July 20, 2010
The Foxhound’s Back: Curved or Straight?
"I have a question about foxhound conformation," writes Kelly Bryant who has hunted with the Mill Creek Hunt in Illinois. "I have noticed that in the hound show galleries, some winners have a level back and some have a curved back. How does the back relate to the performance of the hound, and what difference does a level or curved back make? Which is preferred?"
These are excellent questions, and, as we have noted before, there are no right and wrong answers—only opinions and cautions. A wheel back is desirable to many breeders and judges of modern foxhounds, but a roach back is—most will agree—a weakness.
New Zealand Huntsman Is Worthy Successor to David Wendler at West Hills
Huntsman Scott Neill
California’s West Hills foxhounds—organized sixty-three years ago by song-and-dance man Dan Dailey and boasting the late President Ronald Reagan as a founding member—were compelled to learn a new vocabulary disguised in a down under accent last season.
For the prior fifty-five years David Wendler, one of the most experienced huntsman ever to carry the horn, had led the West Hills Hounds over difficult and dry terrain, hunting a pack of independent-minded American hounds primarily of the July strain (with some Orange County red ring neck blood). When it came time for Wendler to retire, West Hills was in a quandary. How to keep up the high level of sport in what some believe to be the most demanding hunt country in North America?
