ANTI-bloodsport protesters turned out to heckle huntsmen at the annual Boxing Day Holcombe Hunt meeting in Rivington.

More than 100 members of the League Against Cruel Sports banged drums, blew whistles and waved banners as up to 40 riders got ready to set off from Rivington Barn.

Both sides jostled to air their views in a series of exchanges before the hunt began.

The demonstrators then marched onto the field in front of the horses and shouted abuse through megaphones.

The huntsmen -- six of them in red coats and two wearing Santa hats over their helmets -- blew bugles and charged around the field on horseback followed by their hounds.

One protester shouted: "You were praying on your knees in church yesterday. Now you are out to kill God's creatures."

Hundreds of spectators -- including a number of young children -- had turned out to watch the event and police were on stand-by in case there was trouble.

Some of the protesters carried banners saying "Total hunt ban now" and "Out foxed, out dated, out hunted".

But hunt supporters laughed and clapped as they were heckled. They cheered and waved as the hunt went ahead.

Paul Timpson, spokesman for the North-west Hunt Saboteurs' Association, said: "Our protests are designed to remind the hunt and its supporters that we find their activities to be an abhorrent attack on our wildlife."

George Dickinson, of Haslingden, joint master of the Holcombe hunt, said it was made up of people from Blackburn, Rossendale and Chorley.

He said: "It was a marvellous day and it all went very well. Protesters were there and they made a lot of noise but they didn't affect the hunt because we outnumbered them by ten to one.

"It was the best field I've seen for 25 years. We had 80 riders and we'd usually be lucky to see 35, and we had around 500 spectators."

The hunt, which has been running since the early 1400s and attended by King James in the 1600s, will go on next year according to George.

He said: "It will go ahead next year unless the government puts a total ban on it. But the Boxing Day turnout shows that people are still interested."

An estimated 250,000 people gathered across the country yesterday for what could be the last Boxing Day hunt meetings in their present form.

A Government Hunting Bill launched this month will, if it becomes law, change the nature of hunting with hounds forever by banning hare coursing and stag hunting.

Fox hunting would be allowed if individual hunts can justify it and satisfy cruelty tests. But the Bill faces a stormy passage through Parliament.

A Mori poll commissioned by the pressure group Campaigning to Protect Hunted Animals suggested 80 percent of British people thought hunting with dogs was cruel.

Douglas Batchelor, chief executive of the League Against Cruel Sports, added: "Opinion polls have repeatedly shown that the majority of British people oppose hunting with dogs, usually on the basis that it is cruel and unnecessary.

"We will not accept a compromise on cruelty and nor we believe will the majority of the public."