‘A blur of galloping and jumping'

These characterful bloodhounds put on a fastpaced day for the enthusiastic field, with plenty of jumping and fun to be had by everyone

- WILL CURSHAM

Huntsman Frank Goddard with whipper-in Chris Lightfoot and a pack of excited bloodhounds, who “are all their own individual characters”

Cranwell Bloodhounds, Temple House, Lincs

IT may seem unlikely, but the Cranwell Bloodhounds were founded by the late Phil Broughton and his wife Wendy as a result of a children’s television programme.

“One day Phil was at a friend’s house and a Channel 4 kids’ programme called It’s a Dog’s Life was on the TV,” recounted Wendy. “Each week they featured different dogs and that week they featured the Coakham Bloodhounds. When Phil saw the bloodhounds baying and the horses jumping, he just loved it.”

Phil and Wendy immediately went about setting up their own pack of bloodhounds: “It was 1992 and we went to visit every pack of bloodhounds we could, to get an idea of what would be involved,” recalled Wendy.

Eventually, they got drafts from the Windsor Forest Bloodhounds and the Farmers Bloodhounds and kennelled them at their home in Cranwell in Lincolnshire. The new pack quickly established itself and Phil came to be a prominent member of the Masters of Draghounds and Bloodhounds Association, acting as its vice-chairman before serving as chairman for six years. As well as being joint-master, Phil hunted hounds, with the assistance of Wendy and kennel-huntsman Frank Goddard.

The Cranwell Bloodhounds were regular entrants in the bloodhound classes at Peterborough, their crowning glories being reserve champion with Midnight in 2017 and champion with Marmite in 2018. It was only a few months after their last Peterborough success that tragedy struck.