This weekend, the titled Tominais regional champion of Corsicathen national 2021left, in the French team, try to to bring back the gold medal at the world hunting championships of Saint Hubert.
His passion is expressed until his cell phone rings, which barks to signal a call. It could be Luna barking, her brittany spaniel female, from the best Keranlouan farmssacred champion of Corsicathen of France of the dating Saint-Hubert ? “Don’t, don’t, laughs Antonin Villoresi, better known by the nickname of Tonin. They have been saved in the ringtone choices … “
The 53-year-old man is a Cap Corsin at heart, who grew up in the back room of the Boyer armory where his father, also nicknamed Tonin, worked. A 1970s institution, located on avenue Sebastiani in Bastia, where hunters and fishermen played or undo past and future games. “I started hunting almost like any enthusiast, at 14, with blackbirds and my 14 mm rifle”, explains the current owner of a pension in Tominu.
Since then Tonin has traveled for hectares of Mediterranean scrub, in search of partridges and migratory woodcocks. The hunter was immediately more attracted to the fence and the work of the dog in sight than to the uncertain wait at the pole, depending on the choice of the passage of the boar.
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Towards Serbia
From hunting photos to exits from which he returns empty-handed, Tonin ends up being much more interested in the osmosis between the owner and his dog than in shooting. “In 2015 I committed myself to my first meeting in Saint-Hubert (read at the bottom of the article), which took place in Sisco. I immediately got hooked, both on the presentation, on the score on the dog’s work and on the relationship with the game, which are the essentials of any good feather hunter “., remember. A communicative interest, since she introduces the discipline to her daughter, Ghjuvana, who later won the title in the regional youth teams.
For his part, Tonin Villoresi wins the title of Champion of Corsica at the Saint-Hubert Meetings, then reaches the final stages and wins that of Champion of France, in Mirabel, in Ardèche. This is how he joined the team of France, made up of four other teammates. They all joined in Nis, Serbia, where they competed in the Saint-Hubert world championship in the hunter – pointer category in these days.
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Every year, a country of the FCI (International Cynological Federation) organizes, for three days, tests for the best hunters and their dog. Fields-trials (work of the dog) or Saint-Hubert (work of the dog and the hunter), the participants meet each time in different countries. “This year Italy is organizing itself, but it has chosen Serbia as a field. It will be more of a European, because there are no Americans in particular”. explains Antonin Villoresi. The city of Nis in central Serbia – one of the oldest cities in the Balkans, bombed in 1999 during the war in Yugoslavia – has some of the best land for finding natural game. “We should work on the partridge”, confides Antonin, who has recently rebuilt his pastures in the Oletta plain, in the company of Alain Bertolozzi, departmental delegate of Saint-Hubert and administrator of Upper Corsica.
A few days ago, after having completed the numerous formalities related to the transport of a weapon abroad, Cap Corsin was actively preparing for departure. With some ambitions in his suitcases. “The Italians will evolve on lands they already know, but I set out with the ambition to win gold. It will be the medal of all Corsican hunters”, then slipped Antonin Villoresi.
The principle of meetings
Whether it is departmental, regional, national or world competitions, the Saint-Hubert Meetings, run in France by the federation of the same name, is a hunting party lasting 20 minutes, on a delimited field, where the hunter and his dog they must find the previously deposited game. Two birds (farmed pheasant or partridge) must be found and killed.
The judges follow the actions of the dog – hunter binomial, to record them, the time of their evolution. The search for the dog, the stop of the game, the hunter’s shot, the relationship to the animal and the safe evolution of the hunter can earn or subtract points. “It’s a good experience in the life of a hunter”underlines Alain Bartolotti, 2002 French champion and team bronze medalist at the 2003 World Cup. “Tonin has made a lot of progress, he is very motivated and has the ability to win a medal. But he will find the Italians on his way, who are at home there and master all the subtleties of the field”observes the latter.
