and Edmund Blake, from Buttevant church to Doneraile church, in 1752. Matches between horses across hunting country soon became popular in the Shires.
Riding across country to hounds at a tremendous pace was not the preserve of the gentry. There were numerous rough riders who made horses for sale by showing their prowess across country. The most famous of them was Dick Christian in Leicestershire, about whom the amateur rider Captain Becher, of Becher’s Brook fame, once said: “If I had Christian’s nerve I would give all I had in the world.”
Nerve in the saddle has never been exclusively male. Today, more women than ever ride brilliantly across the hunting field and in cross-country races and team ’chasing. Girls increasingly outnumber boys in Pony Clubs and the hunting field.
Rowan Cope of the Pytchley says: “I am a bit concerned, because there now seems to be a shortage of boys learning to ride well across country from an early age in the hunting field. I had a very good 15.1hh horse in the yard recently and I couldn’t think of a good teenage boy rider to take it across country properly but there are plenty of girls who could. I hope the clock turns back and we see lots more boys learning to ride in the hunting field. They won’t regret it.”