Hunt ball punch-up over top rider

AN AFFAIR between a leading horsewoman and her huntsman lover erupted into violence after a hunt ball, a court heard yesterday.

The fight broke out after Joan Isaac, 52, left Wayne Isaac, her husband of 22 years, for the head of the local hunt, 37-year-old Anthony Edwards. Mrs Isaac is a past winner of the Horse of the Year Show and one of Britain's top horse and gig drivers. She attended the hearing at Swansea Crown Court to see the feuding men, Edwards and her 45-year-old husband, appear in the dock together.

Both men admitted affray and Edwards also admitted wounding. Edwards was ordered to pay Dr Barbara Lewis, who was injured as she intervened in the brawl, pounds 1,000 compensation for wounding. He and Wayne Isaac were fined pounds 1,500 for affray and ordered to pay pounds 275 towards costs.

Dean Pulling, for the prosecution, said the fight started after the annual ball of the Banwen Miners' Hunt, based in Neath, West Glamorgan. Hesaid the brawl, in the early hours of 28 February last year, was "the culmination of a series of unpleasant incidents during what was a family dispute".