Drag hunting is related to but distinct from trail hunting.
Trail hunting rose to prominence in England after the Hunting Act 2004 banned the hunting of mammals with dogs in that jurisdiction. Like drag hunting, trail hunting involves the use of an artificially laid scent to provide hounds with a path to follow. Unlike drag hunting, however, the path set for the hounds in trail hunting is designed to simulate the path that would be taken by a fox or hare attempting to evade the hounds. The path will shift and double-back on itself unpredictably, pass over natural and artificial obstacles, and cross a variety of terrain.
Trail hunting emphasises hound work, exercising and developing the ability of a pack of scent hounds to identify and pursue a prey animal, and the ability of the horse and rider to follow the pack.
Read more about this topic: Drag Hunting
Famous quotes containing the words trail and/or hunting:
“It is not for man to follow the trail of truth too far, since by so doing he entirely loses the directing compass of his mind.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“The French manner of hunting is gentlemanlike; ours is only for bumpkins and bodies. The poor beasts here are pursued and run down by much greater beasts than themselves; and the true British fox-hunter is most undoubtedly a species appropriated and peculiar to this country, which no other part of the globe produces.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)