Secrets Of Success

H&H hunting editor Catherine Austen muses on what makes a great field master, as the role requires bountiful skill, tact, diplomacy and knowledge

FIELD mastering. What are the secrets to doing it well? This is on my mind because a great friend has just started doing it. She’s been a MFH for years but, apart from the occasional day, has mostly side-stepped this role. This season, despite having given birth to her second baby in July, she has been persuaded to act as field master in quite a big chunk of our hunting country. She was in charge this morning, and did a really good job.

She kept us close to hounds without pressing on them, she is quietly authoritative — even if she thinks she isn’t — we respect her knowledge of hunting, she gives a good lead without feeling the need to show off(for that, read scare us). I suspect, every now and then, like her mentor and our senior master, she’ll wake us all up by jumping something that does frighten us but that she is reasonably sure a good proportion of the field behind her are capable of if we man up a bit.