Trainer Teddy Mulligan Returns, Wins at Blue Ridge
Trainer Teddy Mulligan marked his return to the racecourse with a win in the first race. / Nancy Kleck photoThe sixty-sixth running of the Blue Ridge Hunt Point-to-Point Races were held at Woodley Farm on Sunday, March 22, 2015. This was the second year in a row that the Blue Ridge race meet had to be postponed due to the weather.
Trainer Teddy Mulligan returned to the racecourse after a year’s absence, saddling his first horse for the first race since his leave-taking and scoring his first win. Bedizen and Zol Zayne, the one-two horses, pulled away from the field of four in the Maiden Hurdle Race with less than a quarter mile to run. Turning for home, Bedizen with Jeff Murphy up took the lead and drew away for a convincing win.
In the remaining two hurdle races—Amateur/Novice Rider and Open Races—trainer Jimmy Day and his rider Brendan Brooks dominated the Winner’s Circle with Controlled Neglect, owned by Ann Braxton Jones-Lynch, and Manacor, owned by a Daybreak Stables syndicate.
Dakota Slew Retires Rokeby Bowl at Piedmont
At the finish of the Open Timber Race it’s Dakota Slew (Robbie Walsh up) 1st, Dr. Alex (Teddy Zimmerman up) 2nd. / Douglas Lees photo
Dakota Slew and Dr. Alex battled for the lead throughout most of the Open Timber race, even jumping the last fence abreast, but at the wire it was Dakota Slew by a length. It was Dakota Slew’s third win in this race under rider Robbie Walsh, thus retiring the Rokeby Bowl for owner Maggie Bryant. Trained by Richard Valentine, Dakota Slew is one of six horses that tied for Leading Timber Horse in Virginia in 2014.
The Valentine-Walsh team scored their second win of the day in the Open Flat Race with Clark Ohrstrom’s Kisser N Run taking the lead from Preachers Pulpit with less than a half-mile to run and winning easily. Kisser N Run was the 2013 Life’s Illusion Filly and Mare champion, and last season’s winner of the Atlanta Steeplechase’s Georgia Cup.
Radnor Huntsman John Dean Breaks Leg
Radnor huntsman Johnny Dean / Daria Killinger photoTuesday, March 17, 2015, Radnor huntsman John “Johnny” Dean III slipped at the mounting block just prior to moving off with hounds from the kennel, and suffered a broken leg. Stevie Hayes, former huntsman of the Bellwood Hunt and occasional whipper-in at Radnor, saved the day’s hunting by […]
Summer Movies, Concerts at National Sporting Library and Museum
The National Sporting Library & Museum (NSLM) in Middleburg, Virginia has announced a summer program of free movies and concerts, with Museum galleries remaining open during the events. Movies are shown on Saturday afternoons from March to December 12. Concerts will take place every fourth Friday from April through September. The summer series features popular […]
Fout and Galligan Dominate Hurdles at Warrenton
Open Hurdle: (l-r) Doug Fout-trained Papriformer (Gerard Galligan) finished first and Storyville (Kieran Norris) placed second / Douglas Lees photo
Trainer Doug Fout and jockey Gerard Galligan monopolized the hurdle races at the Warrenton Hunt Point-to-Point at Airlie Race Course on Saturday, March 14, 2015. Fout and Galligan swept all three hurdle races as well as the Open Flat Race.
With the Thornton Hill and Blue Ridge Races postponed, Warrenton’s was the first Virginia hunt race to go off as scheduled this wintry spring season. Because of the deep going, the race card was abbreviated, and the courses were modified.
Mrs. Thaddeus (Anne) Ryan, 89, Dies in New Zealand
Scarteen Hunt Dance, 1949, where Anne Peter from New Zealand first met Thady Ryan, MFH. Anne is second from the right in front. Thady is second from the left behind.Anne Ryan (neé Peter), eighty-nine, widow of the late Thady Ryan, MFH, Scarteen (IRE), died in her home in Nelson, New Zealand on Wednesday, March 11, 2015. She will be remembered with affection by sportsmen around the world who had the good fortune to meet her while hunting with the Scarteen behind Master and huntsman Thady Ryan, and especially by those who had the greater good fortune to stay or dine at Scarteen over their hunting holidays.
Anne, a native of New Zealand, was visiting cousins in Ireland in 1949 when she met Thady. She caught his eye the first time he spied her hacking in from a meet with the Tipps. A few days later, she appeared at the Scarteen Hunt Dance in the company of a young man. Thady had not forgotten his first sight of Anne, and he wooed her with determination. There were obstacles, she having been brought up in the Anglican faith and he a devout Catholic. Further, the cousins with whom Anne was staying had promised to return her to her family in New Zealand “whole and single.”
Hunt-to-Huntsman Relations: A Matter of Concern?
Sidney Bailey retired in 2005 after serving as professional huntsman for the Vale of the White Horse (UK) for forty-three seasons.Foxhunting Life readers demonstrate enormous interest in our articles covering the migration of huntsmen each year at about this time. (See “Huntsmen on the Move,” published last month.) Nancy Mitchell, who has hunted hounds at the Bijou Springs Hunt (CO) over a period of sixteen years, wants to know the why of it.
“I’m curious to know what motivates this ‘spring dance of the huntsmen,’” Nancy wrote. “What circumstances create this phenomenon? Money? Prestige? Politics? Age?”
We thought it was an interesting subject for our Panel of Experts, so we asked Jerry Miller, MFH, C. Martin Scott, ex-MFH, and Hugh Robards, ex-MFH, to weigh in on Nancy’s question.
Hunting Horn Ringtones on your iPhone!
Huntsman John TabachkaWe finally worked it out: how to download our horn call ringtones to an iPhone! So many people have asked, and here’s how. But first, a story.
I tried to phone Steve Price, a member of Foxhunting Life’s Panel of Experts, but he was out. I left a message asking him to return the call on my cell phone. When his call came, I happened to be in the stall with my retired hunter, Guitar. Upon hearing the ringtone, “Gone Away,” old Guitar pricked his ears and took a couple of lively turns around the stall! I laughed and explained the scene to Steve.
“You should have given the phone to Guitar and told him, ‘It’s for you,’” said Steve.
FHL‘s ringtones are the brilliant horn work of John Tabachka, huntsman, Sewickley Hunt (PA), a two-time winner of the National Horn Blowing Contest at the Pennsylvania National Horse Show in Harrisburg. (Click to view FHL‘s popular video, Calls on the Horn, in which John explains the meaning and usage of the principal horn calls heard in the course of a day’s hunting.)
What follows is the ringtone download procedure for iPhone users only, and uses M4R files required by the iPhone; most other cell phone users should use the mp3 files that we have made available for some time now. (Note: This “read more” link is open to all viewers.)
Virginia Foxhound Club Celebrates Sixty Years
Virginia Foxhound Show, Oatlands, 1986: Huntsman Shelly O’Higgins receives trophy from Joan Jones (now President, Virginia Foxhound Club). Judges are (l-r) Captain R.E. Wallace, MFH, Exmoor Foxhounds (UK); Bun Sharp, MB, Nantucket-Treweryn Beagles; Sherman Haight, MFH, Mr. Haight’s Litchfield County Hounds.
The venerable Virginia Foxhound Club—the team that brings you the Virginia Foxhound Show each year—is celebrating its sixtieth anniversary. It seems timely to look back, evaluate the importance of hound shows in the overall scheme of foxhunting, and convince those with a passion for the sport that their membership in the Virginia Foxhound Club, no matter where in North America they hunt the fox or the coyote, is an investment that will benefit all fox hunters and their hunts.
The Virginia Foxhound Show, the largest hound show in the world, brings foxhounds of all types and all strains to the flags for viewing, comparing, and judging. Whether a Master or huntsman is seeking certain bloodlines, or an outcross to introduce hybrid vigor to the gene pool within his kennels, he sees such hounds at Virginia. And he has the opportunity to socialize and chat, in a magnificent setting, about the merits and traits of the canine objects of his desire. With your support, the best matings may continue to be made in Heaven, but they’ll be arranged in Virginia!
Virginia Foxhound Club Celebrates Sixty-Five Years
But no one came to the party.
Virginia Foxhound Show, Oatlands, 1986: Huntsman Shelly O’Higgins receives trophy from Joan Jones (now President, Virginia Foxhound Club). Judges are (l-r) Captain R.E. Wallace, MFH, Exmoor Foxhounds (UK); Bun Sharp, MB, Nantucket-Treweryn Beagles; Sherman Haight, MFH, Mr. Haight’s Litchfield County Hounds.
There’s an elephant in the room, sucking away so much attention from what we would normally be thinking about at this particular time of year. The Virginia Foxhound Club, for one.
The venerable Virginia Foxhound Club—the team that brings you the Virginia Foxhound Show each year…except this one—is celebrating its sixty-fifth anniversary. It seems timely to look back, evaluate the importance of hound shows in the overall scheme of foxhunting, and convince those with a passion for the sport that their membership in the Virginia Foxhound Club, no matter where in North America they hunt the fox or the coyote, is an investment that will benefit all fox hunters and their hunts.
The Virginia Foxhound Show, the largest hound show in the world, brings foxhounds of all types and all strains to the flags for viewing, comparing, and judging. Whether a Master or huntsman is seeking certain bloodlines, or an outcross to introduce hybrid vigor to the gene pool within his kennels, he sees such hounds at Virginia. And he will again have the opportunity to socialize and chat, in a magnificent setting, about the merits and traits of the canine objects of his desire. With your support, the best matings may continue to be made in Heaven, but they’ll be arranged in Virginia!