Look for the truth behind fox-hunting facade

THE Irish horse industry is tainted, but it’s not just infighting, doping of horses and tarnished Olympic gold that has dragged it into disrepute.

Show jumping, whatever its industrial relations deficit, is at least a wholesome and highly entertaining spectator sport — unlike its country cousin, the discredited and cruel practice of fox hunting.

At the Dublin Horse Show, hunts from around the country will be present in strength to promote their abuse of part of Ireland’s wildlife heritage. But this PR package will be sanitised, carefully choreographed and free of even a hint of cruelty.

The riders in hunting gear will parade about in their colourful pomp and pageantry, reminiscent of the scenes you’ll find on old table mats or Christmas cards.

The horses and hounds will frolic happily before the crowds, and the proud hunters will jump fences to display their riding skills.

It will be a reconstruction of a typical hunting scenario. Minus one essential ingredient of every real hunt: a fox.

In the summer sun and the cheery atmosphere of the show, you won’t see the hunters doing what they do best: chasing a wild dog to the point of exhaustion until its lungs give out and the hounds rip the skin off its bones.

Nor will we see a demonstration of ‘cubbing’, the dress rehearsal for every hunting season.

This involves digging terrified defenceless fox cubs out of the ground and tossing them live to young hounds.

The purpose of this delightful pastime is to give novice hounds a taste for blood.

It works well for the hunters, who run veritable schools of cruelty at which both newcomers to their so-called sport and innocent dogs are initiated into a cult of medieval savagery.

How dishonest and conniving of them to conceal from the crowds at the big show what their sick little game is all about: sadistic torture and killing for a cheap thrill, a pastime beloved of the so-called cream of society.

So when you see those impeccably dressed ladies and gentlemen on horseback in their hunting pinks and jodhpurs at the show, reflect on the truth that lies behind the alluring facade.

Do not be fooled by a high-profile showpiece for cruelty.

John Fitzgerald

Lower Coyne St

Callan

Co Kilkenny.