Hunting

JUMPING

HUNTING

Hunting is the oldest of all equestrian sports and, although uncompetitive in itself, it is the forefather of many modem competitive ones. Ever since man first realised he could cover more ground faster, and with the added advantage of the height given by sitting astride a horse, he has hunted animals on horseback. Wild boar, oxen, hare, foxes, coyotes, wolves, bears, stags, bison, tigers, lions and even elephants and giraffes all at sometime or other have been hunted in such a manner.

In many instances, such hunting has been of necessity - to provide food or to protect family, livestock and crops; in many more it has been purely attributed to the excitement and thrill of the chase. Robert Surtees, the British nineteenth century writer, creator of the world famous, almost legendary character, Jorrocks, summed up one of the greatest attractions of hunting with the words that it was" the image of war without its guilt and only five - and - twenty per cent of its danger".

Hunting as it is known today, originated in Britain. The pursuit of game of sport, using packs of hounds to find, chase and kill the quarry, was certainly well established in Britain by the time of the Norman Conquest. Although the "sportsmen" of the day were said to resent bitterly the preservation of game and the Forest Laws the Normans were to introduce, these, in fact, did much to bring some order and organization into the hunting field. Hunting began to become an art and a science as well as a sport.

The principal quarry in those early days was the stag; the fox was looked down upon as not being worthy prey for the mounted followers of the hunt. It was not until the eighteenth century, when enclosures began to change the nature of the land - and thus also the business of riding across country after hounds - that foxhunting began to gain a stronghold. It was soon realized that the crafty nature of the fox presented hounds and huntsmen with a challenge that provide a fascinating day's sport for all, equally good, if not better, than that given the stag or hare.

It was around this time; too that hunting began to take its present form, with the founding of more organized "packs" of hounds, each of them having clearly defined boundaries across the country within which they could pursue the sport. Many of the famous British hunts of today - such as those of the great hunting countries in the Midlands - were formed at this time.