Neil Amatt will hunt hounds at Loudoun Fairfax.Having been a member of many fields in many hunting countries, the huntsman has always been my hero. From the time we mount up and for the few hours that follow, it is the huntsman who is most directly responsible for our day’s sport.
One might well argue that the hounds have something to do with it, and this I grant. But the pack is the product of the huntsman, and, since the level of sport depends on how hounds perform in the field as a pack, it all comes back to the huntsman.
Here’s our annual report on the recent moves of huntsmen Neil Amatt, Martyn Blackmore, Tony Gammell, and Sam Clifton.
Neil Amatt is the new huntsman at the Loudoun Fairfax Hunt (VA). English-born and trained, Amatt hunted hounds at the Midland Fox Hounds (GA), left Midland to whip-in at Blue Ridge, thence to Piedmont where he has been first whipper-in for several years.
Well prepared for hunt service through the rigorous British system, Amatt is a consummate professional. “Anticipation, punctuality, how you present yourself—all these things are drilled into you in the English system. You start in the kennels, and you have to really want it before you’re even allowed on a horse,” he told Foxhunting Life in a 2013 interview.
And the man can blow a hunting horn! Amatt is a multi-time winner of the North American Horn Blowing Championship.
Martyn Blackmore moves from Lowcountry to Princess Anne. / Caroline Leake photoHuntsman Martyn Blackmore has moved from the Lowcountry Hunt (SC) to become the new huntsman for Princess Anne Hunt (VA). Blackmore was huntsman at the Loudoun West Hunt (VA) before their merger with the nearby Fairfax Hunt.
Blackmore was destined to work with hounds. Born in Somerset in the southwest of England, both his grandfather and his great-grandfather worked as harbourers* with the Devon and Somerset staghounds. These are true countrymen who help maintain a robust wild deer population by selecting the stag to be separated from the herd by the tufters** for the pack to hunt.
The harbourers don’t have to ride. Nor was Martyn eager to be a horseman. “They bite at one end, kick at the other, and they’re uncomfortable in the middle,” was his impression. Eventually, however, he met a girl who changed his mind…even about horses.
“We wish Martyn all the best and look forward to new adventures with Tony,” writes Nina Burke, MFH of the Lowcountry Hunt. Which leads us to our next huntsman—Tony Gammell, who replaces Blackmore at Lowcountry.
Tony Gammell will carry the horn for Lowcountry. / Liz Callar photoTony Gammell was most recently huntsman at the Keswick Hunt (VA) for seventeen seasons. Despite his Irish roots and his early experience hunting the Traditionally-Bred English foxhounds at the County Limerick (IR), Gammell built a superb pack of American hounds at Keswick which he adored. He successfully adopted a concept of zero-tolerance—no deer, no coyote—and was successful with that program. Tony looks forward to the challenge of steadying his new pack from a variety of riot in that wooded South Carolina country that crawls with every manner of critter from armadillos to possums. If he did it at Keswick with coyotes, he can surely do it at Lowcountry with armadillos!
“Tony is the finest huntsman I have ever seen hunting [the Keswick] country,” said Jake Carle, former MFH and huntsman of the Keswick—a powerful endorsement from a man who hunted that same country.
Sam Clifton will hunt hounds at Rolling Rock. / Karen Kandra Wentzel photoSam Clifton is the new huntsman at the Rolling Rock Hunt (PA). A native of the English Cotswolds, Clifton started his hunting career at the age of fifteen with a bloodhound pack on foot. He whipped-in to the Curre Foxhounds in Britain, Toronto and North York Hunt (ON), Blue Ridge Hunt (VA), and Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds (PA). He was huntsman for the Green Spring Valley Hunt (MD) for several years, only the fourth huntsman at Green Spring since the end of World War II. (John Tabachka, Andrew Barclay, and Les Grimes were his predecessors at Green Spring.)
Clifton leaves the Saxonburg Hunt after a year as huntsman there to pick up the horn at Rolling Rock. He’s another good man on the hunting horn, having won the North American Horn Blowing Championship more than once.
Sam Clifton’s father Steve is huntsman for the Bear Creek Hounds (GA), after many years as huntsman for the Eglinton Caledon (ON).
We invite readers to fill us in on moves we’ve missed. Use the “Contact FHL” link that appears on every screen to communicate directly with the editor.
Posted May 21, 2018
* A countryman employed by the staghound pack to monitor the herd of wild deer and select which stag is to be separated from the herd by the tufters for the staghounds to hunt.
** A small number (two or three couple) of older, steady hounds used at the beginning of the stag hunt to get the harboured stag separated from the herd before the entire pack is laid on.