Small but venerable
Pau Hunt, Sedzère, France
THE Pau’s joint-master, Jean-Paul Vidailhet, has been involved with the hunt only since last season. The outlook for the hunt was then very bleak.
“Last year, I went to a party with some friends. One of them told me about the Pau Hunt. I knew about it but he told me that by the end of the year, it would be finished,” Jean-Paul said as we shared a pre-hunting coffee at his château at Bernadets.
The crisis was caused by a number of factors. Long-serving master Georges Moutet, who had been sole master since 2000, had been forced into retirement due to ill-health. So too had popular huntsman Bernard Baylac. Without these two at the helm, the hunt was in danger of folding.
It would have been a travesty if this venerable hunt had been banished to the history books, because it is a unique pack and forms a key part of the history of the town
