Getting the ‘Dartmoor bug'

With nothing to stop the impressive hounds in any direction, a day with the Mid Devon is a rollercoaster experience for the uninitiated

- CATHERINE AUSTEN

Two Bridges, Yelverton, Devon

“HUNTING hounds on Dartmoor is a totally different thing,” said Mid Devon master and huntsman Duncan Hume. “You’ll see as much houndwork in a day as you will in a season in the Shires.”

Well, I’m sure if you are a Dartmoor regular you do, and how lovely for you, but during the first hunt of the day, a three-and-a-half-mile point and six as hounds ran, I honestly couldn’t look up. The terrain we were crossing — at a speed that continually felt a gear too high — seemed so treacherous that I found it hard to drag my eyes away from it.

If I did, it seemed likely that my hireling, Storm, would fail to spot some lethal bog/lump of granite/hole and we would tumble to our doom. I am exaggerating a bit for dramatic effect — I did watch these impressive hounds — but I certainly wasn’t standing up in my stirrups, cantering along easily, eyes on the horizon.

Of course, Storm, who belongs to Mid Devon joint-master Phil Heard and his wife, Lamerton master Mandy, was utterly surefooted and in confident charge of our joint destiny. But trusting a strange horse across such alien country doesn’t come easily, and although the locals laughed indulgently, it was tiring both physically and mentally.

When you are used to galloping smoothly across the manicured Cotswolds, Dartmoor makes you feel as though you can’t ride at all, as you try your best to balance yourself and not bump up and down on your mount’s back.

A TEAM EFFORT