Potomac Jefferson 2005, the toast of North American Foxhounds, winning the Grand Championship at the 2007 Bryn Mawr Hound Show one week after capturing the same honor at Virginia. (L-R): George Hundt; Vicki Crawford, MFH; Larry Pitts, huntsman; Lance Taylor; Jake Carle, judge. / Karen Kandra Wenzel photo
The fabled American foxhound who, along with his get, cornered the silver market in North America has passed on. Potomac Jefferson 2005 was the MFHA Centennial Grand Champion Foxhound at both the 2007 Virginia Foxhound Show and the Bryn Mawr Hound Show one week later.
That year, 2007, marked the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Masters of Foxhounds Association. The entire year was filled with special exhibits, competitions, and events all across the country, attracting large and enthusiastic crowds of foxhunters, horses, and hounds. The classes of all the hound shows were swelled with the best examples of foxhounds that could be mustered, along with their supporters. The year 2007 was a big deal.
Jefferson was bred, entered, and shown by then Potomac huntsman Larry Pitts. He was as strikingly handsome an American foxhound as this reporter has ever seen, and he passed his good looks and conformation on to generations of grand champion foxhounds—both male and female—to follow.
Photo by Lili Wykle, MFH and huntsman, Stonewall Hounds (VA)Today, Jefferson’s genes are to be found in American and Crossbred foxhounds from one end of the country to the other. This year’s New England Hound Show Grand Champion Myopia Gammell 2012 is a son of Jefferson. Last year’s Carolinas Hound Show Grand Champion Hillsboro Graphic is a granddaughter of Jefferson. Brazos Valley’s brilliant M-litter which includes Meadow, Marley, and Mystic, all grand champions of the Southwest Hound Show over the years, are grand-children of Jefferson. He has left his stamp on the American and Crossbred foxhound world.
Fittingly, Jefferson ended his days in comfortable retirement with the man who bred him—Larry Pitts, former huntsman at the Potomac Hunt (MD). Weary of judges, swooning females, autograph seekers, and pesky selfie-photographers, Jefferson spent his golden years just hanging out incognito, as you see.
Posted August 5, 2016