RSPCA Ratchets Up the Pressure Against Foxhunters
In what the Western Morning News calls a “game-changer,” the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) will soon be able to intensify its surveillance of foxhunting practices in England. An article by Martin Bell claims that The League Against Cruel Sports (LACS) has financed the hiring and equipping of ex-armed forces […]
Hunting in Somerset (UK)
Slip into the saddle with Megan Corp as she takes her own line over the hedges of Somerset with the Blackmore and Sparkford Vale Foxhounds. Wait! Tighten your girth.
Carlow Famers Foxhounds at Glynn, County Carlow, Ireland
83-year-old Jack Lambert clears a double stone wall with the Carlow Farmers Foxhounds on his purebred Irish Draught hunter. Lambert is a regular visitor to the Genessee Valley Hounds (NY). / Noel Mullins photo
Only the most able riders, the foolhardy, or unsuspecting visitors go to the Carlow Farmers Foxhounds meet at John A’s Pub in Glynn. Only in parts of Galway and North Mayo have I ever seen such a succession of double stone walls that must be jumped clean because they don’t collapse. Many more cannot be jumped clean, but have to be banked. A clever and athletic horse is needed, and a rider who hangs on the reins is doomed!
Southern Hospitality Conquers Winter Weather at Belle Meade
The author (right) with (l-r) Field Master Jean Derrick and Master and huntsman Epp Wilson at the final meet
Snow may have crippled Atlanta, but the few inches that fell in Thomson, Georgia during Belle Meade’s second annual “Gone Away with the Wind” Hunt Week (January 26 to February 2, 2014) did little to dampen the great foxhunting and lavish southern hospitality. The first day we arrived was warm and sunny, a welcome respite from a frozen Maryland. I was returning for a second awesome adventure with Belle Meade Hunt and had encouraged two more of my fellow Marlborough Hunt members to come down. Jayne Koester and her amateur-radio enthusiast husband Fred enlivened their trip by talking to all the Ham radio operators near Interstate 95 as they drove south. Following them was Gwen Alred, a member of both Marlborough and Potomac Hunt clubs, who also decided getting out of a frigid Maryland was a good idea.
Monday at 3:00 pm, after warm greetings from our southern hosts and welcoming remarks from MFHs Epp Wilson, Charlie Lewis, and Gary Wilkes, we quickly trotted across the road from the kennels and moved across open cattle fields. I was riding first flight behind my good friend, Belle Meade Field Master Jean Derrick, and it felt wonderful to be cantering across soft ground in informal ratcatcher attire!
Belle Meade, Beagles, and Bunnies
Beagle huntsman Dalton Reeves
“My name is Dalton Reeves, I’m eighty years old and a retired high school football coach and teacher, originally from South Carolina,” our huntsman said, introducing himself to his field of foot-followers—mainly foxhunting guests and members participating in Belle Meade’s “Gone Away with the Wind” Hunt Week—some of whom were out beagling for the first time.
“I’m very happy to hear that I’m following an eighty-year-old huntsman,” I replied. “It means I’m not likely to get left too far behind, the prospect of which has been worrying me.”
“No worries,” Mr. Reeves assured me. “I’ve got two knee replacements and one new hip; I don’t travel too fast any more.”
That said, by the time Mr. Reeves brought the beagles in four hours later, I had been back to the deer camp meet three times to stick my boots into a fire blazing in an outdoor pit to thaw my toes. I also had a bite of breakfast and took a side trip with John McNeil, Sr. to the Rock House—thought to be the oldest house in the state of Georgia—previously a part of the McNeil property, over which the beagles were hunting, but now in the hands of the historical association. In between my retreats to comfort, I enjoyed along with the rest of the field several hours of hound music—some with voices that represented the beagle version of the booming “aroos” of the Penn-Marydel foxhound.
Michael L. Strang, ex-MFH, Rancher, U.S. Congressman
Michael Lathrop Strang, ex-MFH of the Roaring Fork Hounds, died at home on his ranch outside Carbondale, Colorado on January 12, 2014. Born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania on June 17, 1929, his family moved to Colorado in 1932, to a ranch they purchased in the mountains above Golden. Times were tough, so the family made ends meet by bringing eastern kids out west for “summer camp” at the ranch. Mike developed his passion for horses early in life caring for the string of ranch horses that were used to work the cattle and outfit the campers. The family used a team of draft horses to cut and rake the hay they put up and to skid Ponderosa pine logs off the mountain to their sawmill. Mike’s father also raised Thoroughbred racehorses.
Mike and his brother, Bart, were home-schooled by their father until they went to Princeton University. Mike took time off from his studies at Princeton (’56) to serve as a lieutenant in the Army from 1950 to 1953. It was while training future officers at the army’s Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia that he met Ben Hardaway and developed his passion for hounds and foxhunting.
How They Do It at Belle Meade
Epp Wilson, MFH and huntsman of the Belle Meade Hunt brings hounds to the first draw to kick off “Gone Away with the Wind” Hunt Week. Whippers-in Lucy Bell (left) and Natalie Gilmore flank the pack. / Lauren R. Giannini photo
“We have arranged to have ten coyotes on standby for your hunting pleasure today,” announced Joint-MFH Charlie Lewis as he welcomed guests to the opening meet of Belle Meade’s “Gone Away with the Wind” Hunt Week. It was Monday, January 27, 2014 in Thomson, Georgia. The footing was perfect and the sun was shining.
The following day it snowed, closing schools, paralyzing the Atlanta area, and prompting the governor to declare a state of emergency. The Belle Meade hosts were resilient, however, improvising substitute activities for members and guests for the very few events that had to be modified.
Hunt Week guests had come from the Blue Ridge Hunt (VA), Bull Run Hunt (VA), Golden’s Bridge Hounds (NY), Marlborough Hunt (MD), Millbrook Hunt (NY), Montreal Hunt (PQ), Moore County Hounds (NC), the Potomac Hunt (MD), Toronto and North York Hunt (ON), and the Whiskey Road Hounds (SC).
The Meet
The Belle Meade hounds typically meet at three o’clock in the afternoon. In the warmish environs of north Georgia, Senior Master and huntsman Epp Wilson likes to hunt as temperatures are dropping and scent is improving. Of course it often results in riders hacking back in the dark, and even jumping fences after sunset—an adventure in its own right for many followers!
“License and Registration, Please.”
Ashley Twiggs photo Hunts seeking to recruit new members can take a page from the Belle Meade Hunt in Thomson, Georgia. Officer Mike Coke met this Belle Meade foxhound, Colleen, on the highway. The pair obviously hit it off to the extent that Coke, who had no previous experience with foxhunting, was sufficiently smitten by […]
Trainer, Foxhunter Tom Voss, MFH, Dead at Sixty-Three
Douglas Lees photoTom Voss, MFH of the Elkridge-Harford Hunt died suddenly on January 21, 2014 at his home in Monkton, Maryland. He had served as Joint-Master of the hunt since 1993.
In the larger world of horses, Voss was best-known as a top trainer of racehorses both on the flat and over fences. Starting as an amateur timber rider, Voss began training professionally in 1973. He trained the 2010 Eclipse Award steeplechase champion Slip Away and was a five-time leading trainer on the National Steeplechase circuit, capturing that title in 1997, 2000–2002, and 2011.
Pete Waxes Philosophical about Hunting
Foxhunting Life readers may not recognize their old friend, Pete, in this story. We generally find him drunk, misguided, and irresponsible. On this timely subject, however, the author allows him a sober and a somber moment.
Pete settled himself in the chair, took a pull from his pint, wiped the froth from his mouth and belched. Outside the pub it was pitch black and a wind drove hail against the windows, but inside a fire burned in the hearth and its warmth filled the room.
“Job’s buggered,” he said. “Hunting isn’t coming back.”
I looked at him. “Bonner, Barney, and the Countryside Alliance to name but a few would disagree,” I said.
Pete took another pull on his pint and sat considering. Finally he spoke.
“What would happen if it did?” he asked. “T’ hunt monitors will go back to being sabs. Never be like it was in our day.”