Improve Your Horse's Hunting Manners

Collect every drop of satisfaction possible by making your horse the envy of everyone on the field. Beanie Sturgis explains how train your hunter

THE rain has come; the nights are drawing in. The hunting season proper is getting closer.

This very fact causes great excitement in our house, with the children losing any semblance of sanity. However, in the stables we try to make this as unexciting as possible for any new recruits.

Introducing horses to the hunting field is great fun — occasionally in a “yeee-haaa, fasten your seatbelt” kind of way — and very satisfying. You will need lots of patience and as much time as you can possibly spare.

Get your horse used to being ridden with others in open spaces. Please don’t expect an animal that has spent more than half of its life in a manège not to react when you take it out with a huge gang of others. Get a few mates together and have a canter about out in the open, making sure you go in front, in the middle and behind. Practise turning away from the others and riding out of sight, then walk back, canter back, stop, start and repeat. You will get a good indication from this of what is in store when you hit the hunting field. It is also a great way of checking your brakes, which will almost certainly need a slight upgrade from normal. You will also get a bit of an idea if dear “Twinkles” is going to take aim at his mates when you are cantering along in a group and can act accordingly.