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Fitzwilliam huntsman George Adams and hounds with falconer John Mease at the kennel meet, Milton Park, 2015 / James Barclay photoIn 2015, when James Barclay, ex-MFH took the photo above, hopes were still high for eventually reversing the Hunting Act of 2004 in Britain. Barclay wrote, “Hunting with the Fitzwilliam [UK] is always a treat, especially as my family and I spent twelve very happy seasons there. Although Peterborough is on the doorstep, the Park is beautifully laid out for hunting and many good days are enjoyed there. The kennels are situated on the eastern side of the Park and have a history going well back into the 1700s.

Tesco, a multi-national British retailer of merchandise, has knuckled under to a small cadre of animal rights activists and removed a child’s party costume from their lineup of party wares. The item, feared to “encourage children to become animal abusers,” is a scarlet foxhunting tailcoat that sells for £10.41.

Do activists in Britain speak out against Frankenstein or Dracular costumes, as well? Or is it better to be a monster than a foxhunter? What about a military costumes? Will that "encourage children to become" warmongers? It's all so silly.

*Many hunts are continually on the prowl for a new fund raising scheme. Here’s a game from Britain that may raise funds, but if the members get to brawling don’t blame me.* The idea of using badges to raise hunt funds was the brain-child of our Hunt Chairman and this is the way he made it work. Each member was issued a badge at the start of the season. The badge cost £10.00 and the scheme was to last a year, until the start of the next season. According to the rules, all members had to buy a badge and show the badge at anytime, anywhere, when challenged by another Hunt Member, who also had to show their badge at the same time. Some minor points eased the situation for the ladies. Whereas a man had to produce his badge from a pocket, wallet, or coat, ladies could keep them anywhere on their person, as well as in their handbags or shopping bags. Fifty pence was the fine for non-possession, and £10.00 to replace a lost badge. The money was paid in to the hunt by the challenger. Many people were caught several times, when on occasion their memory failed them, haste got the better of them, or they were forced to change plans (or pubs) when discovering they had left their badge at home. A member could only be caught once in twenty-four hours despite several challenges. One luckless young lady came out one evening badgeless and was immediately caught. Then, as the celebrations went on until the wee small hours, she was successfully challenged again, it being another day. Some people were caught in bulk. The lady publican at the most popular pub in the Hunt Country waited patiently by the swimming pool then caught half a dozen members in their swimming shorts as they came out of the pool. She had her badge in her swim suit. Eleven members, in football clothing, were caught during the interval at an inter-hunt football match! Our terrier lady—my mother (known as Mrs Mac)—who did the terriers on Tuesdays, now takes up the story: “So there it was,” she said. “Fifty pence while crossing the stepping stones in a river; fifty pence when climbing out of the swimming pool; where next, I wondered. “Next was to be by the edge of a grave. There we stood during the solemn funeral service with no one moving, until I got a nudge from the Chairman. I was horrified and told him he should not ask me for my badge here, of all places. He said that the deceased would have approved as he was always worried about bringing money into the Hunt. With these words, he considered his thoughtless manners were excused. “If I was on the hill, the badge would be in the terrier van; if I wore my duffle coat, the badge would be in my oilskins (for oilskins were what we hunted in, it rained so much); if I was putting terriers back in the van, the badge would be on the dashboard in front. It seemed at times that if I wore shoes, the badge would be on the other foot. “On Tuesdays I felt comparatively safe as the Chairman of the Hunt ran the Mobile Library for the County and worked on Tuesdays. So one Tuesday, the huntsman had asked me to take the terriers to the end of a drain where the water came out in a waterfall ending in a deep pool. As I slithered down the bank to my horror I saw the Chairman, up to his waist in water, and blocking the drain with his broadness. “He asked me if I had my badge—not if I had the terriers, of course not. I asked him what on earth he was doing here on a Tuesday and he told me he was having a day off, ‘to catch you out,’ he said. “For me it had been an extremely expensive winter, and in the end I tried to avoid anyone associated with the Hunt. I dodged down side streets in the town and even changed queues in the bank. But even the bank cashier was on the Hunt Committee. Finally I decided I had had enough and went to stay with my daughter who lived on the other side of England. Here I would be safe, I thought, and my paranoia about badges gradually subsided. “I judged the Terrier Championships and terrier shows in the east of England and began to relax. However, one day when we were traveling to Bedford I saw a straw-laden truck overtake us. Now there was nothing unusual about this; straw is often carried from East Anglia to Wales. However, I saw the lorry had Brecon licence plates. Then I saw the driver pull in at the cafe ahead of us where we too had planned to stop. As the driver got out I recognised him. It was none other than our huntsman who drove for a haulage firm in the summer. “I told my daughter I knew him (as she was puzzled because he appeared to be waving something at me). I told her I knew just who he was. He’s our huntsman, he’s waving his badge at me, and I’ve left my badge in Wales! “When I returned home a polite request from me to a farmer to produce his badge (as he sweated away cutting a thorn hedge) produced a very disgruntled reply. “I’m fed up with this b….y badge business,” he yelled, but great supporter that he is, I knew he’d be the first to volunteer if we started some other fiendish scheme next winter.” My mother finished by saying that ‘badgemail’ rather than ‘blackmail’ certainly paid off. The scheme produced a lot of good-natured camaraderie and jollity. It brought people together—even the shyest of people. They could always ask a hunt member they did not know well to show their badge (that is, if they ...

Karen L. Myers photoAnti-hunting lobbyists in England are pressuring the National Trust to curtail even drag hunting on National Trust lands. The National Trust in turn has recommended that their members vote to do just that. I feel like I've walked through Alice’s looking glass into an alternate world. Where do these people think this land came from, anyway?

Historically, the National Trust was the beneficiary of English country houses which still make up the largest part of its holdings. Many estates even came with requests that foxhunting may continue there. Now, foxhunters and drag hunters are to be excluded from the very land that their forebears placed into the Trust generations ago. Are fairness and equity totally inoperable concepts in today’s Britain?

Karen L. Myers photoI have been asked by writers, publishers, and even by just curious individuals over the years, which written form is correct—fox hunting (two words) or foxhunting (one word)?

From what I have seen, the style of the term most commonly used by people who do not hunt is fox hunting (two words). Supporting this choice is a highly respected reference book for writers and publishers, the Chicago Manual of Style, that recommends two separate words. To be sure, there are also some highly respected experts on hunting who also use the two-word version. So, you can’t go wrong using fox hunting. Nevertheless, I use the one-word form, foxhunting, in all my articles, books, and published material. Here’s why.

MFHA President Tony Leahy, MFHIt was ten years ago, but MFHA President Tony Leahy yearns to recapture the fun and enthusiasm of the 2007 MFHA Centennial Season. We had Regional Joint Meets, Foxhound Performance Trials, and Field Hunter Trials all across North America, and Tony wants to do it again! Accordingly, the upcoming 2017/2018 season has been designated a season to Hark Forward!

All events are accompanied by dinners, parties, and the company of sporting cousins from all across the country. No one goes home hungry or thirsty! The MFHA is maintaining an up-to-date schedule of events on their website. Click for planning your own participation. Take note of the dates and geography. If you join the caravans for all or part of any of the event tours, you’ll find hunt clubs along the route that have scheduled Friendship Meets and more hospitality to break up your long drives.

Karen Myer photoYou just received the most beautiful fox head earrings last week for your birthday. Won’t they look smashing in the hunting field, worn with your new dark blue frock coat?

You just heard a staccato burst of perhaps ten rapid notes on the huntsman’s horn from inside the covert. What’s happening?

Your blood is up, hounds are racing in full cry, your horse is jumping every obstacle with enthusiasm, and it’s clearly the best run of the season. You gallop through an open gate and repeat the call you heard from riders ahead of you. “Gate, please!” Have you fulfilled your duty?

The whipper-in gallops by and advises the Field Master that a leash of foxes just left the covert. What?

Teddy, pawing the pavement  /  Sketch of New York TImes photo
Damon Winter, writing cut lines for a New York Times article about Mayor Bill de Blasio’s attempts to ban horse drawn carriages in New York City, got taken. In so doing, the Times published fake news.

Here's Winter's caption for the photo sketched above: “Teddy signaling his desire for more food by scraping his shoes on the sidewalk.”

Oh, we get it alright. We're supposed to believe that poor Teddy is being starved and abused by his carriage driver.

What happened to fact-checking here? Obviously, Winter knows nothing about horses, nor do the animal activists that fed him that line. And if they do know something about horses, that’s even worse. They would know there are many reasons for a horse to scratch the ground aside from hunger, and would be knowingly lying.

Stop by the Foxhunting Life booth at the Virginia Foxhound Show and meet our guest, Mary Kalergis. She’ll be talking about her new book, Foxhunters Speak: An Oral History of American Foxhunting, and signing copies. The book has received high praise from readers.

Also, we’ll be previewing and accepting advance orders for our 2018 Foxhunting Life Calendar. We have a special deal for pre-orders!

Our new calendar is affectionately dedicated to Hugh Robards, just retired from a brilliant fifty-five-year career in hunt service. He appears on the cover (and on a page inside) in his final hunt as a professional huntsman. We are proud to publish Middleburg Photo’s gorgeous composition of Robards and the foxhounds of the Middleburg Hunt (VA) on the grass, framed by the bare trees of early spring, all against a blue sky adrift with fair weather clouds.

Mary Kalergis’s new book Foxhunters Speak was launched this spring. Mary will be in the Foxhunting Life stand at the Virginia Foxhound Show to greet readers and sign her books. Please stop by and say hello.

We’ve published two sneak previews of Mary’s book over the last couple of months in FHL WEEK. I hope you had a chance to read Melvin Poe’s story in March and Tot Goodwin’s story in April. It’s as if you had sat down with each of these respected huntsmen in their own dens, shared a tumbler, listened to the experiences that formed their personal hunting philosophies, and met the mentors who shaped them.

Melvin and Tot represent just two of fifty foxhunting personalities whom Mary sought out, sat with, and interviewed. Her experience in this genre shows. She’s published similar books on subjects from teenagers to adoption to childbirth. She’s traveled the country for her  interviews and edited them into coherent essays that are both personal and frank. Now she’s done it for the foxhunting world, and I heartily recommend it. Even the interview of ten-year-old Colin Smith, son of a professional huntsman, is charming.