Heir to the British traditions of hunting, the Pau Hunt Drag perpetuates fox hunting in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques.

In 1814, during the war against Napoleon the Duke of Wellington, Commander of the British armies, crossed the Pyrenees and came to the Orthez countryside; he hunted foxes with his officers and, it is said, with the French during their truce.
In 1830, the English came to Bearn, attracted by the agreeable winter climate and in 1840 Lord Oxenden founded the Pau Hunt. From then on, the field rode through the Bearn countryside from November to the end of March, following a pack of around 10 couples on the scent artificially laid by the draggers, who gave their name to this special way of hunting. To avoid enclosed fields and cultivated land and to show the riders the most spectacular fences, like ditches, banks, drops and water obstacles, all natural obstacles of our region. The Scent followed by the pack is laid on the morning of the hunt by two people who know perfectly the countryside and the location from one Saturday to the next. They drag a rag sack filled with straw which has been impregnated with a synthetic fox-like scent.

For thirty years the kennels stood where the “Villa Prefectorale” used to be, before being transferred to its current place in 1946.