The Closing of a Literary Institution: An Opportunity for Readers and Collectors
Robin Bledsoe, bookseller, at right with customers…two members of the mounted police force…in the backyard of her bookshop in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Robin
As I close my bookshop and open a new chapter in my bookselling career, Norm has asked me to say a few words about my almost half century of selling horse books.
Ever since I received Somebody’s Pony for Christmas 1952, I’ve cherished and collected horse books. After earning an M.A. in art history and starting a publishing career, I began selling out-of-print books in my two fields of interest, horses and art. I named the business Blue Rider Books after a group of German artists who often painted horses. I found some books in nearby book barns, ran some classified ads, mailed out a list, and so it all began—100-plus catalogues, dozens of trade fairs and horse shows, and tens of thousands of books ago.
Working My Way Home
Teagan, celebrating her fourth birthday on her first hunt. Mom has the lead line, but our author took over on foot and learned a lot of hunting wisdom from her youthful charge. / Lori Brunnen photo.
This is a foxhunting forum and I do realize that is what readers come to read about. Still I would like to share one personal thing. My husband of forty-two years died on June 10th, 2018 just four months after being diagnosed with an inoperable malignant brain tumor. His name was Rick. Four months of disbelief, struggle, suffering, and finally grief. Moving to a new place last September with the horses following in December left me missing the first half of the 2019 season as well as the last half of 2018.
The Vixen’s Meet: A Fund Raiser for Our Times
Orange County Hounds Field Master John Coles, MFH, leads a field of 60 visiting foxhunting ladies on the Vixen’s Meet . / Joanne Maisano photo
When the COVID pandemic and executive orders from the Governor of Virginia forced cancellation of Orange County Hounds’ primary annual fund raising event—the barn party held at Board President Jaqueline Mars’ legendary home—OCH Board leaders Jane Bishop and Emily Hannum put their heads together and scheduled instead a Vixen’s Meet. Given the strong showing October 15, 2020 at Stonehedge in The Plains, Virginia, the ladies like it.
Ladies from a dozen hunts turned out in support of Orange County: Belle Meade Hunt (GA), Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds (PA), Cloudline Hounds (TX), and De La Brooke Foxhounds (MD). From Virginia were ladies of the Blue Ridge Hunt, Casanova Hunt, Loudoun Fairfax Hunt, Middleburg Hunt, Piedmont Fox Hounds, Rappahannock Hunt, and Snickersville Hounds.
Happy 95th, Michael Dempsey!
Michael Dempsey, Master and huntsman of the Galway Blazers parading 22-1/2 couple of hounds at the Dublin Horse Show, 1983 / Noel Mullins photo
Former Master and huntsman of the Galway Blazers for forty seasons, Michael Dempsey celebrated his ninety-fifth birthday last week. And there are still some who remember him hunting Lady Molly Cusack-Smith’s Bermingham and North Galway Hounds even before that!
In fact, your FHL editor was in the field near Bermingham House one hunting day that would have cancelled any prognostication of this man ever achieving ninety-five years topside.
The Fantastic Mr. Jorrocks
“Unting is all that’s worth living for — all time is lost wot is not spent in ‘unting — it is like the hair we breathe — if we have it not we die — it’s the sport of kings, the image of war without its guilt, and only five-and-twenty percent of its danger.”
—Jorrocks
John Mills, Mr. Jorrocks statue, Croydon. UK
As someone who, prior to 2012, had limited knowledge of sporting literature, art, and artists, I had absolutely no idea who Mr. Jorrocks was. In March 2020, right before the pandemic stopped the world, the National Sporting Library & Museum received a generous bequest from Mrs. Katrina Becker, a faithful friend of the museum for many years. Included in this gift was a portrait of a man with a cheery expression on his face. He made me laugh, and I asked our Head Curator Claudia Pfeiffer, “Who is that?!”
Millbrook Celebrates its 113th Opening Meet
Millbrook’s new huntsman, Erin McKenney, parades hounds to the Stirrup Cup before moving off from Wethersfield. / Carol Pedesen photo
The Millbrook Hunt (NY) held its 113th Opening Meet at Wethersfield, the former home of Mr. Chauncey Stillman, on Saturday, October 3, 2020. Mr. Stillman first hunted with Millbrook in 1937 as a guest. Soon after, he assembled the land and began construction of this elegant property. He continued to hunt with the Millbrook as a member.
The Huntsman’s Horse
Chris Ryan staying with his Scarteen Black and Tans / Catherine Power photo
It is generally recognised that only a very special horse will suffice for a huntsman of a premier pack. Many of these horses acquire fame in their own right and often become even better known than their riders. No horse should ever be considered too good or too valuable for a huntsman on a big day. Capt Harry Freeman-Jackson regularly hunted the Duhallow hounds off St. Finbarr, which he rode when representing Ireland in the Rome Olympics. Many of the greats are a one-of and often unridable unless they are up front.
Foxhunting and the Point-to-Point
Cheltenham, the Home of Jump Racing in Britain
What came first, the chicken or the egg is a conundrum that is unlikely ever to be solved. The same question concerning foxhunting and point-to-point racing, on the other hand, is quite simple to answer. We have to go back as far as the fifteenth century and maybe even earlier to discover the origins of foxhunting. In its beginnings, it’s likely the same hounds were used for hunting both hares and stags.
It was in the eighteenth century that foxhunting as we know it started to take shape, and for this we can thank Hugo Meynell, the father of modern foxhunting, and his period of Mastership at the Quorn. It wasn’t long before the sport became a favourite pastime of the well-to-do crowd.
Virginia, Yes; Montana, Not So Much
Purely American hunting after the fleet coyote over the Big Sky Hounds country / Gretchen Pelham photo.
It is not something you expect to see in Montana. You’ll do a double take and rub your eyes the first time you round the bend in ranch country and catch a glimpse of a pack of foxhounds followed by a bunch of people horseback, some wearing scarlet coats and hunt caps, some Carharts and cowboy hats. You’ll want to stop and watch as some sail over a haphazard jump put across a barbed wire fence in the middle of a cow pasture. You will probably hear the huntsman’s horn and the hounds screaming. And if you look way, way ahead, you might catch a glimpse of a very nonplussed coyote. Not a fox.
This is foxhunting, Montana-style. Even though there usually isn’t a fox involved, and without a rifle it’s not really considered hunting out here, but for those of us who ride to the Big Sky Hounds, it is a helluva lot of fun.
Riding Lesson
Henry Taylor is an American poet, author of more than fifteen books of poems, and winner of the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
I learned two things
from an early riding teacher.
He held a nervous filly
in one hand and gestured
with the other, saying, “Listen.
Keep one leg on one side,
the other leg on the other side,
and your mind in the middle.”