Last month FHL published Ema Klugman’s winning entry in the United States Pony Club annual Hildegard Neill Ritchie Joys of Foxhunting Writing Contest for 2010. Her excellent poem Foxhunt has since passed from the Home Page, but can be found under the Horse and Hound drop-down menu by clicking on Literature.
This month, we bring you Maria Filsinger’s well-written entry, Foxhunting Forever, which was awarded second place in this year’s contest. As one of the contest judges, I liked how Maria tied age to youth as it relates to the continuum of foxhunting.
Maria’s experience was another happy outcome of Marty and Daphne Wood’s reach out program, the USPC Live Oak Foxhunting Challenge, which makes cash awards to the Pony Club that introduces the most juniors to the foxhunting experience.
In the coming weeks FHL will publish more worthy top-placing efforts by foxhunting Pony Clubbers in the contest.
Foxhunting Forever
I can feel Willie’s heart thumping beneath me as we gallop across the field. His huge strides eat up the ground as he pushes faster and faster. He lives for this, and so do I. His enthusiasm each and every morning when I go out to get him on those chilly fall days brings a smile to my face. He trots me down to the trailer every morning we hunt, each bone in his body filled with anticipation. As soon as we get him off the trailer, he assumes his perky, “Let’s go, Mom!” attitude. He looks around intently, searching for the other horses and especially the hounds. Once we get going, he is truly unstoppable. When we get onto those long, beautiful stretches, the hounds streaking ahead with unbridled energy, Willie’s pricked ears and expression of utter joy show me how much he truly loves the foxhunt.
I often get asked, “How old is that hotshot?” while Willie prances and dances around. My answer surprises everyone, especially me. “Twenty-six?” they ask, incredulous, “Are you sure?” If I didn’t have his papers and didn’t look too closely into his mouth, I would doubt it too. After arthritis in his neck ended our short eventing career forever, I feared that we would never be able to experience the same freedom and joy that the cross-country phase always brought us. We found an answer to our prayers with foxhunting. After participating in the hunt for the first time in 2007 with the Long Lake Hounds (to help out my club with the Live Oak Foxhunting Challenge), I was hooked, and so was he. I’ve realized that the appeal of foxhunting reaches through the ages, from the past to the present and from the young to the old.
When we hear the huntsman’s horn, and pick up our gallop in pursuit of a fox, or maybe just freedom, I know that we belong here. Sometimes I like to think that his heart, steady and rhythmic, is beating in time with my own as we fly across the countryside. The young heart of an old horse who knows he was meant to run forever. And the heart of a girl who knows that she too, will hunt forever.
Maria Filsinger, an HB from North Star Pony Club, is a sixteen-year-old who loves to hunt on her twenty-six-year-old dark bay gelding, Willie. She joined Pony Club in early 2007, and is forever grateful that she was exposed to foxhunting through the Live Oak Hounds Foxhunting Challenge. When not hunting on Willie, she enjoys competing in eventing and dressage with her other horse, Pete. She loves the way the hunt has allowed Willie to feel young
again.
September 23, 2010