Mark Beecher: From Ireland to the USA
Mark Beecher riding Professor Maxwell, winners of the 2013 Maryland Hunt Cup / Noel Mullins photo
It’s always fascinating to talk with somebody successful in one equestrian discipline, challenges himself in another, changes continents, and proves immensely successful again. Now Mark Beecher has decided to step back from competitive riding and take up training.
I talked with Mark at his present home in Maryland in the USA. He is from a hunting and showjumping background. I was aware of some of his successes in the States, having seen him race riding, but I didn’t realise the enormity of what he has achieved in just eight years as a jockey in the USA. Surely, hunting and show jumping have contributed to that success.
Lost Hound
Illustration by Jane Gaston from “Lost Hound,” Robert Ashcom, The Derrydale Press and Millwood House, 1999, 161 pages
If you’ve ever walked the interstate
You know the dream of summer thunder with
No rain and heat in solemn surge like fate
Gone out of sync―where eighteen-wheelers brew
Their shouted, tire-born songs with diesel breath;
And fast food wrappers feed the session’s mood.
The Rock Dam
This ancient rock dam, hidden within a 1,600-acre woodland, is known by all who have hunted the fox and coyote through the Belle Meade Hunt country in Thomson, Georgia. Which means it’s dearly familiar to the Belle Meade members and has been seen by a thousand foxhunting visitors from at least fifty different hunts from fifteen separate nations! It appears to the rider as he or she drops down to a water crossing, looks to the side, and beholds the massive rock-faced cliff standing over its pool in complete concert with its natural surroundings. One is often on the move while hunting at Belle Meade, with little chance to stop and absorb the peaceful beauty of the scene, which disappears behind just as suddenly as it revealed itself. So let’s pause for a moment in this off-season and let Master Epp Wilson tell us what he has learned about it.
The Rock Dam on Maddock’s Creek, McDuffie County, Georgia, is a magical place. Some like vanilla, some like chocolate, but everyone likes or loves the Rock Dam. History. Water. Strength. Engineering. It is truly timeless and holds something for everyone, young and old. City person or countryside person. If there is one place that we could say is the most popular place in our hunting country, the Rock Dam is it.
Bespoke Hunting Attire: Part 2
The Art of Wearing
Aidan O’Connell wearing his Frazer-made charcoal grey hunting tails with Prussian collar and Prince of Wales cuffs and champagne boot tops hunting with the Orange County Hounds in Virginia / Noel Mullins photo
I have some great memories and so many amusing stories of traveling to different countries to hunt and report on foxhunting with Frazers tailor shop’s most prominent client: Aidan ‘Suntan’ O’Connell. I captured images of Aidan wearing bespoke tailoring in all aspects of the sport and at social events in Europe and the US as he has perhaps one of the most complete bespoke wardrobes that I know of. He also wore a ponytail with a velvet bow that he grew during a period of contemplation in England.
Paving Paradise: A Review
Book Review by Dulany Noble, MFH
Paving Paradise, A Paradise Gap Novel by J. Harris Anderson, Blue Cardinal Press 2020, Paperbound, $17.95
What a fun read. And a fun ride! Paving Paradise is the third book in a series by J. Harris Anderson that takes place in the idyllic hunt country of Crutchfield County, Virginia. You do not have to read the first two books to enjoy this one, but it might take you a few chapters to keep all the characters straight.
On the plus side, having read this one, you will be on familiar terms with the characters―a bonus―when you decide to read the first two books, as I must now do.
Bespoke Hunting Attire: Part 1
The Art of Making
Michael and Elsie Frazer in their bespoke tailoring shop in the village of Hospital, Ireland / Noel Mullins photo
I read a report recently in The Sunday Times that ‘Fast Fashion,’ a term for the impulse buying of clothes online and in stores that people wear just a few times and then discard, contributes 1.2 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year into the atmosphere. In the USA alone, 13 million tons of clothing are thrown into landfills or burned. In the UK, 300,000 tons of clothing end up in landfills, an interesting statistic in that the public is often led to believe, incorrectly, that farmers are to blame for all the unwanted emissions.
Those in the hunting fields, however, used to see family after family who wore hunting attire passed down from prior generations. What was their secret?
Retrospective
Wendell Hawken / Matthew Klein photo
Introducing a new poem by the contemporary Poet Laureate of foxhunting.
When I rode,
I rode on a loose rein,
kept a good horse
Midland Brecon 2003
−From The Hound Intelligence Series published by Hounds magazine―an oversized 335-page collection of stories about remarkable and memorable hounds from around the hunting world.
Julie Whitlock McKee told me about her favorite foxhound at the Midland Fox Hounds (GA)―a hound that she walked as a puppy.
“He is a beautiful tri-colored dog hound who is as honest as the day is long. When the correct quarry is being chased, he is right there up front. He may not be the beauty king that goes to the shows, but if there is any doubting in the minds of the hunt staff as to the correctness of the pack, they look for Brecon to tell them if the pack is right. Which is quite handy in a pack that has a lot of young entry.
Lady Melissa Brooke, ex-MFH (1935−2021)
Catherine Power photo
The recent passing of Lady Melissa Brooke has been recognised with obituaries in both the local and sporting press, but her main passion in life warranted only a passing mention. She was a dyed-in-the-wool foxhunter with a life-long connection to the County Limerick Foxhounds.
She had spent the war years in New York where her American-born mother had taken the children―Melissa, Caroline (now the Marchioness of Waterford), and Thady (later the Earl of Dunraven) during hostilities.
Airborne
“Airborne,” oil on linen by Linda Volrath, 12 x 16 inch
Pure exuberance is captured by Linda Volrath in this joyous oil painting of the beagle. Voodoo is a two-time stallion winner at the Bryn Mawr Hound Show (MD). Volrath is a highly respected animalist working from her studio in White Post, Virginia.
“This new painting portrays a veteran pack member of the Nantucket-Treweryn Beagles,” said Volrath. “He was fixated upon huntsman Russ Wagner, preparing to kennel up after an action-packed day in the field. Little did he know he was being my perfect model. Good boy!”