Soar: America’s Most Wanted Thoroughbred
Soar, trained and ridden by Lindsey Partridge, captured this year’s title of “America’s Most Wanted Thoroughbred” at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington. The competition, sponsored by the Retired Racehorse Project’s Thoroughbred Makeover program, demonstrates what Thoroughbreds can do after their racing career ends. Competitors vie in a variety of disciplines—polo, show hunter, barrel racing, […]
Seabird
Seabird illustration by Lionel Edwards
by Edric G. Roberts
He’s not very young and he’s not very sound,
He’s not very fast, now, they say,
But nobody knows every inch of the ground
Like Seabird, the dealer’s old grey.
He’s hunted more years than I care to recall,
He’s carried us all in his day,
But no one has ever experienced a fall
On Seabird, the dealer’s old grey.
Foxes
TRed fox / Illustration by Doug Piferhe Pennsylvania Game Commission has published on its website a series of excellent Wildlife Notes on nearly a hundred species of wildlife to be found in that state. With their kind permission, Foxhunting Life earlier republished their comprehensive study of the Eastern coyote, and here we present the Wildlife Note on foxes, once again with permission, which we believe our foxhunting readers will find substantive and revealing.
Red and gray foxes are small, agile carnivores belonging to the same family (Canidae) as the dog, coyote, and wolf. Both red and gray foxes are found throughout Pennsylvania. They are intelligent predators with extremely sharp senses of sight, smell, and hearing (a fox can hear a mouse squeal from about 150 feet).
Thoughts on Mounted Trophies
These mounted trophies revive memorable hunting adventures in Ireland, England, and Virginia.Mounted game trophies are often seen in hunters’ homes as reminders of adventures worth remembering and fallen game worthy of respect. Also, as in the case of a pair of canvasback ducks shot years ago by my wife and soaring in graceful flight on one wall of our den, trophies may be mounted simply as permanent visions of the beauty of the natural world—one’s own museum of natural history—surpassing anything wrought by the artist and cast in cold bronze.
Mounted trophies are also to be found at estate auctions and antique shops. It is the latter category that prompts this query from Foxhunting Life reader Bill Getchell:
“Is there a consensus,” asks Bill, “regarding the display of mounted trophies? Strict constructionists say you should do so only for game that you hunted. Others leave it wide open, maintaining it shows support for the sport and saves the trophy from the trash heap.”
With the caveat that are no right or wrong answers to this question, only personal opinions, here are two thoughtful yet differing views from two experienced and respected sportsmen on FHL’s Panel of Experts: Nigel Peel, MFH and huntsman of the North Cotswold Foxhounds (UK) and Hugh Robards, ex-MFH and currently huntsman of the Middleburg Hunt (VA):
Chapman’s Mariah Is Virginia Field Hunter Champion
Mariah was “a great mover” with “perfect manners.” / Richard Clay photo
by Betsy Burke Parker
Farmington Hunt rider Carolyn Chapman and her paint-cross mare Mariah claimed the coveted title of Virginia Field Hunter Champion on Sunday, October 25, 2015. In victory, she bested seventeen competitors, the best of the best, according to organizers, sent by ten of Virginia’s marquis foxhunting clubs.
The Virginia Championship is widely considered the most competitive of a handful of hunter trial events offered around the nation each fall. The event was hosted at Old Whitewood Farm by the Orange County Hounds. Last year’s winner from Orange County, Neil Morris, MFH, said he began organizing this year’s competition soon after his victory in October of last year.
Chapman partnered her black and white eight-year-old to earn the nod from the judges after three phases. “We both picked her out as a contender in the hack phase,” said judge Norman Fine, editor of the online magazine, Foxhunting Life. Co-judge Tommy Lee Jones, huntsman of Fauquier’s Casanova Hunt, agreed. “She stood out. Great mover, perfect manners.”
Hunters’ Moon
With this issue of FHL WEEK appearing the morning after the annual Hunters’ Moon,* we consider this poem especially appropriate!
Illustration by Gilbert Holliday
By Edric G. Roberts
The horizon, sapphire and amethyst,
Pales in the East and soon,
Like a copper shield through the evening mist,
Rises the Hunters’ Moon.
On the turnpike road every hoof-beat sounds
Clear in the frosty air,
As the Whip jogs home with the straggler-hounds
Jostling his weary mare.
The Great Hound Match of 1905: Alexander Henry Higginson, Harry Worcester Smith, and the Rise of Virginia Hunt Country
This book will be launched at the National Sporting Library, Middleburg, Virginia, on Sunday, November 8 at 2:00 pm. Author Martha Wolfe will speak and sign books.
Review by Martha A. Woodham
The Great Hound Match of 1905: Alexander Henry Higginson, Harry Worcester Smith, and the Rise of Virginia Hunt Country by Martha Wolfe, Lyons Press, 2015, Hardcover, 224 pages, $22.95Before Virginia became the epicenter of foxhunting in the United States, two men staged a contest to determine which was hound was better suited for hunting in America—the heavy, biddable English hound or the ill-mannered American hound that ran like a screaming banshee.
In The Great Hound Match of 1905: Alexander Henry Higginson, Harry Worcester Smith, and the Rise of Virginia Hunt Country, author Martha Wolfe sets a fictionalized version of this competition against the history of foxhunting in Virginia. She has written a wonderful account of the battle between two wealthy men—Higginson and Smith—with egos to match their fortunes, each adamant that his hounds were the best.
Set in an optimistic America just recovering from the 1893 depression, the match was very much a stuffy Old World versus the brash New. Against this background, Wolfe gives us a portrait of the vastly different men—Higginson, the gentlemanly foxhunter, and Smith, who liked his hounds intuitive, impulsive, independent, and to show “initiative…like any full-blooded American.” According to the author, “Smith and his [Grafton] hounds were mongrels—bold, forward, and independent to a fault. Higginson and his [Middlesex] hounds were the refined, reserved elite—passively aggressive, methodical, accustomed to queuing, happy in a crowd of equals.”
Book Launch at NSL: The Great Hound match of 1905
The National Sporting Library in Middleburg, Virginia will be the venue for the launch of Martha Wolfe’s new book, The Great Hound Match of 1905: Alexander Henry Higginson, Harry Worcester Smith, and the Rise of Virginia Hunt Country, on Sunday, November 8, 2015 from 2:00 to 4:00 pm. Martha will speak and sign copies of […]
2006 Masters Seminar Featured Distinguished Panelists
Tony Leahy, MFH moderated a distinguished panel.
The New Masters Seminar, organized by the MFHA and held in Chantilly, Virginia on April 8, 2006 was designed to provide guidance for new Masters. In testimony to the strength of the panel, however, the Seminar attracted over forty Masters, many of whom could hardly be considered ‘new.’ While five of the Masters who attended had less than ten years hunting experience, seven had been hunting for more than forty years, and fully half of the group had more than twenty years hunting experience each.
The panel was composed of five former MFHA presidents: Benjamin H. Hardaway, III; J.W.Y. ‘Duck’ Martin, Jr.; Dr. John W.D. McDonald; C. Martin Wood, III; and James L. Young. This august group came to the party offering a total of 270 years of foxhunting experience!
Among the topics discussed were: Managing the Breeding Program; Managing Professional Staff; Private, Subscription, or Membership Packs; Land Conservation; Breeding Hounds for Coyote or Fox; Sportsmanship; and Tradition. The Panel Moderator was Tony Leahy, MFH.
Martin Scott and the Modern English Foxhound
We republish, with permission, James Barclay’s article about Martin Scott, former MFH and eminent foxhound breeder. Martin Scott has been an engaged member of Foxhunting Life’s, Panel of Experts since our beginnings and has cheerfully answered any and all questions posed to him by our readers, for which we are continually grateful.
by James Barclay
Martin Scott visits with a descendant of Glog Nimrod 1904 / James Barclay photo
Martin Scott is an extraordinary man. As well as being a true and dedicated foxhunter, he is probably the only person I know who has a completely encyclopaedic brain when it comes to the breeding of the Modern English Foxhound. There is no one quite like him when you need to tap into a vast depth of knowledge on this subject—not only their breeding but the attributes of each and every generation.