Judy Hancox

The farm shop owner who is invaluable to the hunt’s fundraising efforts

WHEN I get hold of Judy, she is busy making sausages at her farm shop near Cirencester. She is as devoted to her rare-breed pigs and their breeding as she is to the succession of the VWH puppies she walks.

“I once swept the board at the puppy show with Pumpkin, Pudding and Puzzle,” she says. “I have the most stunning young hounds at the moment and they are such good movers.”

Judy follows her hunt to the hound shows and takes a keen interest in their breeding. In fact, she attributes much of her success breeding her pigs to VWH hound breeder Martin Scott.

“He has revolutionised my pig breeding,” she points out, “by teaching me about bringing in an outcross through the dam line.”

Judy has bred a champion with her Oxford sandy and black pigs by swapping sows with a friend to rejuvenate the bloodlines on the mother’s side.