Letters to a Young Huntsman, Andrew Barclay, Outskirts Press, Inc., Denver, 2012, 116 pages, $27.95I have long admired Andrew Barclay’s writing. As for his expertise, that was proven long ago in the hunting field.
Andrew got a good start to his career by whipping-in to legendary huntsman Les Grimes for seven years at the Green Spring Valley Hounds in Maryland. Upon Grimes’s retirement, the horn was passed to Andrew, and he carried it with distinction there for the next twenty years.
Around the time that Andrew was getting ready to retire as huntsman, MFHA Director Tony Leahy was formulating what is now known as the MFHA’s Professional Development Program—a structured training program for young aspiring huntsmen. One aspect of the program required that a knowledgeable mentor be available to work with each individual admitted into the program.
It was serendipity. Andrew was the right person available at the right time. The MFHA engaged him for the program, and Andrew hunted with young staff members all over the country. He had already walked the walk, but he also possessed the ability to articulate and commit his views, observations, and recommendations to paper for the benefit of those he mentored.
I read one of Andrew’s constructive debriefing letters that he had sent to one of his young huntsmen after a day in the field with him. I was editor of Covertside at the time and always on the lookout for well-written, informative, and substantive writings on foxhunting. The tone of Andrew’s letter was much like the letters in Peter Beckford’s 1781 foxhunting classic, Thoughts on Hunting: In a Series of Familiar Letters to a Friend. I published it—and many thereafter—in the same instructive vein as Beckford had done. This book follows that model.
In some instances, Andrew wrote letters in answer to specific questions asked by his young charges. I recognize some of them in this book. Together, they cover a broad swath of foxhunting subjects, and I can’t imagine any hunting enthusiast—beginner or expert—that won’t be enlightened by the content.
Why, you might have wondered one day, did the whipper-in hold up hounds that were bursting out of covert on the line of a fast moving fox. Andrew answers that and many other such questions with examples of real hunting situations and the decisions they called for on the part of huntsman and staff during the course of a day’s hunt.
The working relationship between huntsman and hounds is the key to the sport we hope for when we load our horse and go foxhunting. Andrew’s book is chock full of the intimate interplay between huntsman and hounds that goes into the making of that relationship in the kennel and that provides good sport in the field.
Letters to a Young Huntsman is available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I highly recommend it.
Posted July 19, 2012