THE POVERTY BAY HOUNDS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18089, 16 May 1933, Page 11

THE POVERTY BAY HOUNDS

LACK OF SPORT

POOR SCENTING CONDITIONS (By “Sunfiles.”) It is had luck on our young and popular ..Master I hat his first season in that capacity should he one of such unprecedentedly bail scenting conditions, when up to date three or four days alone have served ‘to break the monotony of heat and dust and white frost.. 1 However, bad things, like good, come to an end some day, and rain must surely come shortly. Tin* writer’s diary shows that not since 1 !)2C> have such conditions prevailed. In that year a severe drought continued up to the night of April 23, | when a . storm or two caused a Little

rniu to full,,and the drought reasserted itself, and continued until May 17. and not until dune I slid hunting conditions become good. Hounds, like humans, are incapable of performing impossibilities and though they have shown great perseverance in adverse ropditions, it .is only natural to suppose 'that .many riders who are not conversant with the technicalities of hound work—and in every hunt their name is legion—must he beginning to chafe til the lack of sport as estimated by pace and dis--1 it nee. (Saturday at Awapuni, therefore, leaves little of out.standing interest to chronicle, and after an hour and a hour of futile effort in the heat of the morning it was wisely decided to whip off for ah hour in hopes that, as the afternoon cooled off hounds would he able to run better. Tli.at this decision was justified was proved when at about 2 p.m. a hare from near Mr Sistcrson’s homestead took hounds at a good pace round the dry lagoon, where amongst fresh hares!

hounds were stopped. Meanwhile another hare had gone into some raupo near the road, and hotiw s soon had her away across the abattoirs road, over Mr. Dunn’s country, and down over the Whakawhitirau ioa«d 0 the river, where she swung left-handed, and the pack raced on to Mr. ihtll s boundary, where they were stopped. A short spin from Mr. Mclntoshs maize had its termination in Mr. Sisterson’s lagoon again, and Mr. Athens roughs—usually a sure find, milimf to hold, it. was not until the paddock .next the aerodrome was reached that a hare was found. Hounds run nicely tb.roup.li the first swamp to Mr. Pa titer s boundary swamp, where she turned righthanded, and at a fair hunting pace they ran on to cross right-handed o ver Davton Field, and over the stock mul across the point-to-point course to fcfco saml\ soil and juniper bushes, wlnere scent failed, and we whipped off Sit •"bout 4 p.m. 1 Darkness quickly fell, ail'd on the long road homo to kennel tlm 'immortal. A d' Ogilvie’s words caYne el .early to one s mind as cars came flash’j»g bv: —

“(hack of a whip as thy headlights nolle. Blind in the blaze, they grope and group- , ‘Curse the feller!’ A*ml cant he hear; Put them across V.iere! Cope, boys, cope!

“When never a, ski 1 is hung in the sky. With never a lan'ip or a lantern spark, .Huntsmen and whj.ps go groping by. Blowing their lxcirns. in the dark.’’