October 17, 2012
Piedmont Horse and Rider Win Field Hunter Championship of America
Judge Barbara Batterton presents the championship trophy to Elizabeth Green, riding Gold for Glory. / Liz Callar photo
Elizabeth Green, representing the Piedmont Fox Hounds (VA), rode Shelby Bonnie’s Gold for Glory to victory in the Theodora Randolph Field Hunter Championships of America. The trials, founded in 1989, are named for the late Master of the Piedmont, so it is particularly fitting when a Piedmont horse and rider win the championship.
The week-long event attracts foxhunters from across North America. Entries ride with up to four different area hunts over a five-day period, and horse and rider pairs are selected to compete in the final tests and mock hunt by a team of mounted judges. The finals were held on October 7, 2012 at the Glenwood Park Race Course in Middleburg as part of the Virginia Fall Races weekend program.
Fox Pen Debate Continues in Virginia
The Virginia General Assembly brought opponents and proponents of fox penning together last February in an attempt to review the practice and work out a mutually acceptable set of rules. David Whitehurst of the Department of Game and Fisheries says that no compromise acceptable to each constituency was reached. The issue is expected to be revived in the 2013 assembly session, and game officials plan to meet at 9:00 a.m. Thursday, October 18 at the state game office, 4000 West Broad Street, Richmond. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Laura Donahue, Virginia director of HSUS, accuses the game department of dragging their feet on the issue and plans to ask for a moratorium on new fox pens. In the same article, Madeline Abbitt, a lobbyist representing the Virginia Foxhound Training Preserve Association is quoted as saying, “What a fox enjoys is a good chase. That has been recorded from back in history.” In my opinion, a better argument might be to try to prove that survival of foxes in the fox pen exceeds the survival rate of foxes in the wild. Click for Rex Springston’s complete article. Posted October 17, 2012
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