This is the moment a landowner on horseback is involved in an angry confrontation with hunt saboteurs – leaving one of them badly winded.
In the video a man, believed to be George Winn-Darley, owner of a 7,000-acre grouse shooting estate, shouts “go back to the highway” repeatedly while leading his horse at activists.
The saboteurs were trespassing on the estate – claiming to have seen a fox fleeing a hunt group just minutes before the drama unfolded on Saturday (November 2).
At one point the man believed to be Mr Winn-Darley, a member of the The Moorland Association for the North York Moors, is seen astride his horse whose head clashes with a saboteur.
Then, while screaming “go back, go back” he appears to kick another in the stomach.
One of the masked activists, an onlooker, is heard shouting: “Hey, that’s assault – you could very easily kill him with that horse.
“Calm down we’re going.”
As the landowner continues to push the saboteurs back with his horse he says: “It’s not assault it’s reasonable force.”
Bret Pocock, 39, was one of a group from West Yorkshire Hunt Saboteurs on Mr Winn-Darley’s Spaunton Moor estate in North Yorks., on the day.
Bret claims he and others had seen a fox fleeing a hunt group ten minutes before the incident at a hunt meet near Stamford Bridge, North Yorks., and were voice calling and spraying citronella to put hounds off the scent of the fox.
In the video he is shown being headbutted by the landowner’s horse.
He said: “It was quite scary because the guy seemed like he had lost the plot to me.
“He was behaving in a very dangerous manner – he was holding a whip as well and seemed completely out of control.
“It was one of the craziest situations I have seen in my several years as a hunt saboteur.
“I found it extremely intimidating to be ridden at by someone on a horse while not being able to move – what he was doing was incredibly dangerous.
“The fact is we were about to leave his land when he told us to – but he kept riding his horse at us and we could not go anywhere.”
Bret said eventually the incident came to an end the saboteurs retreated to a main road nearby.
He said: “It’s not just animal protection activists who have been shocked by this.
“Horse riders are not happy with the way the horse appeared distressed.”
A spokesman for The Moorland Association said the organisation had no connection with foxhunting so it would not be appropriate to comment on the video.
