The sabs hate us because we’re patriotic, top-rate tax-paying, law-abiding scum

‘You lot are a disgrace! Chasing after defenceless animals on horseback!’

The bearded anti was on his mountain bike on a bridle path and so strictly speaking he ought to have given way to horses, according to the Highway Code, rather than blocking their path and shouting at them. But let’s leave that aside.

The main problem with the angry cyclist’s diatribe was that he was yelling animal rights abuse at Britain’s oldest drag hunt, proudly not killing anything for 150 years.

A few weeks ago I reported that I found it baffling that the sabs had been out to thwart the Surrey Union when it was legal trail hunting. And a few of you wrote in to point out that a lot of hunts still accidentally kill foxes. But even if that were true, how do you explain the antis opposing a form of riding to hounds designed specifically not to kill anything, in which the hounds are only trained to follow scent laid by a human runner, these days on a quad bike?