British hounds revive Pakistan’s taste for the hunt
Jackals and even porcupines might be the prey, but UK canines are adapting to a tradition begun in the 19th century by Army officers
The note of a hunting horn drifts over farmland as a small pack of English foxhounds bay and run through the brush. Encouraged by shouts from a young huntsman, the hounds plunge through woodland and riverside reed beds as riders try to keep up.
While the scene could be typically English, it is instead 4,000 miles away in Attock in rural Pakistan, and the quarry is not foxes, but local jackals.
The dogs have been transported from the UK in an ambitious attempt to bring back foxhounds to Pakistan and revive the traditions and community of a celebrated old hunt.
The scheme is the vision of Faiysal Alikhan, a Pakistani landowner and businessman who fell in love with English hunt life while studying at Oxford.
He now hopes to resurrect the old Peshawar Vale Hunt (PVH) as a way to bolster Pakistan’s own old hunting traditions and promote the community spirit of hunt life.
“What it really is about is the essence of that countryside community and spirit,” he said.
“For us, it’s seldom really been about the quarry, or the hunting part, its really a bit more about the opportunity to organise, have that intergenerational aspect, which we feel is really important.”
Pakistan has rich centuries-old traditions of both equestrian sport and hunting with dogs from horseback, though local dogs track jackals, hares and wild boar by sight, rather than scent. Yet as in Britain, the traditions face the challenges of a growing proportion of the population cut off from countryside life and a younger generation losing interest.
“We are losing a lot of sense of the ethos about what countryside life is about and there’s a lot of misconception here in the cities of countryside culture, of why we have these things and what they contribute,” Mr Alikhan said.
Mr Alikhan was already a devotee of Pakistan’s equestrian sports before he studied at Pembroke College, but fell in love with the community around English hunt life while living with his family in rural Oxfordshire.
“As a foreign student, seldom do you get the chance to experience the countryside, or the breadth of people. It just got me thinking, because I was involved here with traditional countryside sport and things of that nature.” At the same time, he also became aware of the story of the PVH.
During the 19th century, it was common for British Army officers to bring packs of foxhounds with them to India, when they used hunting for entertainment and training. The PVH was founded in what is now northwest Pakistan in 1870, when several regimental and private packs merged. It quickly became the most famous hunt in India.
The hunt kept its ties to Pakistan’s military and continued to thrive after the British left in 1947.
“Although it did have its origins in the British period, it was the Pakistani equestrian, polo-playing lot that carried it forward,” said Mr Alikhan.
By the Seventies, it faded out though, as the pressures of land reform and the strain of the conflict with India proved too much.
Deciding to set up a pack of foxhounds in Pakistan under the banner of the PVH, Mr Alikhan went around hunts in England to see if they would donate dogs.
Hunts were sceptical at first, but the Duke of Beaufort’s Hunt and Berkeley Hunt eventually agreed on the condition an English huntsman stayed with the project in its early years to ensure the dogs were well cared for.
Seven hounds were shipped to Pakistan in January 2019.
Currently minding the hounds and helping set up the pack is Frederick Thackray, a 19-year-old from Hampshire, who learnt his hunting trade with beagles at Radley. While his friends are spending gap years on the beaches of Australia or south-east Asia, Mr Thackray is sleeping in a kennel in rural Pakistan.
The sight of his pack has been met with curiosity by nearby villagers.
“One day we went hunting, it was just the three of us, and we finished the day with about 40 locals following us around,” he told The Sunday Telegraph.
“They were just rural people and hunting was in their blood.”
A breeding programme has so far produced three pups and more hounds are set to be imported. The dogs have had to adjust to a much hotter and drier environment, as well as new food and wildlife.
“They had no idea about the smells in the beginning and no idea at all about what they were doing,” said Mr Alikhan. “We have civets here, we have foxes, jackals, we have porcupines, so that was a challenge.”
Malik Ata Muhammad Khan, a famed landowner and champion of traditional Pakistani equestrian sport, became the new hunt’s patron. After his death in February, his nephew has taken up the task.
Malik Muhammad Arslan said: “During the hunting season, these dogs have been a great support. My uncle was very fond of these hounds in particular.”
The ambition is to set up a pack of 20 to 30 hounds and eventually hunt two days a week, said Mr Thackray.
‘Seldom do you get the chance to experience the countryside’