Outfoxed

Wilde called fox hunting the "unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable." On the upside, it's got all the thrill of battle and only 25 percent of the injuries.

By Sally Eckhoff

Mar 5, 2002 | As part-time jobs go, this is the worst-paying one I've had since high school, but the perks are irresistible. I exercise horses. These are hunting horses -- tough but saintly types who are expected to be able to run pell-mell in a steaming herd but never dislodge their cargo, which would be unable to write checks for pricey equine upkeep with their arms in casts. My job is to keep the little monsters in line. Some of them are so battle-hardened that they'll never behave. But even with the worst ones, I go bopping through the woods and meadows, wrestling as I go, and it was on one such run that I and a stumpy, muscle-bound bay gelding nicknamed Pork Chop nearly collided with a tawny animal the size of a motocross bike. Motionless and unperturbed, it tried to stare us down with its amber eyes. Chop, dumb as he was, didn't flinch. "Tally fucking ho," I whispered to the coyote.

Sporting opportunities for fox hunters having been restricted in recent years, coyotes have increasingly become the quarry du jour, and this was hunt country. The Old Chatham Foxhounds, in fact, were kenneled just over the hill in this Hudson Valley settlement: They'd hear me on my way back to the barn and start their usual small-scale riot. Far from being a dying ritual in the U.S., though, fox hunting is thriving in agrarian pockets all over the place (unlike in the United Kingdom, where it is increasingly under fire). Private owners hang onto vast tracts of land they'd otherwise sell, keeping them open to the equestrian public and frequently to hikers, too. There are foxes aplenty where I live, if you can judge from how visible they are.

Anything killed in a day's hunting, however, is likely to be human. I've seen people launched, stepped on, and kicked so hard while mounted that they were knocked writhing to the ground. I've still never met anyone who's been "blooded" (present at a fox's death). The game is all about the scenting abilities of the hounds and the fox's strategies for laying a trail. There are no guns, traps or cages; foxes aren't released from boxes and chased, despite what most people think. There are days when it's too dry, too wet or too windy for the trail to be sniffable. That's supposed to be the beauty of the sport -- chance and glory, scarlet coats, the trees in autumn, dead-game horses, the sound of the horn, the thrill of a run. Some of the newbies are only in it for the clothes, but that's natural. The only time in my life I've ever looked presentable was on a horse.

Foxes look and act a lot like cats and are just as sly as they're said to be. Coyotes are a different story. A fox will run in spirals in a field and then cut out over its own trail. Your coyote will jump up and run in a straight line like Secretariat going for the wire. That's why a day of hunting in the Hudson Valley trolls between boredom and suicide, and why, when offered a sporting proposition because the boss lady was out of town and her hunt horse -- my favorite student -- was idle, I said yes.

Breakfast and coffee must be taken early. Once you get hunting, there are no opportunities to pee. So it's up at 5:00, guzzle whatever you can and construct the regulation outfit, which has changed little since the 19th century and from which you must not deviate -- not if you ever want to go again. On with the long underwear and thin socks (thick socks don't fit under riding boots), then the white shirt with stand-up rat-catcher collar and the stock, a white ascot that must be knotted around the throat and secured with a three pins, only one of which may be visible, so you look like Orson Welles in "Jane Eyre." This is hard to do before you're awake. There are instant ones. They look cheap.

Ladies and men wear tan, buff or canary britches and tall black boots, preferably custom-made, for which the big shots particularly love to shell out a grand at Vogel in New York. (Mine are off-the-rack, but they fit.) Men get brown leather tops on their boots, ladies get black patent, while guests of both sexes wear theirs plain. Professional hunt staff of either sex, including the masters of foxhounds and the huntsman (the hound expert) sport the scarlet coats, correctly termed "pink." Ladies wear severely tailored black Melton with a collar of contrasting color and special hunt buttons, if they've been awarded the privilege. Men similarly favored also wear the pink coat. Mine is black. Everyone needs white "string" gloves and a velvet-covered crash helmet replacing the traditional bowler. Ladies may carry sandwich cases. Flasks are strictly -- I hate this -- for men.

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