Alice Fox-Pitt
I Love My Hunting
Alice Fox-Pitt | © Nico Morgan
Alice Plunkett (Fox-Pitt) is a regular presenter on Channel 4 Jump Racing. A former eventer and lady jockey, Alice remains the only woman to have ridden around Badminton and the Grand National course at Aintree.
Now married to International Three-Day Event rider William Fox-Pitt and with two young boys (Oliver, 5 and Thomas, 4) Alice gave up competitive riding in 2000, but still hunts as often as time allows.
Alice takes part in the 2011 Cheltenham Festival St Patrick’s Day Charity Derby in aid of Cancer Research UK. To sponsor Alice please visit www.justgiving.com/aliceplunkett
My husband William Fox-Pitt has hunted loads, and feels very strongly that his days hunting up in Leicestershire were really the foundation for his cross-country riding, particularly when eventing was long format.
He learnt out hunting how to get into a balance and still encourages students that come to us to go hunting as much as possible. It gives them a feel for coming into a fence, dealing with what happens, riding in any conditions and riding tired horses.
Actually we were all hunting yesterday (28 Feb) with the Blackmore and Sparkford Vale: me and William, and my two little boys – Oliver who is five, and Thomas who is four.
Hunting is pretty much how I started riding, and I still hunt lots now. Hunting is brilliant in our area. I started as a child with the Heythrop; my granddad Anthony Taylor was a fieldmaster there in the time of Captain Ronnie Wallace. My mum Celia was mad keen on hunting, as was all her family, and she still hunts with the Heythrop. My dad David (Plunkett) hunted as a kid down in Cornwall.
We would hunt all through school holidays. Some of my happiest memories are of us all out hunting as a family: three girls, (and) mum and dad. Both my sisters died of cancer when very young: Eloise (27) and Katie (16), but both hunted up until they were very ill, so these are some of my most cherished early memories.
Alice Fox-Pitt | © Nico Morgan
I progressed to riding a lot of horses for Guy Avis who is secretary of the Heythrop, sometimes side-saddle, sometimes astride. I was also qualifying point-to-pointers for people; but always hunting, so at times I was hunting four days per week. All that led to my riding in point-to-points. That in turn led to me riding around the big fences at Aintree in the 1993 Fox Hunters’ Chase, which was only my fifth ride on a racecourse!
It was a horse called Bold King’s Hussar. I had been hunting him really hard with the Heythrop and he’d went well across the Vale several times, so I knew he’d jump around Aintree ok. I’d jumped some serious things on him out hunting, so I knew The Chair would be no problem to him. It was a fantastic thrill, I was 19, and my grandpa had bred him. Granpa wrote in his will about Bold King’s Hussar: “I can see his white face landing over Beechers, or coming up the hill at the Cheltenham Festival.” It was so brilliant to make granddad’s prediction come true. He would have been thrilled to bits.
(Bold King’s Hussar was owned and trained by Mrs David Plunkett, and ridden by Miss A Plunkett in the 1993 Fox Hunters’: finished 14 of 27 at 50/1; winner was Double Silk at 5/2 fav – a prolific winner of 18 hunter chases from 31 starts, owned and trained by RC Wilkins.)
Bold King’s Hussar’s career all came together through hunting. He did a leg racing, and then came home and had a season hunting, then a season point-to-pointing, and another season hunting, and then went to Aintree for the Fox Hunters’. It was hunting that really got him back on track.
My eventing came around the same time. I’d started eventing in the pony club, then went on to juniors (under 16) then European Championships (under 21) but I was racing, eventing and hunting all at the same time. Halfway through a three-day-event at Windsor one year I did the cross country, then drove to Worcester to ride in two chases, then drove back to Windsor to show jump the next day. But by bosses wanted me to stop racing and just event, so in about 1997 I started to focus solely on eventing. I ended up doing Badminton in 2000 on Baladin de Canta, where we jumped clear.
I think hunting delivers a sense of discipline; a sense of calculated risk - which is lacking in our now closely-wrapped health-and-safety life. I think it provides a challenge, I think it provides an amazing sense of respect for both humans and animals, it provides a sense of endurance in all weathers and it provides great friendship.
My sister Eloise was a great, great thruster out hunting. She was not a confident person away from the hunting field but she gained enormous respect from elders and others by the way she went out hunting. And that gave her great confidence. When out hunting she would speak to anybody - people she wouldn’t speak to normally. But out hunting everyone is on the same level and you all face the same challenges together: if you go well out hunting you gain a certain respect, which is really good.
You meet great people and you get an all-round horsemanship training. We get students from USA and all across Europe who come over to train with William. They may have ridden all their lives, but the experience to be gained on the hunting field here in Britain is very different. They ride in a clinical school, they look pretty, but when things start to go wrong they haven’t got the tools to deal with it. Whereas hunting gives you those tools to cope with any situation on a horse, and be practical about it.
Alice Fox-Pitt