The participants of the mock hunt on the 27th of December, congregated at Muirmill in order to hack to Rowanhill farm.

Everyone arrived looking extremely smart in their hacking jackets and fawn jodhpurs, tacking up very well turned out horses and ponies.

We set off on our short excursion to Rowanhill Farm, which sits up on a hill giving us a super view of the surrounding countryside. The frosty fields glistened in the sunshine, so it was a joy to be out in the open air doing something we all have a passion for.

We reached the starting point of the meet, this being the farm, where we were given super hospitality by Mr and Mrs Miller.

While the yummy eats and welcome refreshments made their rounds, helping us to divert our thoughts from cold toes, Mugs Montgomery gave a demonstration of what the hunting fraternity used to wear in ‘the good old days’.

Then outfits consisted of strapless hats, which had to be fitted specially for each individual rider’s head and couldn’t be bought straight from the shelf of a shop, as we do now.

They also used to wear three quarter length, fawn coloured breeches, which were made with rather thick material, instead of our full length jodhpurs.

This was followed by Andy Vernon demonstrating the use of the hunting horn, letting us hear the difference between the sounds that both the huntsmen and the hounds have to be able to recognise, meaning different things, for example if the huntsman has spotted a fox and needs the hounds on the scent instantly, the sound of the horn for this will be different from the one that gathers the hounds back together again after looking for the fox or at the end of a hunt. As the hunting season proceeds the hounds start to respond better to the sound of the horn.

We started off the hunt in one large group and as we covered the first stretch of frosty grass, we broke off into two rides, the more advanced group jumping a greater number of obstacles than the other, but by the end of the hunt both groups were taking part in the jumping side of things if they wanted to.

The hunt catered for all capabilities, meaning everyone had a great day, as it was such a great success, thanks to the all of the organisers and to the weather for being so kind to us that day!!

Lucy Murdoch