Richard Tyacke
Tessa Waugh meets the one of the country’s foremost masters and huntsman, Richard Tyacke, and discovers what makes him tick
H&H visits the Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn’s joint-master and huntsman
AT 41, Richard Tyacke is 13 seasons into his mastership of the Wynnstay and widely regarded as one of the best huntsman, if not the best, in the country. We are sitting in [former master and huntsman of the South Dorset and Berwickshire] Rory and Delly Innes’s kitchen with supper on the go and children roaring around, and Richard seems contented but not complacent.
“The Wynnstay is a highpressure place and I won’t be able to do it forever,” he says in his quiet, matter-of-fact way.
But for the time being, the hunt is enjoying a long period of stability.
“People warned me not to go there,” he recalls, “saying ‘it’s an amateur’s graveyard, you’ll be finished within six years’ but we haven’t had a row or hunt politics in 13 years.”
With joint-masters Lord Daresbury, Sir Jonathan Clark, Steven Lloyd and more recently Dominic Curran, Richard has enjoyed one of the happiest collaborations in recent hunting history.
“In the whole time I’ve been here, Peter [Daresbury] has never questioned a decision either in the running of the kennels or on a hunting day and he has supported me every inch of the way. He is a completely committed foxhunter and loves to watch the hounds,” adding with the hint of a smile, “albeit from about a yard behind them.”
Lord Daresbury gives a similarly glowing account of Richard, who first came to his attention when he was master of the Tynedale.
“I was told that he was a very good huntsman, rider and organiser,” he says. “Richard has bred a brilliant pack of hounds and sets himself very high standards.”
Nor has it, Richard explains, become easier to provide that level of sport.
“The country is harder to run now than it was when I arrived. There is more wire, the cattle can be out all winter and hedges are not always cut,” he says.
EARLY SIGNS
RICHARD is a farmer’s son and grew up thinking that he would farm too, but the signs were there early on that something else would beckon.
“From a young age I had to be hunting something, testing myself. When I was about six, my grandmother gave me a rat trap and I used to spend hours chasing rats around the stable yard with the terriers.”
He has happy memories of hunting with the Atherstone as a child but evidently took it seriously, even then.
“Someone asked me if I wanted to be blooded and I said: ‘I don’t want to get blooded until after a good hunt.’ Consequently it didn’t happen until I was about 10 or 11.”
Richard’s parents were both masters of the Atherstone: his father, Richard, for 20 seasons, and his mother, Penny, for 10, so hunting was in the DNA. But when he arrived at Stowe (chosen on the strength of all the outdoor space and its resident pack of beagles), he saw that hunting could be a career.
“I realised there were people like Adrian Dangar and Frank Houghton Brown who had hunted the beagles and made a career from it, and from then on I knew what I wanted to do,” he says.
Heythrop joint-master and huntsman Charles Frampton was at Stowe in the year below and reports: “Tyacke bullied me until I’d proved my complete commitment to the beagles and after that we became very good friends.”
A CRASH COURSE IN HUNTING
RICHARD, like many amateurs of his generation, was master and huntsman of the beagles at Stowe and after school enjoyed a stint as a “boy of no consequence” (general dogsbody) at a pack of foxhounds. In Richard’s case, this was the Sinnington under the mentorship of master Adrian Dangar and his kennel-huntsman, Richard
Mould. Richard claims the biggest thing he learnt from Adrian was how to save money, but it was principally a crash course in every aspect of the job.
“I did everything,” says Richard. “All his valeting, digging out the septic tank and plucking his grouse and pheasants.”
While he was there, Richard stayed with a local character, blacksmith Michael Brown, in fairly rustic style.
“Michael would come in with two big mushrooms and offer them up for supper. It turned out that one was full of maggots so he cut them both in half and we shared a maggoty half and a non-maggoty half. I loved living there — adored it.”
Adrian took no prisoners, as Richard recalls: “I had a new hunting cap that I was really proud of. We came to a hole and Adrian barked: ‘Give me your hat,’ grabbed it, stuffed it in the hole and gave it an almighty kick. I went back to retrieve it but it was never the same again.”
“Right from the start, ‘Junior’ as we called him, was dedicated, discreet, very quiet and did what was asked of him,” Adrian reflects. “He was the perfect boy to have helping at the kennels and on the hunting field and it soon became apparent he could ride very well too.
“Michael, who was a bit of a horse dealer, used to give him horses to ride,” Adrian continues. “We had a good hunt in the Cropton area and jumped an iron gate concrete to concrete. Junior followed on a four-year-old which got caught on the gate and had to have stitches, but Michael didn’t
‘If both the kennel-huntsman and I lost the use of our arms and legs, she could hunt the hounds — my wife has been a massive part
of my success’
RICHARD TYACKE ON HIS WIFE, ALICE
care because Junior had added another thousand pound to the horse’s value.”
Adrian isn’t at all surprised that his friend has ended up where he is.
“He has that lovely unflappable nature but, underneath it, an intense determination. He’s a superstar, really.”
During his time at the Sinnington, Richard was offered the job of first whipper-in at the Tynedale, but it wasn’t meant to be.
“My father said: ‘I’ve spent a fortune on your education — no way,’” he remembers.
He was dispatched to the
Royal Agricultural College (now the Royal Agricultural University) in Cirencester with the hunting bug chewing harder than ever. However, he found himself among friends including Charles Frampton, Dominic Jones,
Rory Innes and Tim Coulson
— all of whom became amateur huntsman. Meanwhile, his priorities were clear.
“In my last year, I managed 65 days hunting on 27 horses with 13 packs and, on the day after the last exam, I got in a lorry with all my stuff and went to Ayrshire to take on the Eglinton hounds.”
HIS EQUAL AS A FOXHUNTER
RICHARD was only at the Eglinton for two seasons before he received the call to hunt the Tynedale. He came away with his future wife, Alice Galbraith, and in Alice found his equal as a foxhunter and rider.
“We both evented as teenagers and competed in the Pony Club
Championships in 1990. It was a tough course then and included a double bounce which they now only have in advanced courses,” he muses. “We have pictures of ourselves jumping the same fences but we hadn’t met.”
They are now 13 years into married life with two children, Annie and Dickie.
‘If a pack of hounds is handled correctly, they will hunt well and it does not matter what sort of
hound they are’
RICHARD ON OLD ENGLISH VS MODERN FOXHOUNDS
“Alice has been a fantastic advisor on how to handle people and situations. She also whipsin and goes on point; if both the kennel-huntsman and I lost the use of our arms and legs, she could hunt the hounds. My wife has been a massive part of my success,” he emphasises.
In Northumberland, the Tyackes found foxhunting Valhalla.
“The country was fabulous,” Richard enthuses. “All grass, exciting to cross and lots of straight-necked foxes. The people that came wanted to ride hard but they also loved foxhunting. We were having five-mile point after five-mile point.”
I wonder how he reacted to the pressures of a bigger hunt.
“The number of people added to the buzz when it went well, but it didn’t worry me. Any pressure I have comes from within.”
With plans to marry and have a family, life’s priorities shifted.
“If I had a large private income, we’d still be there now,” Richard admits. “I sold a painting and lived on that for the last year. Alice and I were thinking we would have to leave and go farming when Peter Daresbury rang and asked if I’d like to come and hunt the Wynnstay. We got there and never looked back.”
HOUNDS ARE THE PRODUCT OF THE MAN
ANY criticism of old English foxhounds goes down like a lead balloon.
“Hundreds of people ask me which are better because
I’ve hunted both [old English and modern] and there is no difference whatsoever. If a pack of hounds is handled correctly, they will hunt well and it does not matter what sort of hound they are. I also believe that the pack of hounds is a product of the man. I took over the Eglinton and the Wynnstay from William Wakeham. One was modern and one was old English and they both hunted in exactly the same way — tenaciously and accurately.”
Is there anything he has worked on?
“They [the hounds] didn’t jump well and they were getting strung out because they were trying to scrabble under the wire. With the breeding, we had to think about hounds that jump well and I always try to borrow stallion hounds so that I can see them hunt the country and check that out.”
Richard’s family are still hugely supportive. His father drives all the way from the Atherstone country twice a week to hunt with him and his mother often looks after the children on a hunting day. How would he would feel if Annie or Dickie decided to follow a career in foxhunting?
“Well, I’d have to support them otherwise I’d be a hypocrite,” he says sharply. “But I think I would say, ‘Go and get it out of your system and then get a proper career before it’s too late’.”