Maryland Hound Show
Potomac Keswick was the American Foxhound Champion at the Maryland Foxhound Show on May 5, 2013, hosted by the De La Brooke Foxhounds. / Karen Kandra Wenzel photo Click on the photo to see a gallery of the rest of the winners!
Covertside: The Complete Set
Karen Myers photoA private party, unrelated to Foxhunting Life, has contacted us to offer for sale a complete set of Covertside publications starting with the very first—a four-page newsletter dated May 1994—up to the Spring, 2013 issue. At four issues a year (just three the first year), that computes to seventy-six issues. We will happily […]
Foxhunting in North America: A Brief History
Here is a concise history of foxhunting in North America from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, tracing the sport from its Colonial beginnings to organized foxhunting as we know it today. The work constitutes part of the first chapter in A Centennial View, published by the MFHA to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the establishment of the Association.
George Washington and Lord Fairfax hunting in the Shenandoah Valley
Hunting in the Colonies (1600s to 1775)
If you were a second son to a family of landed gentry living in the English countryside during the seventeenth or eighteenth century, you would have found your prospects considerably dimmer than those of your elder brother. Precluded, through the laws of primogeniture, from inheriting your father’s estate, you might have been tempted by land grants offered by the Colonial governors of Maryland or Virginia to emigrate, settle in the New World, and make your fortune there.
If you had an adventurous soul, you might have packed up your family, children, furniture, and, of course, a few of your foxhounds, and embarked on the voyage. Along with those tangible items, you would have brought your rural culture and a hunting heritage to these Provinces. By carrying on your habitual pursuits, you would make Maryland and Virginia the cradle of North American foxhunting.
From Toy Box to Art Gallery
What happens when a noted photographer stumbles across a set of vintage (1930s) British cast lead toy figures of foxhunters and hounds? Award-winning photographer/author/film maker Robert Trachtenberg was captivated by the various poses and old patina on the figures. He placed them into scaled-down landscapes, illuminated them romantically, and produced a suite of seven photographs […]
A Bright Finish to a Challenging Season
Huntsman Donald Summersgill (right) and staff with the Devon and Somerset Staghounds
As I sit and write this on the 6th of May, finally we can say we have had two days of really good weather! The sun is shining, there is not a cloud in the sky, and the birds are in fine voice. A proper English early summer’s day, which even if I say it myself we richly deserve.
However, wherever I look there are fields of oilseed rape at half the height they should be, the wheat and barley crops are as thin as I have ever seen in my lifetime, and, what is more, the weather forecast for the next day or so is for high winds and rain. The rain believe it or not is much needed even after the wettest winter on record, but the wind is something we can well do without. We have just come out of the driest April in nearly a hundred years. Never mind; I hope that you all had a good end to season and that your weather is behaving rather better than ours.
The weather notwithstanding, I think we have come out of this last season pretty well. Having had two fascinating days beagling towards the end of March with the Christchurch and Farley Hill and the Royal Agricultural College, my season came to an end with the Exmoor Foxhounds and the Devon and Somerset Staghounds at the end of April.
Brazos Valley Mystic: LIke Father, Like Son
Brazos Valley Mystic 2010 / Liz Callar photoBrazos Valley Mystic 2010 was judged Grand Champion of the Southwest Hound Show for the third consecutive year, matching his sire’s outstanding performance there. The show was held on April 20, 2013 at Greenwood Farms in Weatherford, Texas.
Mystic’s success is no stroke of luck; he’s the product of a royal breeding engineered by Brazos Valley MFH Sandy Dixon. She put her own sire—Brazos Valley Catfish 2006—to a Potomac-bred bitch that she entered in 2006—Brazos Valley Meadow.
Catfish won three consecutive Grand Championships at the Southwest Hound Show in 2007, 2008, and 2009, and Meadow brought her own credentials from Maryland. She was bred by Potomac huntsman Larry Pitts and is by Potomac Jefferson, Grand Champion of both the Virginia Foxhound Show and the Bryn Mawr Hound Show in 2007. Jefferson was knockout handsome.
From Horses to Hounds: Following the Seasons
Professor Maxwell lands cleanly at fence 3 of the Maryland Hunt Cup. / Douglas Lees photo The hunt point-to-points are over, and Foxhunting Life ends its season’s coverage with a report on the Maryland Hunt Cup. We report on these races because they are foxhunting-related; amateur riders compete, and many of these racehorses also serve […]
Professor Maxwell Wins Maryland Hunt Cup
Look, Ma, no stirrups! Mark Beecher flies four timber fences without stirrups on his way to victory aboard Professor Maxwell in the 117th running of the Maryland Hunt Cup.
In a gutsy performance, Mark Beecher rode Mrs. George Ohrstrom’s Professor Maxwell to victory in the Maryland Hunt Cup despite a recently broken collarbone and a lost stirrup.
The collarbone was broken only two weeks earlier at the My Lady’s Manor races. Fortunately, the horse is a careful jumper and, according to Beecher, requires only that the rider sit quietly and do nothing. Beecher did just that without stirrups over four of the imposing solid timber fences.
Trainer Richard Valentine called Beecher’s ride “remarkable.”
Hunting with Dogs in New York City
An unregistered pack of dogs is hunting in New York City according to Fox News. The Ryders Alley Trencher-fed Society has been meeting weekly at promising fixtures throughout the city for about ten years. Recently they met near City Hall on a couple of nights to draw the nearby alleys with two Border Terriers, a […]
Blue Ridge Runs Postponed Point-to-Point
Whodoyoucallit (Woods Winants) wins Novice Timber. / Liz Callar photoThe Blue Ridge Hunt Point-to-Point Races, originally scheduled for Saturday, March 9 but postponed due to a snowstorm, were finally held on a sunny but cool Sunday, April 21, 2013—six weeks later. A good crowd of spectators enjoyed a brilliant day out-of-doors, but entries were down with the sanctioned Middleburg Spring Races having been run the day before.
Eva Smithwick—2012 leading trainer in Virginia—saddled two winners for Indian Run Farm, both ridden by Woods Winants. Fogcutter, with two previous hurdle wins at Thornton Hill and Old Dominion, won the Amateur/Novice Rider Hurdle, and Whodoyoucallit, with a win earlier in the season at Thornton Hill, won the Novice Timber. Neither horse was seriously challenged.