Ray Carter hunting the New Market-Middletown Valley hounds in 1981 / Janet Hitchen photoRaymond Allaeys Carter died peacefully at home in Middletown, Maryland on June 20, 2011 from complications related to prostate cancer. Ray was born in Yorkshire, England in 1930. Times were tough in those years and money was scarce. Ray, however, with a natural love of horses always found a way to beg rides on farmer’s draft horses returning from work in the fields.
He cleaned stalls at a local stable to be able to ride. He was a natural athlete and was soon riding some of the fancier ponies in local gymkhanas. When he finished school at age fourteen, his parents, loath to let him work in the local mines, arranged an apprenticeship for him with a racing stable in Newmarket. He was basically an indentured servant, receiving only a pound a month for learning a trade. At the end of five years he was earning twenty pounds a year.
Ray’s racing career was interrupted when he was drafted into the British army but he continued to work with horses. He became a gunner in the Royal Artillery regiment known as the Kings Troop—a ceremonial troop that pulls horse-drawn caissons and serves at royal funerals. He was stationed in St. John’s Wood in London.
After completing his apprenticeship he became a National Hunt jockey for nine years, competing in steeplechase races at most of the tracks in England. In 1960 Ray moved his family to America, briefly lived in Unionville, Pennsylvania and Southern Pines, North Carolina, and then came to Middleburg to be Assistant Trainer to Sid Waters. After five years he decided he’d had enough of the racing game and apprenticed himself to one of the area’s best farriers.
He developed a wonderful reputation as the years went on and worked for some of the very best stables in several different disciplines. During that time he also became a partner in one of the areas biggest show barns, Chartwell, Inc, in Potomac, Maryland and was involved in teaching and training show hunters at the highest levels. His students always loved working with him because they said he was so much fun!
During those years he also began foxhunting regularly and whipped-in to hounds at the Potomac Hunt. One friend remembers riding with him in the team class on Hunt Night at the Washington International Horse Show. She said he went so fast that she had tears streaming down her face and could barely see. She said her normally quiet hunter was out of control but there was no way it could go fast enough to keep up with Ray!
“I think we were either first or second because we got around and jumped everything, but I was never so scared in my life,” she smiled.
In 1980 Ray moved to the Middletown Valley in Frederick County, Maryland and became the professional huntsman for the New Market-Middletown Valley Hounds. In his enthusiasm for his new career he would take hounds out in the pouring rain, saying, “‘T’is a fine Irish mist!” If the field stayed home he hunted anyway. Through drafting from other hunts, culling, and breeding, he developed a biddable pack of fine Crossbred foxhounds.
Along with remaining an in-demand farrier in Maryland and Virginia, Ray took up motorcycle racing and competed in road races from Canada to Daytona. When he retired as huntsman he continued foxhunting with the Potomac, Fairfax, and Plum Run hunts. He was the starter at the point-to-point races for the Fairfax and Potomac Hunts until 2010. He always had wonderful horses, and competed regularly and successfully in horse trials.
When he finally gave up riding he competed successfully in combined driving events, winning his last competition at Fair Hill last October despite the discomfort he was experiencing from his illness. He is survived by his wife Patricia, his son Raymond who followed in his footsteps as a farrier and excellent horseman, and his daughter-in-law Louise Foster, an accomplished event rider. Ray will be terribly missed by many close friends and a generation of foxhunters and equestrians. Contributions may be made in his name to Hospice of Frederick County, 516 Trail Avenue, P.O. Box 1799, Frederick, Maryland 21702.
Posted July 10, 2011
After giving up riding, Ray Carter competed successfully in combined driving events.