Leith Griswold, Matriarch of Maryland Hunting Family
Leith Symington Griswold, matriarch of a Maryland riding and foxhunting family, died at the age of ninety-seven, on Tuesday, October 29, 2013 at her home in Monkton. Her favorite sport was foxhunting, and she hunted not only in Maryland, but in England and Ireland as well. It was in Ireland at Molly Cusack-Smith’s Bermingham House […]
Andrews Bridge Foxhounds, New Huntsman Have a Red Letter Day
Andrews Bridge first-year huntsman Adam Townsend praises hounds for their work. Mounted rider is whipper-in Charlie Fleischmann.
Adam Townsend joined the Andrews Bridge Foxhounds (PA) this past April as its first professional huntsman in many years. Adam came to us from the Elkridge-Harford Hunt (MD) where he served as first whipper-in for the last three seasons. Since his arrival he has been working diligently with our pack of Black & Tan Penn-Marydels. Each day’s hunting has shown excellent sport but on Monday, October 28, 2013, Adam’s efforts were rewarded with a red letter day.
WANTED: Opening Meet Photos!
It ‘s time to change the photos in our Foxhunting Life banner slide show (above), and with the formal season starting we’d like to post a collection of all Opening Meet photos in our new banner. Horses, hounds, blessing ceremonies—we posted some beautiful photos last season. Send your photo prospects directly to me at [email protected]. […]
Irish Foxhunter Sets Side Saddle High Jump Records
Susan Oakes establishes new side saddle record for jumping triple bar at six feet, four-and-a-half inches from ground level. / Noel Mullins photo
Susan Oakes—Joint-Master of the Grallagh Harriers and the organizer of last year’s international ladies’ side saddle hunt with the Meath Foxhounds—set two side saddle high jump world records at the Irish National Sports Center on October 24, 2013.
Oakes jumped six feet, eight inches over a puissance wall, breaking her own record of five feet which she established just this summer at the RDS Dublin Horse Show. Then she established a world record of six feet, four-and-a-half inches for jumping a triple bar from ground level.
A world record of six feet, six inches for the triple bar set in Australia in 1915 still stands unbroken, but that record was established by jumping off a ramp. Foxhunting Life reported on Oakes’s attempt to break that record last year and also reported on the international ladies’ side saddle hunt that Oakes organized at the Meath last year. Fifty ladies from nine countries including the U.S. participated in that elegant affair.
A Short History of Foxhunting
Librarian Lisa Campbell shows Alastair Jackson around the stacks at the National Sporting Library, where the author talked about his new book and signed copies. / Maureen Gustafson photo
Excellent books have been written on the history of foxhunting by such notables as The Duke of Beaufort, Roger Longrigg, and Joe Thomas. However, the operating word in the title of this new book by two contemporary notables—Alastair Jackson and Michael Clayton—is “Short.”
“Michael came to me with the idea,” said Jackson last night at the National Sporting Library in Middleburg, Virginia, where, after wine and appetizers, he talked about his book and signed copies. “There are so many people hunting today that don’t know about our history. We wanted to provide something concise, entertaining, and easy to read rather than the academic and often dry histories that have been published in the past.”
Jackson wrote the text and drew the delightful pen-and-ink illustrations reminiscent of the styles of Eleanor Iselin Mason and Edith Somerville. His sketches accurately capture the attitudes and posture of hounds, horses, people, and quarry in motion with economy of line. Clayton provided his vast experience reviewing and editing the text, and wrote the short verses that provide the lead for each chapter.
Tennessee Valley Hunt Ponies Rock!
Pony Field meets coyote / Gretchen Pelham photo
I was standing on the line with my helmet off, pointing into the woods after the coyote. The lead hound, Ariat (a black and tan Penn-Marydel), came up the little rise and opened when she hit the line true. The rest of the pack was with her and off they went. Only a few seconds later, huntsman Ryan Johnsey flew past us over the coop next to our gate.
I was leading what I dubbed the Pony Field at our cub hunt at Tennessee Valley Hunt’s Big Valley fixture. I had only two other members in my field, but all three of us were on ponies. One of the girls was a junior, and the other had turned eighteen only a few months earlier.
I decided to stay out of the woods and follow the lake’s edge since the coyote had been circling around the whole day. My junior asked, “Is the coyote circling because this is his home territory? Because if he was just passing through then he would have run straight out of country, right?” Wow. The girls have been listening to me jabber on about hunting!
Tracy Cover’s Brandywine Is Virginia Field Hunter Champion
Tracey Cover receives Championship trophy from (l-r) Catherine Berger and Linda Armbrust, MFH. / Betsy Parker photo
Tracey Cover from the Middleburg Hunt swept the boards at the 2013 Virginia Field Hunter Championship on Sunday, October 20 with her elegant bay, Brandywine. Judged Best Turned Out early in the day, she went on to win the 2013 Virginia Field Hunter Championship against a highly competent field of riders on some brilliant field hunters. The event had been postponed one week due to a three-day rainfall that dumped seven inches of rain on Virginia’s hunting country.
This year’s championships were hosted by the Blue Ridge Hunt at Woodley in recognition of Barbara Batterton’s win on Linda Armbrust’s Nicki in 2012. Woodley, the home of Brooke and Michelle Middleton, is the well-known venue for the Blue Ridge Hunt Point-to-Point Races and the Blue Ridge Fall Races. Spectators are able to view nearly the entire racecourse panorama from a gently rising hillside along the eastern edge of the course.
Neil Amatt Is 2013 North American Horn Blowing Champion
Horn Blowing Championship trophy is presented to Neil Amatt by Richard Hornberger. Ringmaster is John Franzreb. / AlCookPhoto.com Neil Amatt, whipper-in to the Piedmont Fox Hounds (VA), won the 2013 North American Horn Blowing Championship on Monday, October 14. This final horn blowing competition of the season is held annually during Hunt Night activities at […]
Wicked Goes A-Hunting
Roger Collins in Middleburg, Virginia owns several retired foxhounds—“some more retired than others,” explains his friend Liz Williams, who sent us this GPS track. Roger fitted Wicked, a Penn-Marydel female (we must use the graceful word here, lest some computer firewalls mark us as Spam!) with a Garmin GPS DC-40 tracking collar and downloaded her track, complete with statistics of her jaunt, to Google Earth with the Garmin Astro 220 base unit.
Wicked started from home (upper left) traveling in a southerly direction, found a fox, made three big loops easterly primarily clockwise, from whence her fox abandoned the open fields and struck out for the woods (bottom right). There he remained, circling countless times, Wicked doggedly on his trail. Finally Wicked broke off the chase in the area where she kept having trouble with the line and struck out for home in the most direct route available, across the creek, along the edge of a field where she broke out onto Miller Road and straight home.
Movement in Parliament to Ease the Hunting Ban
A surprising multi-party coalition of MPs—Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Labour, and Plaid Cymru—in sympathy with the plight of farmers suffering livestock losses from foxes are backing Parliamentary proposals to ease one aspect of the Hunting Act. Under the Act as it stands, when a farmer wants foxes on his property killed, only two hounds are allowed […]