A late start (12pm) for the hoorays today as they had their hunt
ball at the Hurtwood Park Polo Club last night, and from
their turnout, it must have been quite a booze up! Some of our lot
looked a bit worse for wear as well after demonstrating outside it
well into the early hours.
When I got near the hunt at the lower breache woods, I could make
out the huntsman being shadowed by about 20 sabs, with the whipper-in
just coming around the corner of the wood. I was on my own in the
lane except for a car full of bored coppers, so I stood half hidden
by the hedge, raised my cap and holloa'd to try to fool the hunt into
thinking I was a follower who had just viewed the fox crossing the
road.
The police looked at me as if I was mad until nearly the whole of the pack came across the field to me accompanied by an excited redcoated whipper-in. I kept half-hidden until he had almost reached me and then started to piss myself laughing as he realised who it was had called him and the pack over. I think the huntsman was so desperate to get away from the sabs, that he would have come over anyway, but it definitely embarrassed the hunt riders.
From here, the hunt did a bit of a runner through the big woods
near Northlands and over the Horsham road to start drawing Somersbury
wood. I had joined up with a couple of other sabs, and we were
quietly moving parallel to the hounds but a bit behind them, when 2
foxes and a Roe deer cut across our path and made good their escape.
The hounds followed the scent best in the damper wood as you would
expect, and as they started to lose it in the open, we were able to
rate (send) them back along the line they had been following. Text book
sabbing. 
It helped that the huntsman seemed to be out of touch with
the main pack, so we definitely saved the 2 foxes we saw if not more
here. Also I managed to get the pawprints of the second fox, a hound
and a sab's bootprint all in the same photo - with not a hoof print
to be seen! (In case it's not clear, the hound print is bottom left, the
fox is middle/left top and the sab bootprint is top right). And they say we don't know what we are doing!
The huntsman soon knew something was up and called the errant
hounds back to him so he could leg it over to Honeybush wood. For some
reason (maybe their hangovers were getting the better of them here)
he didn't linger even though there were plenty of foxes around as the
photo shows, some even ignoring the hunt to chase rabbits! In truth,
this young fox was some way from the wood they were hunting, but
still within earshot - it must know how useless this hunt usually are!
The hunt made their way back along the roman road behind the kennels and with no surprise found a fox in the verge at Ruckmans. They had a good go at hunting this one as it was the first proper sniff they'd had all day, and it popped up in full view of the riders and supporters. However, the sabs managed to cause enough confusion and spray for the hounds to lose the scent. This so incensed the hunt that they demanded the police do something about the sabs, which (being the serfs they seem to be sometimes) they duly did. Even Fat Cop McPherson ( a man rumoured to spend his working day hiding in the roof spaces of public toilets!) was anxious to prove his obedience to the hunt and try to arrest a couple of sabs for the hunt's benefit.
This all happened on a public footpath for no other
reason than to appease the whinging hunt, so it was no surprise when
it turned into one of Surrey police's famous 'panic / arrest sabs / panic /
de-arrest sabs (and hope they don't sue)' operations.
The hunt were
packing up at this point anyway and we were amazed at their behaviour,
but I guess that's what happens when you give little boys all that
power! No harm done to us in the end, arbitrary arrest is an
occupational hazard for a sab. Call me cynical, but I can't see it
happening the other way around if hunting were to be banned! Still,
there is always the possibility of Citizen's arrest...