Manor Farm, Lenborough

The sun was valiantly trying to break through the clouds as the working section of the Beagle Club ventured into the first field at Manor Farm in Lenborough, Buckinghamshire on 30th January 2011. 

We had been invited by Mr Robin Brazier to bring our hounds to follow the aniseed lines very kindly laid by Dan Cairns and his quad bike.  Before we started we held a one minute silence in memory of Honor Eades, who sadly passed away recently, in recognition of her time with the Working Section.    

For the first line, all the hounds split into two groups with half of them following the heel line and the others going the correct way led by Folly Cairns and Bryn Richmond.  There was a slight pause whilst a couple of beagles found a very interesting sniff.  A second line was laid in the lower part of the field and the hounds ran in their separate groups.  Group A must have caught the scent of the first line and very conscientiously carried on and did that one again. 

As we moved further down the hill we saw two hares run from the adjacent field but luckily their scent had dispersed by the time we used that land and our beagles concentrated on the aniseed instead.  Dan began to make things more interesting by adding some dog legs to the line so that we could see who was truly following the scent. 

In the early part of the meet the Group B hounds were running very well with Buster Forbes, Tia Bidey and Bryn leading the pack in. When the sun came out and warmed the grass the aniseed was proving easy to follow and some of our novices and newcomers were running very well, especially Hoy McSheehy, Summer Emberton and Merlin Johnson.  

This changed as we moved to some smaller fields and Group A started to work better with Suki Fernie and Kermit Scott helping Folly to bring the others in on the line.  Although at one point Barney McBain and Sunny Barling had a lovely time playing in the centre of the field while the others were running on the scent. 

Poppy Johnson proved to be too much of a distraction for Louis Haylock who thought that hers was a far better scent to follow even if it meant going out of the field, luckily she is proving to be very good even though it was only her second meet and she bought Louis back each time.  Two other hounds who were putting in good performances were newcomer Polly Ambridge and novice Krafty Kimber.  To end a very successful meet we ran all the beagles together and probably had the most chaotic line of the day with Merlin going off on a little jaunt and Buster being harangued by his sister Filly and housemate Maddie. 

Looking back on the lines it seemed that the early lines were much longer and it made the hounds concentrate, and therefore, work far better. 

Don't forget to look at the photographs that Ian Bidey has taken so far this season.  There is a link on the Working Section pages on the Beagle Club website.  If you see one that you like he will sell you a copy with the profits going to Beagle Welfare.