Hunter Fact File

Robert McCarthy

Huntsman with the Percy Foxhounds (Old English Foxhounds) since 2005.

It all started for me at the Suffolk. I began hunting when I was 10 years old with mum and dad at weekends; my sister and brother would be on ponies. I started running everywhere with the Suffolk hounds, and the then master of the Suffolk, Mrs Villar gave me a grey pony called Grey Boy, and I started hunting on that.

I never hunted with the field, started whipping-in to Tom on my first day mounted when I was about 14yro. I was never a great fan of school - school wasn’t a fan of me. All my school holidays I spent at the kennels, and I knew then it was all I wanted to do. I left school when I was 15yro and went straight into being kennelman at the Suffolk.

It was the hounds that really interested me. Tom had an exceptional pack of hounds for a plough country. Tom had an awful lot venery about him: he very rarely lost a fox - even on a moderate scent, he could keep the job going. This fascinated me - he was a very good huntsman to watch, you never saw him flying about - galloping everywhere. You hardly knew he was casting hounds: they could run right up to a village, and he pick ‘em up and might trot four fields, and you’d think: what the hell’s he doing? But he’d lay them down and cast them, and away they went. He was gifted; exceptional on the hunting horn, and a very good voice.

I was kennelman for three years, and it was a good grounding. Obviously I didn’t hunt much, but I learnt an awful lot in those three years in kennels. It was a big flesh round, and a lot of skinning; our whipper-in Sarah Turner did seven horses, so that left me and Tom to do the kennels and knackery. Lot of work, but I learnt - and I think this is where a lot of hunt servants struggle now, because the jobs just aren’t there - I learnt an awful lot in those three years. Tom would show me everything he was doing: how to jab a hound, or cut a nail back, and all that stuff in kennels.

When Sarah left, I took the whips job and whipped-in to Tom for three years, until he retired at 65. In 1996 I applied for the First Whipper-in job at the Percy, and got it, so I moved to Northumberland. You couldn’t imagine two more opposite hunt countries.

I remember the day I came for my interview, I whipped-in to Don Claxton, and it rained all day. Northumberland is a beautiful country but when the weather’s bad it can be very hard, and I was drenched. To be fair to Don it was a moderate day, with no scent, but he kept things going. There was a lot of jumping in the Percy country, we were brought second horses - I’d never had a second horse in my life before. They offered me the job that night - I took it, and moved north on 1 May. It was a big move for me; I was born and bred in Suffolk, and had never really left the county much before. But it proved a very good move, and worked very well. Don Claxton retired, and his son Martin took over as huntsman; and I whipped in to Martin for five seasons. And they were five very good seasons.

I wanted a huntsman’s job, so my next move was the Essex & Suffolk. A big country, nearly all plough. We’d be autumn hunting six mornings a week, and had some good fun in the sugar beet earlier on. Suffolk is heavily shot. Senior master Mr James Buckle owned a great deal of the land - several thousand acres - and had a lot of jumps put in, so I was lucky in the fact that we had this one very big estate which was nearly all grass -  which was good on Saturdays from an entertainment point of view. We’d get anything up to 100 horses some Saturdays, so a lot of horses out. Very rarely we had to stop hounds, and we had some very good hunting. We get 50-60 max out mounted with the Percy now.

I was more than happy time with Essex & Suffolk. But when Martin Claxton retired as huntsman here at the Percy (2005), Lady Victoria phoned me to ask if I’d consider coming back to the Percy as huntsman. I didn’t really have to think about it to be honest; I’d just always loved Northumberland.

We have seven horses, 40 couple of hounds, and a big flesh round here at the Percy: we have one groom, a whipper-in, and me. And that’s it. When I came here in 1996 to whip in there was 12 full time staff. We do the same amount of hunting days and pretty much the same amount of work as back then. But times have changed: it’s not a slog and it works very well. We have a good kennels, and stables at the kennels, and it’s a good set-up.

The Duke of Northumberland owns the hounds: Lady Victoria Fellows (1991) and Mr Michael Hutchinson (2003) are joint masters.

We still feed flesh, we do a lot of skinning here, and I do most of it. This is my fifth season back here at the Percy, and we’ve only cancelled one day in those five seasons, and that was frost. Usually if it’s frost, we can go on the coast, and if it’s wet we can go wherever, which says how open our country is. And only one blank day. So that’s not bad in five years.

What I love about our country is: - east of the A1 we have a lot of plough; west of the A1 we have lowland grass, which is a bit like Leicestershire; and the further North West we have some hill country, some of it is very hill - it’s proper hill, a bit like Cumbria: so we have three different countries rolled into one, which is variety and suits me well. And I think why our Old English hounds also suit this country - is they’re not bothered if it’s plough, moorland, bracken, grass or heather: they just get on with it.

The Dukes of Northumberland have been keen to keep these hounds as pure to the Old English as possible, and Lady Victoria is just as keen to keep them pure, and obviously I love the Old English hounds. I’d no grudge for the Modern English, and Old English wouldn’t suit a lot of countries down south: if it was a good scenting day - you just wouldn’t be able to stop them, and in some of those tight countries being able to stop them is a must.

Up here, in this big open country, we very rarely have to stop them. But down south, where you have to pick ‘em up and drop ‘em down, it just wouldn’t suit the Old English. They just love to hunt, and they never, ever stop trying for you. They are very low scenting, and they’re also very hard: they’ll stand a big day’s hunting, and almost do it again next day. I think these are the reasons why a lot of Modern English packs have put a bit more of the Old English into their bloodlines.

I’ve always liked the Old English, but they are not everyone’s cup of tea. Some huntsmen don’t like them at all. As long as you work on with them - they’re fine, as they’re not the sort of hound which would like to sit in the kennels all day.  I’ve got an old doghound here doing into his eighth season, and still does two days a week. The critics say they have bad feet, bad shoulders, they won’t stand the work, and they’re too slow. But you ask a hunting man up here on a good scenting day - they’re certainly not slow. They may not be the prettiest to look at - but my God they can hunt.

For breeding, latterly we’ve used stallion hounds from the Wynstay, the Duhallow, Holderness, Limerick and Belvoir. There’s not that many Old English stallion hounds out there. Belvoir Poacher ‘98 was a very renowned stallion hound and he did us an awful lot of good. He was an exceptional hound, and has left us some very good hounds.

Martin Thornton was at the Belvoir then, and when I took a bitch there he said straight away - that’s the stallion hound you want to use. We put Poacher ’98 onto our Clinical ’01 and she had six whelps: very rarely do you get a litter which are all good; she had three dogs and three bitches - and they were entered ’06 - all of them absolute corkers: Poppy, Pocket, Potion; and Porter, Poacher, and Porick.

We’ve bred from all three bitches, and two of them twice, as they were so brilliant in their work: Poppy to Warwickshire Pontiff ’03; Pocket (two litters) to Holderness Woodman ’05 & Wynstay Gandolph ’07; Potion (two litters) Holderness Lincoln ’02 & Percy Worcester ’03. These were three very exceptional bitches.

Lady Victoria takes a very active part in the breeding of the hounds, and likes to see all the proposed stallion hounds and see all the bitches, and it’s a joint effort. If she’s away in Ireland or somewhere, she will always go and look at some hounds somewhere. She has also judged hounds a great deal.

A hound that does need a mention when I was at the Suffolk was Exmoor Guinness ‘90 bred by the late Capt Wallace and given to Tom Battersbee. He was an amazing doghound with such fox sense - he had it all. He’s actually out of the famous Old Dominican Gorgeous, so he had USA bloodlines.

Robert McCarthy