*Warning: this piece contains graphic images and content.*
The stableyard on Thursday evening felt just like those wintery nights I remember from my childhood: all anticipation and numb fingers the night before show jumping. We were all up late washing the horses, cleaning the tack, and getting everything into the trailer, ready for an early start next morning. It was all familiar, except we were getting ready for something I’d never done before. We were going to a montería; a hunt.
Guillermo’s father, Antonio, is a down-to-earth man with strong side-burns and a fantastic singing voice. He was chanting old flamenco songs while he plaited my horse’s mane. He beckoned me over to watch. Each of his stubby fingers is wider than the delicate plaits, which are uniform, neat and straight. He let me do two, before deciding that my plaits were far too messy, undoing mine, and starting them again. “You’re lucky, you know,” he said, as his meticulous fingers worked the hair, “Nobody gets to go to monterías. It’s usually friends and family of the hosts only. You’re lucky they're letting you come, as Marta's friend. Especially as an inglesa.” He winked. “Honestly, I’m jealous.” The montería only happens once a year.
It was well after dark by the time everything was ready, but an evening in Sanlúcar isn’t complete without a beer and some lunging. Everyone leans on the railings of the schooling ring, cans in hand, to watch the goings-on. I was yawning, but I wasn’t going to miss this. Guillermo was breaking in my four-year-old bay, Charlie Brown. Marta laughed at his name, "Ali, why did you make it so hard for me!” Carlos Marron doesn't have the same ring to it.
The horse was meek and bewildered, his eyes constantly darting to Guillermo for guidance. He was being ridden for the first time. He didn’t really understand why there was a big heavy human on his back, or what the point was in running round and round in circles.
“Es muy manso,” Guillermo said, as he took off Charlie Brown’s tack, “He’s very calm.” Phew. Somehow I felt that because my horse had been given the thumbs-up, I had passed the test too. With that, it was time to head home.
Home, but not bed. I left my mum six missed calls and frantically tried to fan my jodphurs dry, fresh out of the washing machine at midnight.
“Mum! I’ve been invited hunting! What the hell do I wear?”
“Just dress like a smart tree.”
What.
Arriving at Las Encantadas, the finca hosting the montería, I saw what my mum meant. Everybody was immaculately dressed, all in collared shirts and smart, fashionable breeches. Every single item of clothing was in a shade of green, brown or beige. The people mingled cheerfully on the lawn in front of the house, while the churros van that was serving breakfast rumbled and steamed in the cool morning air. There was a safety briefing, and a prayer (Gosh, how unsafe is it?), and it was time to get going.
While we tacked up the horses, Guillermo helped Marta’s friend, Lola, with her zahones. Imagine leather leg-aprons. Zahones are intricately decorated chaps worn over the front of jodphurs, that fasten around the waist and behind the thighs. They’re beautiful. “Yes,” said Lola, as she struggled with her waistband, “they’re beautiful but they’re a complete pain.” Lola lives at the finca, which belongs to her parents. She’s never ridden at a montería before either. “Me neither!” pipes up Nati, a 15-year-old cousin. We’re all on horseback, waiting to be told what to do next. Six trailers of dogs trundle trundle past.
Soon the proper huntsmen turn up, riding down from the house in great style. The lanceros are carrying long spears on their shoulders. We all follow through the woods to the dog cars. The dogs are let out, and they all follow one of two instincts. One is: “Yipee – let's go hunting!” The other is: “Oh god I need a poo.”
They’re dogs of all sorts. Guillermo explained that there's so much variety because some are for sniffing, and some are for chasing. There are a lot of Andalusian Hounds - brown, hairy things with tall ears - but you also see dogs that have a pitbull-esque face, there’s a couple of very big hairy white dogs, and one confused looking daschund. The daschund ultimately had to be carried home because it got heatstroke.
The perreros, the dog people, lead the way. They spread along the width of the thousand-hectare pine forest, and begin slowly walking forwards. The horses spread out behind them. Our job is to scare out any prey they might have missed, and urge it forwards so that the dogs can get it.
“Look!” I cry. “There it goes!”
“Just a hare,” says Guillermo, unconcerned, “we’re after deer and wild boar.”
The boles of the pine trees are spare and straight. All their lower branches have been lopped off, so there’s only an umbrella of needles high overhead. The hunt was so widely spread that I could hardly see anyone except Guillermo and Marta in the vast forest. The perreros cry “YO!” and “HUH!” at their dogs, and sometimes – almost comically – “Aaah!”, like a warrior going into battle in a film. The odd gunshot sounds in the distance. I had forgotten about the other party: the gunmen way ahead of us. Apparently there’s a carefully organised system which means the gunmen never shoot towards the dog and horse teams. Someone explained it to me in rapid, technical Spanish. I didn’t understand it at all, and I just had to have faith.
There was a long period of walking before anything happened. I was enjoying hunting mosquitos instead. Then, the unmistakable squeals of a pig. I’d never heard anything like it. There isn't a moment to process the sound before Guillermo sets off at a gallop. We reach a patch of scrub. There are people and horses crowding around. The dogs are beside themselves. Guillermo jumps off his horse and goes into the bushes to help. I can just about see the writhing boar through the leaves, and then everything stops. The boar gets dragged out into the light. This is all new for me. A girl with long dark plaits puts her knife back on her belt and kneels for a photo with her conquest.
We all walk on, until we reach a wide sandy path that cuts all the way across the forest. We wait there until the whole hunt has caught up. The people exchange a lot of handshakes and congratulations. The horses spook at the dead deer and boar on the ground, left by the gunmen. Onwards.
At the next sandy path, somebody offered me a glass of sherry out of nowhere.
“Do you prefer dry or sweet?”
Only in Spain do your saddlebags come with a wine-list. I was assured by a man called Umberto that, as a girl, I’d like the sweet one best. One sip and, suddenly, commotion up ahead.
“I’ll take your glass!” cried the sherry man, but we were off. The horses were at a flat-out gallop through the undergrowth, over logs, and between trees. Now this is fun. I was the only one still holding my sherry. My horse jerked to avoid a bush, throwing me forward, and I silently thanked Guillermo for teaching me to gallop with my weight far back in the saddle. We raced onwards until we lost sight or sound of whatever it was we had been chasing. We stopped and listened.
“Hey, I’ve still got half my sherry left!”
Umberto smiled. “Excellent work. Quick – down it before we’re off again.”
We weaved our horses quietly towards the sound of low voices, until we found the perreros. The dogs had found a huge muddy puddle, and were having a wonderful time rolling in it instead of sniffing out boar.
By the time we got to the next sandy path, I thought I’d lost Marta and Guillermo for good. The nice sherry man was insisting I tried the fino, when they came up out of nowhere, still on horseback, and carrying a baby boar.
“Where the hell did that come from?”
“I got it”, said Guillermo.
“But who killed it?”
“It’s not dead.”
“But how did you catch it?”
“With my hands.”
I never did find out how he managed it.
They disappeared again, along with the mysterious baby boar, and I decided that sticking with Umberto, Carlos, and the sherry was the best course of action. I was proven right when Umberto spotted a boar behind us and called for the dogs. Off we went, back towards the house, our horses wilfully pushing through all manner of shrubbery to keep galloping in a straight line. We lost the boar and looked around. We’d also lost everyone else. It was just me, Umberto, and the pine trees as far as the eye could see. We went back the way we came: no luck. We went further: nothing. No sign of horses or dogs, anywhere. A gunshot rang off. I remembered the safety system – the gunmen are carefully coordinated so they’ll never shoot in the direction of the horses. But what if the horses are in the wrong place?
We occasionally followed the “HO!” of distant perreros, but they hadn’t seen any horses either. After forty minutes of crashing through the undergrowth, my jodhpurs were full of pine needles and I was starting to envy Umberto’s leather zahones more for their practicality than for the aesthetic. We got to the outer perimeter of the forest and were more confused than ever. Had we overtaken the hunt? Impossible. We saw some people with guns. They saw us too. Phew. Eventually, Lola and the other girls appeared behind us. Yes, we had overtaken the hunt. I still fail to understand how.
I hadn’t seen Lola and Nati since the morning, and it was now 4 o’clock. We exchanged stories of the day’s ride as we took one of the wide sandy paths home. Somehow, all the paths joined into one, and by the time we got back to the house, the hunt was a single group again. Six hours of riding left everyone sore-legged, hungry and smiling.
We turned back to the lawn where we had eaten breakfast. At an English horse-show, you’ll get a cup of tea for a pound; a bacon-butty if you’re lucky. Here it was a whole different ball-game. Lola’s family pulled out all the stops to treat their guests, and looked after everyone in style. The food was delicious, the sherry was ice-cold, and both were much appreciated after a long day of riding. I kissed new friends goodbye, and fell asleep in the car on the way home.
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