Many of the MFHA-registered packs in North America have close associations with Ireland and the UK either through hunt staff, field members, jockeys, or through the many Irish and British field hunters and racehorses that grace their hunting fields. One such well known pack is the Green Spring Valley Hounds in Maryland, USA. They met a few weeks ago at Ned Finney’s farm at Dover and Dark Hollow, which is close to the Maryland Hunt Cup racecourse and Shawan Downs racecourse.
The Maryland hunting country is picturesque, with equal areas of woods, and post-and-board fenced green pastureland. Joint-Master George Mahoney is a former Joint-Master of the United Foxhounds in County Cork in Ireland, and over the years has purchased a succession of horses for racing and hunting mainly through Peter Leonard in the west of Ireland. Point-to-point rider and trainer Clare MacMahon rode his horse Rosbrian, finishing runner-up two year ago in the Maryland Hunt Cup, the toughest timber race in America. The distance is four miles over solid oak fences nearly five feet in height, and vertical with no takeoff ground line.
Mahoney recently ran two Irish-bred horses in the Genesee Valley Hunt Races in upstate New York. Like a Bee by Montelimar was purchased at Doncaster Sales and previously owned by JP McManus, one of the most significant supporters of National Hunt racing in Europe, and Glacial Sting by Glacial Storm was purchased through Peter Leonard before the Tattersalls Derby Sales. Both horses were ridden by County Waterford jockey Mark Beecher. Mahoney was riding another Irish import at the Dover and Dark Hollow meet—an up-to-weight striking dark bay.
Mahoney whose father’s family came from County Kilkenny and mother’s from County Donegal in Ireland is joined in the Mastership of the Green Spring Valley Hounds by JWY “Duck” Martin, Franklin Whit Foster, and Sheila Jackson Brown, a former event rider. She was riding an Irish horse purchased from Tony Leahy originally from Oldcastle in County Meath, a nephew of Galway Blazers Field Master Willie Leahy. Tony Leahy is Master and huntsman of the Fox River Valley Hounds outside Chicago and the Cornwall Hounds in western Illinois. Professional whipper-in Aaron Boltcher is from South Carolina, and the road whip and fencer is Ryan Harnon who lives in the locality and hunts racoon at night with a pack of coon hounds.
The Green Spring Valley Hounds hunt three days a week, and their hunting country is approximately twenty-five miles by twelve miles. The obstacles are mainly oak post-and-rail fencing and coops, which probably accounts for the excellent schooling ground the hunting field is for timber fence steeplechasers.
The quarry is the red fox, which are plentiful as a result of the density of woodland and the abundance of wildlife. They thrive in the surroundings.
The pack is hunted by Sam Clifton now in his fourth season and a native of the Cotswolds in England. His hunting career started as a 15-year-old with a bloodhound pack and the Curre Foxhounds in Britain and extended to the Toronto and North York Hunt in Canada. In America, he whipped-in to the Blue Ridge foxhounds in Virginia and Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds in Pennsylvania, before taking on the Green Spring Valley Hounds. (Sam’s father Stephen hunts the Eglinton and Caledon foxhounds in Canada.) Clifton was riding a former steeplechaser with the amusing name of Jamaica Me Laugh.
Hounds are mainly English/Penn-Marydel crossbreds with bloodlines from the Keswick Hunt in Virginia, hunted by former County Limerick whipper-in Tony Gammell. Other lines go back to the Beaufort Hounds in the Cotswolds, the West Percy in Northumberland, the Montreal Hunt, and the Eglinton and Caledon in Canada. There are also some Fell bloodlines from the Coniston and the Eskdale and Ennerdale of Cumbria.
The huntsman crossed Ned Finney’s avenue and sent hounds on ahead to draw the corn in Merryweather’s. Followers were still mounting up, some adjusting their tack, when hounds were already running a fox in fine style down the corn towards Malcolm Moran’s. But the fox turned in the direction of the meet and crossed on front of the followers giving them a bird’s eye view of him as he ran across the grass strip towards another section of corn. You could see the drive of the pack as they pushed off their hind quarters to get the maximum impulsion to catch up with their quarry. However, despite 16-1/2 couple of hounds on his brush a fox knows the countryside better, and has an uncanny way of getting a pack to over run a line. Billy Meister, a winning jockey of three Maryland Hunt Cups and trainer of the 2010 Maryland Hunt Cup winner Twill Do, and former master Ned Halle were on hand to mark the fox as he crossed the road into another strip of corn. The fox then ran in two wide loops with the pack in great voice before he sought refuge in a bank back in Merryweather’s. Hounds marked really well, which is always a sign of a pack on top of their job. This fox was left for another day.
It did not take long for the pack to find again, and this time he ran towards Mount Zion and on across former jockey Tommy Smith’s farm. Leaving the back of Smith’s he ran on to O’Donovan’s where the pack marked this one to ground as well.
Another quick find had a fresh fox cross the back of Mount Zion Road back to Merryweather’s and then through the woods at Glen King’s in another wide circle. Foxes in this area seem to have an attraction to Merryweather’s farm, as this fellow also went to ground in another part of the farm.
Writer/sportsman Noel Mullins lives in County Galway, Ireland.