The Percy: hunting as it should be
In the incomparable hunting ghost story The Shadow on the Moor, the Percy hounds are under the command of “the finest huntsman ever breathed”. Yet his heart is dark and after he kills his whipper-in, Black Tom is led on and on by a spectral fox to crash down a chasm to his death. The author, Alan Ian, 8th Duke of Northumberland, knew his country as well as his descendants did and do. Joint Master Michael Hutchinson, who has followed the Percy for 60 years, remembers the 10th Duke as a “very skilful huntsman; the less he did, the more he did” and casts current huntsman Robert McCarthy in the same mould. “The hounds love Rob. They talk about the golden thread, well, he’s got it in spades.”
“Belvoir Poacher’s progeny are the backbone of the pack”
McCarthy began his career with the Suffolk, under Tom Batterbee. He whipped-in to the Percy under Martin Claxton, then hunted the Essex & Suffolk until Claxton’s retirement, when he eagerly accepted the request to return. “When I first drove north,
