FBI Probe Links Animal Rights Threat to NYC Horse Carriage Issue
During his mayoral campaign, Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged to remove the iconic horse-drawn carriages from the city’s streets. The FBI is currently examining that pledge as it relates to contributions to an animal rights group, NYCLASS, and threats made to de Blasio’s chief rival in that mayoral race. Candidate de Blasio made his pledge […]
Professional Huntsmen Are the Heart and Soul of Foxhunting
Huntsman Larry Pitts with the foxhounds of the Potomac Hunt (MD) / Karen Kandra Wenzel photo
Professional huntsman Larry Pitts was recognized at the recent MFHA Staff Seminar held in Lexington, Kentucky, April 12 to 13, 2014. After a dinner for the two hundred attendees, Larry was presented with the annual Ian Milne Award for his exceptional contributions to the sport of foxhunting.
While the sport of foxhunting may, as many say, revolve around the foxhound, I suggest that the heart and soul of our sport is the professional huntsman. Professionals like Larry preserve the superlative foxhound bloodlines for breeding, and they maintain the standards for the care and training of hounds in kennel and the handling of hounds in the field. All hunts—whether high-octane or small farmer’s pack—and all huntsmen—whether professional or amateur—benefit from their breeding acumen and their examples of practice.
Here is a real-life example of how the professional huntsman exerts his or her influence upon our sport in kennels far beyond his own. Epp Wilson, MFH and huntsman of the Belle Meade Hunt (GA), reached back to his teen years and his first meeting with Larry Pitts in this vignette.
Opposition to NYC Horse Carriage Ban Is Building
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s pledge to take the city’s iconic horse-drawn carriages off the streets is facing increased opposition, according to the Associated Press. Recent support for the horse carriages from many quarters has changed the mayor’s timetable on his ban promise from immediate to year-end. Actor Liam Neeson, in a recent […]
The Natural
It was the month of April in 1947 that Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in major league baseball. Here’s an earlier photograph of Robinson while a member of the segregated 9th Cavalry Regiment taken at Fort Riley, Kansas. Consummate athlete that he was, it’s not surprising that his seat on this cavalry horse cannot […]
T’Breds Perform Gymnastic Feats at Elkridge-Harford Races
Hold Your Fire (Gus Dahl up) went on to win the Open Timber Race. / Douglas Lees photoThe ultimate equine athlete—the Thoroughbred—saved the bacon for at least two riders at the Elkridge-Harford Point-to-Point Races at Atlanta Hall Farm, in Monkton, Maryland on Saturday, April 5, 2014.
In the first race, Open Timber, Hold Your Fire led the field into the last fence, where he caught his right front on the top rail. Robbed of momentum, he twisted his rear end fully ninety degrees to get his hind end over. Rider Gustav Dahl stayed in the middle, and the pair went on to win the race. Click on Doug Lees’s brilliant photograph to see the three-shot sequence.
This was trainer Elizabeth Voss Murray’s first of two wins on the day. Ms. Murray, daughter of the late Tom Voss, is a new Master of the Elkridge-Harford Hunt.
Crossbred Hounds Dominate at Southern Hound Show
Grand Champion of Show Live Oak Dandy and (l-r) Sally Bickerstaff; Daphne Wood, MFH; Judges Linda Armbrust, Nigel Peel, and Franklin Whit Foster, MFHs; Marty Wood, MFH; and huntsman Dale Barnett / Cathy Taber photo
The eighth annual Southern Hound Show was held at Live Oak Plantation, Monticello, Florida on April 5, 2014.
It is interesting to note that of the fifty-four ribbons awarded, not including Two-Couple or Championship classes, thirty-seven ribbons went to Crossbreds and seventeen went to English hounds, which proves the value of breeding the best English hounds to the best American blood.
The day was cloudy and cool which made the spectators comfortable and allowed hounds to show at their best in the large grass ring. Kennels were set up nearby in a three-sided hay shed where hounds from Fox River Valley (IL), Green Creek (SC), Hillsboro (TN), Midland (GA), Mooreland (AL), and Bear Creek (GA) were kenneled. The Live Oak were shown out of their home kennel.
Excerpt from “Reynard the Fox”
This joyful image of foxhounds arriving at the meet, conscious all the while of the attentive whipper-in, is an excerpt from the chapter, Hounds, in John Masefield’s epic poem, Reynard the Fox, written in 1919. John Masefield was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1930 to 1967. [Note: Dansey is the whipper-in, and Maroon is his horse.]
There was a general turn of faces,
The men and horses shifted places,
And around the corner came the hunt,
Those feathery things, the hounds, in front,
Intent, wise, dipping, trotting, straying,
Smiling at people, shoving, playing,
Nosing to children’s faces, waving
Their feathery sterns, and all behaving,
One eye to Dansey on Maroon.
Virginia Point-to-Point Horse Confirmed EHM Victim
A horse that ran at the Piedmont Fox Hounds Point-to-Point Races on Saturday, March 22, 2014 was later confirmed positive for Equine Herpesvirus Myeloencephalopathy (EHM), a neurological disease of horses caused by Equine Herpesvirus-1 (EHV-1). The affected horse, from Fauquier County in Northern Virginia, was euthanized. There have been no new cases reported as of […]
Antique Hunting Scene or War?
Closeup view
Grotesque as this sculptured scene may appear—men and women trampled under a rush of mounted riders on horses, accompanied by dogs on leads—the collector believes that this antique ivory carving is a fox hunt, not a war scene, because of the dress, dogs, and accouterment. He has asked Jaynie Spector at Dog and Horse Fine Art in Charleston, South Carolina to offer this carving.
Ms. Spector has studied with Sotheby’s in London, worked as an art advisor, worked at Christie’s Contemporary Art Department, and spent years at a Soho art gallery in New York before starting her own art gallery in Charleston. While the carving boasts provenance from a gallery in Paris, Spector believes it is the work of a German sculptor.
Forrard Aloft!
Photographer Adrian Jennings has discovered a unique way to follow hounds. Enjoy this short video clip of the Mooreland Hunt foxhounds in Alabama. Posted April 8, 2014