King William Inn Benenden
Boxing Day 2001

A great crowd came to meet the hounds on a cold and frosty morning. Roger Manning, the field master of the day addressed the crowds explaining exactly what we did and welcoming everybody to join in the hunt.

The hounds were taken down the road to Hempstead Forest, cantering by the main car park they were laid on in the rhodedendrum bushes on the left hand side of the main track. There followed an extremely fast hunt in a large circle round the woods - the quarry had taken over an hour running through the trees, but the hounds caught them in just 35 minutes. The going in the wood was patchy with some areas still icy. Care was indicated and one or two horses were sliding around.

For the second hunt our quarry was Adrian. We set off through a ridiculously thick piece of woodland, which the hounds were not over pleased at going through. He turned sharp left handed and the hounds overran the line and were walked back and laid on under the large pine trees where there were no brambles. They hunted him on well into Causton Wood, when unfortunately he went the wrong way and crossed the third line which Chris was just running.

The hounds unfortunately changed, and hunted Chris's heel line back to where he had just started. They were then brought back and laid back onto Adrian, who they found standing in the middle of the ride holding his map and scratching his head, totally lost. He was also bleeding profusely from his legs from struggling through the brambles and undergrowth.

For the last hunt of the day we rejoined the line that Chris had run and we hunted round the woods and out, catching the quarry near the road not far from the hospital. It was a good fast hunt to finish the day and we then made our way back to the boxes where Angela had laid on a special boxing day meet tea which included jacket potatoes and Roger's favorite, haggis.