Secrets Of Success
Horse & Hound|October 24, 2019
H&H hunting editor Catherine Austen muses on what makes a great field master, as the role requires bountiful skill, tact, diplomacy and knowledge
Secrets Of Success

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.

This story is from the October 24, 2019 edition of Horse & Hound.

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This story is from the October 24, 2019 edition of Horse & Hound.

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