Huntsmen from 10 packs will be competing in the final of a hunting horn-blowing competition later this month.
The finalists will blow 2 calls — “Gone Away” and “Going Home,” — for the judges Jacky Thomas, master of the Glamorgan and Alastair Jackson, a former winner.
Busy practising for the competition are:
- Tim Allen, of the Croome and West Warwickshire foxhounds
- Steven Ashworth, of the Holcombe Harriers
- Gary Barber, of the Pembrokeshire Foxhounds
- Mark Bycroft, of the Old Surrey Burstow and West Kent Foxhounds
- Tom Cranage, of the Ampleforth College Beagles
- Henry Gosling, from the RAC Beagles
- Jeremy Reed, of the Flint and Denbigh Foxhounds
- Robert McCarthy, from the Percy
- William McDonald of the Eton College Beagles
- Michael Scott of the Old Berkshire Foxhounds
The winner will be awarded the coveted Dorian Williams Horse & Hound Challenge trophy.
The competition will be held at at the Horn & Hound ball at Cheltenham racecourse on 26 April.
The ball, in aid of the Hunt Staff Benefit Society, is expected to be a sell-out with 600 people enjoying dinner and dancing to the “29 Fingers.”
An engraved silver hunting horn belonging to Capt Ronnie Wallace is one of the auction lots. There are also hunting holidays in America and Ireland, an oil painting by Daniel Crane and a weekend in a villa in the south of France for 12 people.
Tickets cost £100, for more details, tel 01285 653001.
