Grand Champion Norfolk Blarney with (l-r) Dominic Cammarata, MFH, kennelman Alyse Phipps, and Tom Lewis, MFH / Eric Schneider photo
The New England Foxhound Show was hosted by the Norfolk Hunt in their Dover, Massachusetts country on May 6, 2018. Six hunts from four of the six New England States brought hounds: Green Mountain Hounds (VT), Myopia Hunt (MA), Norfolk Hunt (MA), Old North Bridge Hounds (MA), Tanheath Hunt (CT), and Wentworth Hunt (NH).
At the end of the day, a tricolor Crossbred dog hound, Norfolk Blarney 2016 (Myopia Bartlett 2008 ex Myopia Rachel 20112), was chosen Grand Champion of Show by Judge John Ike, ex-MFH, visiting from the Millbrook Hunt (NY).
I found Blarney’s breeding to be quite interesting, and I talked to Sue Billings, longtime Norfolk honorary whipper-in, about him as well.
Blarney is a cross of modern English, Penn-Marydel, and pure American bloodlines. His tail male line goes back to Exmoor and Heythrop blood from the halcyon days of Master and huntsman Captain Ronnie Wallace’s breeding program. The Captain is generally recognized in England as the premier breeder of foxhounds in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Three generations back, populating the middle of the pedigree, are two Penn-Marydel matings, one from the Golden’s Bridge and one from the Rose Tree kennels—the latter during Master and huntsman Jodie Murtagh’s era. (Murtagh is the grandson of the incorporator of the Penn-Marydel Foxhound.) Murtagh bred not only a top-hunting pack, but the dam in Blarney’s pedigree is none other than Rose Tree Needy 2002, the first Penn-Marydel ever to have been judged Grand Champion Foxhound at Virginia. She was an absolute beauty.
Blarney’s tail female line is all pure American blood. He is out of Myopia Rachel, a line that goes back to the Keswick Hunt kennels in Virginia. And that brings us to another story altogether. Blarney was bred by Heather Player, former Norfolk huntsman. That woman knows her hounds. When she left Myopia for Norfolk she brought Barney’s sire Myopia Bartlett with her to the Norfolk kennels. When she departed from Norfolk this year, she took old Bartlett with her to her new staff posting at…Keswick! So Keswick now has both Blarney’s tail male and tail female lines together in their kennels. Could a romantic reunion be in the offing?
I asked former Norfolk whipper-in Sue Billings about Grand Champion Blarney. “He’s just a big goober—sweet, loving, and people-friendly,” she said. “He was a bit shy at the beginning. He needed encouragement. When something new happened, he’d go off and think about it. But Heather brought him along, he gained confidence, and now he’s right up there hunting at the front of the pack.”
Reserve Champion of the New England Foxhound Show was Myopia Ciara who has her own rock star in her pedigree. Ciara’s tail female line is Potomac Hunt (MD) breeding. Her maternal grandfather is Potomac Jefferson 2005, the MFHA Centennial Foxhound Champion, who was judged Grand Champion Foxhound at both Virginia and Bryn Mawr in 2007, the MFHA-Centennial year.
Potomac Jefferson, bred by huntsman Larry Pitts, evidently passed his ‘handsome’ genes on to many of his progeny. We’ve been finding Jefferson in the pedigrees of numerous championship-winning foxhounds in recent years.
Posted May 15, 2018