Headbutts and slashed tyres: Grove & Rufford feel the pressure

Sheffield Hunt Sabs have been focusing their efforts on the Grove & Rufford Hunt for four seasons now, and the pressure is obviously piling up.

They’ve been through four huntsmen in that time: Paul Larby leaving in disgrace after being caught shagging someone he shouldn’t in the hound van, the next, Gary Joynes, was a stand in gardener who didn’t know his horn from his whip, followed by an unmemorable Ben Higgins, and most recently a Tom Haddock.

Their mastership is also in disarray, with clear divisions in the hunt, a shortage of whips, and not many field riders with them either. When the only thing you can rely on is the sabs turning up each week, we can see why tempers are running high within the hunt, and the frustration is mounting.

Now it seems like they are reaching boiling point. On Friday the sab vehicle had its usual checks then, when sabs woke up bright and early Saturday morning it was to find two tyres slashed, on the hidden side of the vehicle of course.

With a quick reshuffle of sabs, the undamaged other vehicle headed to the meet, joined by Nottingham Hunt Sabs in a very similar vehicle.

The disappointment of seeing two vans full of sabs waiting outside the meet, where a pitiful five riders were saddling up, must have been too much for Kennelman Nathan Carley who took it upon himself to steal a spray bottle out of a sab’s pocket, and then when challenged headbutted a sab. Not the moves of someone who is thinking rationally about the reputation of their employer – the Grove & Rufford Hunt – or of their future, but someone who has had enough, and lost his temper. 

Last time a Grove & Rufford kennelman – Tom Hopson –  lost his temper and threw sabs into ditches he promptly moved on. Let’s see what happens to Nathan, and whether the Grove can cope without him, or whether they are so desperate for staff they don’t care about their reputation and continue to employ him throughout the police investigation and court process.

Needless to say, the footage is going to the police, and sabs will be back out next week, and every week until hunting stops for good!

Please support Sheffield Hunt Saboteurs here:
Follow: https://www.facebook.com/sheffieldsaboteurs
Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/sheffhuntsaboteurs