Brenda Hulme kindly laid on a good meet for us even though her partner Dick was away on the London to Brighton run in a vintage car. We are very lucky to hunt there early in the season, given that John Collins runs a very good shoot there and we are most grateful to him for his cooperation. We had a brace of Hoares to hunt, Nick and Richard, with Gillian Hoare taking pictures, and perfect weather. All the ingredients for a good day and as the Quarries found out on the first hunt, this was no day for hanging around.

Hounds were, as usual, very noisy and enthusiastic going to the start of the first hunt, but once they hit the line, they hunted nicely up to the Three Castles Path. As they turned parallel to the Three Castles Path, they flew down to Rectory lane, where they turned north, and then ran back in front of the farm. The Quarries had a nasty shock as they looked over their shoulders and saw the hounds closing in on them a good 400 yards before the designated finish, but a quick sprint (as seen on left) preserved their honour!

The second hunt started down by the Veterinary Centre, with hounds flying over the stubble by Lone Farm, up to The Scrubbs.  Our Quarry had turned back here to run by Courtney’s Copse, where three roe deer ran over the line.  Only three hounds were tempted by this distraction, and they were very quickly corrected.  Our Quarry had cut through the corner of the wood and once again, hounds were close behind and caught their Quarries by the Oxdrove Way, outside Itchen Wood.

The third hunt started near the finish of the second hunt, running north of the Oxdrove Way, where Gill Hoare got a cracking picture of hounds running towards her, as seen on the left.   Hounds ran to the disused pits, before running south of the windmill, and crossed the Oxdrove Way once more.  Hounds turned up the rough grass field divide above the farm and as we came over the top of the hill, the Master had a wonderful view of hounds streaming down the valley where the Quarry had left the grass strip and crossed the crop.  The hounds crossed the last stubble field and caught their Quarry by the bridleway by the road.