THRILL OF THE CHASE
In the woods behind us, I can hear the baying and yelping of 27 hounds in hot pursuit. Behind them, in full hunting costume, are 40 or so mounted riders, urged on by the master huntsman’s horn. If we don’t increase our pace, they’re all going to catch us. Now I know what it must have felt like to be a fox, back in the old days, before foxhunting was outlawed.
This modern version of the sport, however, is completely legal. It’s called ‘hunting the clean boot’, and involves chasing human runners across the countryside on a predetermined route. Riders still enjoy all the adrenaline of traditional foxhunting – a pack of sprinting hounds, horses leaping over fences, occasionally a dismounted rider – but, crucially, the quarry isn’t ripped to pieces. The worst that might happen to me and my fellow runners is that we get slobbered over at the conclusion of the
