Nation’s Top Horse Trainers Gather for Michael Richardson Benefit
I spent a grand week in Aiken, South Carolina recently. It was business first, with three book signings scheduled: one at the beautiful Willcox Hotel on Tuesday (Horsemen’s Night); Wednesday at Equine Divine, a lovely gift shop for all things equine; and Thursday in Camden at the Tack Room. It was a week to see old friends and make new friends. After three days of business, there was a day’s hunting with George and Jeannie Thomas, MFHs of the Why Worry Hounds. A Hunt Report of that day is in the works to be posted shortly.
I stayed with my friend Art Richardson, ex-MFH of the Wayne-Du Page Hunt in Illinois. Art and wife Judy leave the cold weather behind every year and spend the winter months in Aiken. Art hunts with the Aiken packs and brings his two grand-daughters, Mackenzie and Virginia, to visit and hunt with him as often as possible. Life is good for us.
Well…most of us. For Art’s son Michael, life could be better. Michael is a horseman and was a foxhunter in his younger years. At the age of twenty, Michael was involved in an automobile accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. That’s not the current problem, though.
Remembering Cliff Hunt
Clifford Hunt, a genuine old horseman and a passionate foxhunter, passed away on December 2, 2010 at age eighty-four. I can’t begin to tally the number of individuals whose lives this man changed. He was a teacher who created many dedicated foxhunters. He was a hosteller, and, with his wife and partner Laura, he provided visiting foxhunters with bed, meals, hirelings, and transport at his well-known Hunting Box in Boyce, Virginia for twenty-six years (1978–2004). Sportsmen came to The Hunting Box from Canada and all the northern states to experience foxhunting in Virginia. Many loved it so much they moved here.
Jim Meads Photographs His 500th Hunt
Sporting photographer Jim Meads achieved a personal milestone and undoubtedly established a world record on December 5, 2010 when he photographed the Loudoun West Hunt near Leesburg, Virginia. This was the five hundredth unique hunt that Meads has photographed over the course of a career spanning sixty years.
Meads, who lives in Wales, follows hunts on foot and in vehicles and always seems to appear where the action is, even before the mounted followers arrive. His long legs and astounding endurance has allowed him to capture many of the greatest action shots of foxhunting ever recorded on film. He has photographed hunts in England, Ireland, Canada, and the U.S.
UK Huntsman First to Garner Two Convictions Under the Hunting Act
Huntsman Richard Down of the Quantock Hills staghounds has been convicted for a second time under the Hunting Act. He was convicted for hunting a wild mammal with more than two dogs. Down had three. Down’s first conviction was in 2007 when he was found guilty of chasing deer with hounds. In the five years […]
The Story of John Peel
One night in 1829, John Woodcock Graves sat in his parlor with John Peel, a farmer, horse dealer, and foxhunter whose hounds were highly celebrated by the local sheep farmers. From the adjoining room, Graves overheard his son’s granny singing an ancient Irish melody to the child. Graves took that old melody and wrote a new set of lyrics to honor his friend, John Peel.
“I sang it to poor Peel,” Graves wrote, “who smiled through a stream of tears which fell down his manly cheeks, and I well remember saying to him in a joking style, ‘By Jove, Peel, you’ll be sung when we’re both run to earth!’”
Forty years later, William Metcalfe, Choirmaster of Carlisle Cathedral, heard the song at a banquet. He set down the tune in musical notation for the first time together with Graves’ words, composed a piano accompaniment, and had it performed locally. He went on to London with his choir and on May 22, 1869 performed the song at the dinner of the Cumberland Benevolent Society from whence it spread quickly over the English-speaking world, propelling John Peel into the most famous foxhunter of all time.
New From FHL: Music, Lyrics, and Audio Downloads
Before TV, video games, and texting, foxhunters used to entertain themselves with stories, poems, and songs. Foxhunting families would often break into song at the table after dinner, and windows rattled at many a hunt breakfast with songs of foxhunting.
My good friend Caroline Treviranus Leake remembers impromptu songfests at the dinner table led by her step-father, the late Alexander Mackay-Smith. The entire family—mother Marilyn and sisters Denya and Leslie—would join in. Caroline remembers those times with the greatest of pleasure—times of togetherness, good cheer, and shared enjoyment.
Juniors Meet in Pennsylvania for 2010 Junior North American Field Hunter Championships
Lauren Giannini photo
For their first seven years, the Junior North American Field Hunter Championships took place in Virginia, mostly at Old Whitewood, part of Orange County’s country in The Plains. However, after Alex Matz won the First Flight (12-and-Under) championship in 2009, the notion of staging the next finals in Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire country came to fruition. Blue Ridge Hunt’s David Pawlak partnered with the indubitable Paris to ace the individual test in the First Flight and claim their second consecutive 13-18 championship. Makayla Benjamin (Loudoun West) and Butterfly Painting went home with the reserve tri-color.
Hokie Hi Is Virginia Field Hunter Champion
Marilyn Jarvis, representing the Piedmont Fox Hounds, rode her hunter Hokie Hi to the 2010 Virginia Field Hunter Championship at Gregg Ryan’s Creekside Farm near Middleburg.
Hunt Breakfast Recipe Contest in Full Swing
What a great response you made to our Hunt Breakfast Recipe Contest! We got some mouth-watering recipes that will surely be big hits with cold and hungry foxhunters.
For ease of preparation and instant warmth, Cathy Springer’s Tortellini and Meatball Soup will be hard to beat. We’ve already received a rave notice from someone who served it at a hunt breakfast and to her family at the dinner table.
Here are the contest rules once more:
Historic Hunt Coat Acquired by the Chevy Chase Club
The Chevy Chase Club in Maryland, the surviving organization of the Chevy Chase Hunt Club, acquired a valuable historical artifact on Wednesday, November 17, when a scarlet hunt coat and canary vest belonging to Brigadier General Charles K. Nulsen was donated to the Club by Charles K. Nulsen III. The coat and vest bear the buttons of the Chevy Chase Hunt and have been hanging in a New Hampshire home belonging to the family for nearly a century.
The Chevy Chase Hunt was active from 1892 to 1916. It was a highly respected hunt of its time, but short-lived because the Master, Clarence Moore, perished on the Titanic in 1912.