Standing with Grand Champion Harvard Goneaway 2018 are (l-r): J. Nick Badgerow, Steward and Show Chair; Judge Graham Buston, huntsman, Blue Ridge Hunt; and Harvard Fox Hounds member Angela Heinz. / Angela Fain photoThe Central States hound Show was held on May 4, 2019 in Stilwell, Kansas, hosted by the Leavenworth Hunt. Hounds from six hunts were shown: Brazos Valley Hounds (TX), Bridlespur Hunt (MO), Fort Leavenworth Hunt (KS), Harvard Fox Hounds (OK), Mission Valley Hunt (KS), and North Hills Hunt (NE). Hounds were judged by Graham Buston, huntsman, Blue Ridge Hunt (VA).
Brazos Valley was the high scoring hunt for the day and was gunning for its third consecutive Grand Championship at Central States, but it was not to be. Grand Champion of Show was Harvard Goneaway 2018, drafted unentered by Hillsboro Hounds (TN) to Harvard and entered last season. Goneaway’s male line is highly prepotent, as we will see, and Goneaway’s story serves as a fine example of how the system is supposed to work: top breeding kennels generously drafting well-bred hounds to bolster other packs around the country.
“Goneaway has very good conformation,” said Judge Buston. “He was confident, he moved well, and showed himself well. He was active in his movement and always watching his handler.”
“I’m really impressed with the [Hillsboro] bloodlines,” said Fort Leavenworth Master Dr. Steven L. Thomas, “and also their generosity in sharing. I have quite a bit of Hillsboro blood in my kennel now and I’m very happy with it.”
Indeed, the Hillsboro kennels where Goneaway was whelped is one of today’s premier breeding kennels, consistently producing champions and grand champions at the Southern Hound Show, Virginia, and Bryn Mawr. Goneaway’s pedigree is a good example of the depth and quality of the bloodlines to be found at Hillsboro.
Goneaway’s sire is Hillsboro Godfrey 2016. Godfrey was the Grand Champion Foxhound at the Southern Hound Show in 2017. The year before that, then being shown unentered by Fox River Valley Hunt (IL) where he was bred, Godfrey was judged Champion Unentered Hound at the Southern Hound Show. Godfrey was generously drafted to Hillsboro by Tony Leahy, MFH, Fox River Valley, another top breeding North American kennel. The Southern Hound Show, the first show of the season, is a small show, but the quality is immense. Nine of the last twelve Grand Champions at Virginia were Grand Champions at the Southern Hound Show first!
Going back one more generation in Goneaway’s tail mail line is his grand-sire, South Shropshire Goblin 2012, an English dog hound imported from the UK by MFHA President Tony Leahy. Goblin goes back two more generations to Duke of Beaufort Bailey 2003. Bailey was one of the most prepotent sires in England, appearing in the tail male lines of many Champion hounds both here and abroad.
According to Daphne Wood, Bailey bred more than ninety bi*ches during his last year standing in England, before being drafted to the Toronto and North York Hunt in Canada. Martin Scott, ex-MFH, Vale of the White Horse (UK), one of England’s leading breeders and judges of foxhound, refers to Bailey as arguably the most influential hound in England in recent years.
Bailey was a champion at Peterborough as was his dam, Duke of Beaufort’s Patience 1998. Bailey is also the grandsire of Canadian Hound Show Grand Champions, Toronto and North York Cleopatra 2012 and Clarence 2012.
Scott notes that Bailey’s male line goes back to Heythrop Busby 1996, another highly influential sire in his time, as well as to College Valley/North Northumberland Grafter 1989 from one of the most influential hill hound kennels in England, and regarded as an outcross and valued highly for his work in the field.
Goneaway’s tail female line goes back to Modern English lines from the Heythrop kennels in England, the bloodlines of which were carefully crafted by the late Captain Ronnie Wallace, England’s most acclaimed hound breeder of the latter half of the twentieth century.
Goneaway’s dam’s tail male line goes back to Fox River Valley Keystone, a Crossbred dog hound bred by Tony Leahy. Top breeding kennels like Hillsboro and Fox River Valley carefully preserve those bloodlines that descend from superior foxhounds of the past, which prove able to pass along and reproduce the good traits which they desire.
Posted May 13, 2019