Lillian Doyle, five-times ladies point-to-point champion, out with the Wexford from a meet at her father’s pub / Noel Mullins photo
What better place to end the season than with the Wexford Foxhounds at John Jude Doyle’s Cloch Ban Pub in Clonroche, County Wexford? Inside there is a picture on the wall of Bree Foxhounds Joint-Master Jay Bowe having a drink sitting on his horse beside the bar!
Doyle is a director of The Irish Horse Board and Horse Sport Ireland, and one can see why. He has an infectious enthusiasm about the Irish horse as a breeder, producer, and organiser of schools, shows, and gymkhanas. He has campaigned his Irish Draught mare Cloghbawn Cailin and her filly Cloghbawn Liaght on the show circuit. Doyle’s daughter Lillian won the Ladies Point-to-Point Jockey Championship five times. His uncle Jim Joyce bred Parkhill, evented by the late Col. Ronnie MacMahon, and his track greyhound Temple na Dubh won seven nights in succession in Shelbourne Park!
Master and huntsman Mary Kehoe is gifted as a handler of horses and hounds and has hunted the Wexford Foxhounds for nine seasons and the Bree Foxhounds for the last twenty-three seasons, hunting hounds four days a week. Her sister Muriel whips in to her. Their father Owen was Field Master of the Island and hunted the Bree. The other whippers-in are Michael Condon, a formidable rider, and former jockey Padraig English, who won three races on the great steeplechaser Danoli. All of them hunt across country on a simple mathematical principle: the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and whatever obstacle is on that line is crossed regardless of complexity! But they can because they produce and ride only the very best hunt horses.
A field of topnotch horsemen and horses out with the Wexford / Noel Mullins photo
Mary is well known as an event rider and producer, and has a stable full of yet unnamed four-year-olds for the coming season. Her recent eventers Van Gough, Game Plan, and Captain Malibu have all been sold. Her sister Muriel evented She’s A Tomboy, runner up in Dublin in the Four-Year-Old Young Eventer Class, already sold on to Switzerland.
Lillian Doyle was looking after eleven-year-old showjumper Harry Allen, whose mother Geraldine was never far away. Harry’s brother Bertram is a former European Showjumping Pony Champion, now based near his trainer Marcus Ehning in Germany
What a line-up of over one hundred quality hunters at the meet: J.J. Bowe’s smashing steel grey, Stuart Whitmore on a hunter of real substance, and Jim Kavanagh on a pure bred Connemara pony. It would have made a powerful and compelling promotional video for selling horses anywhere in the world. Then to see their competent riders present them to narrow and double banks, steady, and jump off with ease. Five bar gates punctuated the landscape, and they were also crossed without fuss!
The hunt country was organised by Johnny “The Fox” Kinsella. Hounds found in Roy Tector’s Quarry and hunted around the covert before marking to ground. Kinsella said to be patient as all the problems were still to come at the other end of the Parish! Crossing Mick Keogh’s, Patrick Murray’s, Tom Walsh’s and Michael Cummins’, hounds spoke briefly in the bog but the fox went to ground. David Murphy was impressive over the river, but Imelda Leahy from the Duhallow retired early after connecting with a tree branch, and her horse’s head.
Kevin Murphy’s was blank, but farrier Charlie Trigg and Donal O’Gorman, owner of the 2008 Aintree Grand National runner up Snowy Morning were enjoying themselves. After John Keogh’s and Audi Murphy’s, a five-bar gate in Mrs. Dick Sinnott’s caused a few problems, but not for young showjumper Harry Allen, Lillian and C.J. Doyle, Jason Higgins, Paula Rowan, or Jim Kavanagh’s Connemara pony.
Barry Moorehead smiled as he fell at a narrow double as hounds found a brace at the back of Liam Sweetman’s. Hounds hunted well across John Mernagh’s and Ballymackey Forestry. A few riders avoided the forestry gate but not Lillian Doyle, Louise O’Brien, Jessica Dalton or Susan James. Former Wexford County hurler Paul Carton promised that if he could complete his first day hunting he would donate €500 to Meals on Wheels, and despite falling at the forestry gate successfully completed the task!
The ditch in Seamus Flood’s known as the Grand Canal presented no problems for J.J. Bowe, Ross Morehead and John Hickey. The best run was from Wexford hurler Tim Flood’s farm where hounds found again with single and double banks as far as the eye could see over John Doran’s, Mossie Byrne’s, Seanie Flood’s, Patsy Kavanagh’s, Denis O’Connor’s, Aidan Byrnes’, and Noel Keogh’s to end a cracking run. Children not yet in their teens like Annie Finn, Harry Allen, and Patrick Hickey were totally undaunted by what they had crossed!
Whipper-In Muriel Kehoe remarked afterwards, “You know you could die happy after that, but you could also die doing it!” Remarkably, she was riding with a fractured sternum and ribs after a hunting accident the previous week!
C.J. Doyle said that horses and followers lose a lot of condition after a hard winter’s hunting, but that they will all be looking better by the Dublin Horse Show in August. The suckling pig from Cork for the barbeque got a reprieve, so a delicious Irish stew was served up by the Doyle family instead. That should help to start the reconditioning process!
Front, l-r: whippers-in Michael Condon and Muriel Kehoe with Master and huntsman Mary Kehoe / Noel Mullins photo
Wexford Hunt Facts
In 1780 Col. Pigott formed a private pack in Wexford. But the Wexford Hunt wasn’t formed until 1810. Early Masters were D.V. Beatty who owned the pack until 1881, and Captain Larkin.
Chairman: John Roberts
Master and Huntsman: Mary Kehoe
Field Masters: Willie Carroll, John Roberts, and Jennifer Boyd
Huntsman: Mary Kehoe
Whippers-In: Muriel Kehoe, Michael Condon, and Padraig English
Author/photographer/foxhunter Noel Mullins is a retired computer marketing executive in Ireland. Visit his website for more of his work and his books.
Posted March 9, 2013