At the peak of his powers
JOHN HOLLIDAY is sitting in his kitchen at the Belvoir kennels, where many of the legends of the sport have lived before him.
“Just through there is where Frank Gillard spilled sherry down the front of the Empress of Austria,” says John with a wry smile as he points through to the next door room.
“Walking in the footsteps of greatness” is how John explains the feeling of being huntsman to the Duke of Rutland’s hounds.
“We have a painting of Thomas Goosey, the first Belvoir huntsman, opening the kennel gates as he walks out the hounds,” says John. “I think of the history every time I open the same gates and take the hounds out.”
John is retiring from hunt service in May after 12 seasons as huntsman at Belvoir. He is a young and fit 54-year-old, but wants to finish while he is still at the top of his game. John has built a reputation for being one of the best huntsmen of his generation, and with this old English pack has produced the most consistently good sport of any hunt in England.
