Hounds

Why Worry Hounds' Heythrop Rachel 2011 is Grand Champion of the 2016 Carolinas Hound Show.

Why Worry’s Heythrop Rachel 2011 was judged Grand Champion at the fortieth annual Carolinas Hound Show held at the Springdale Racecourse in Camden, South Carolina on May 7, 2016. It’s one thing for a visiting MFH to pick up a nice draft to bring back to the home kennels; it’s another thing entirely to know what to do with it. Here’s where George and Jeannie Thomas, MFHs, Why Worry Hounds (SC), showed their breeding acumen.

While visiting friends in England and judging a puppy show at the Heythrop kennels, George mentioned that he needed a bi*ch* to introduce new bloodlines into his breeding program. We have just the hound for you, he was told. So he brought home a nicely-bred entered bi*ch, Heythrop Rachel 2011.

Fort Leavenworth Vixen, Grand Champion of Show, handled by Stephanie Wilcox Carter, MFH and huntsman. Judge Vincent Tartaglia is standing (middle). /  Angela Fain photo

Last year was the boys’ year. This year the Crossbred female, Fort Leavenworth Vixen 2013, evened the score with her littermate Valor by winning the Grand Championship at the Central States Hound Show.

Vixen is a speckled, mostly white tricolor by Brazos Valley Baxter ‘08 out of Fort Leavenworth Piper ‘07. American and Crossbred bloodlines are predominantly from Fort Leavenworth Hunt (KS), Brazos Valley Hounds (TX), and the Piedmont Fox Hounds (VA). The most recent contribution of pure English blood to this lovely Crossbred was from the Arapahoe Hunt kennels (CO), three generations back.

Stephanie Wilcox Carter, MFH and huntsman of the Fort Leavenworth pack describes Vixen as conformationally correct, happy, and unflappable.

Myopia Gammell '12, a proud son of Potomac Jefferson '05, shown by huntsman Philip Headdon, was judged Grand Champion of the 2016 New England Hound Show. / Photo by Nature of Light Photography

Myopia Gammell 2012 is the second foxhound this season carrying the blood of the inimitable Potomac Jefferson to be named a Grand Champion of Show, this at the New England Hound Show held on Sunday, May 1, 2016.

Gammell was bred by now-retired huntsman Larry Pitts at Potomac, and drafted unentered to huntsman Tony Gammell at the Keswick Hunt (VA) in exchange for another breeding. Tony in turn drafted the still unentered pup to his pal, Brian Kiely, then huntsman at the Myopia Hunt (MA), who named the hound for Tony. Brian, of course, is now huntsman at Potomac, so that completes another circle, entirely!

Brazos Valley Marley 2010 (Brazos Valley Catfish 2006 – Their Meadow 2007) / Greg Germann photoImagine a middle-aged mother with teen-aged children winning a beauty pageant. Nice! But rare. That’s what happened at the Southwest Hound Show on Saturday, April 16. Brazos Valley Marley 2010, a seven-year-old brood bi*ch* that has hunted for six seasons, was judged Grand Champion of Show.

Marley was also judged Grand Champion at the Central States Hound Show, but that was back in 2012. She’s been mostly in the shadow of her littermate, Mystic, who was Grand Champion of the Southwest Hound Show for three years running from 2011 to 2013.

“She’s had a litter, and since then she’s been holding more weight,” explained huntsman Sandy Dixon, MFH. “She’s lovely.”

Marley’s and Mystic’s success is no stroke of luck. They’re the product of a royal breeding engineered by Dixon. She put a dog hound of her own breeding—Brazos Valley Catfish 2006—to a Potomac-bred bi*ch that she entered in 2006—Brazos Valley Meadow.

Grand Champion Midland Striker 2015 (Midland Rocket '11 ex Staffordshire Moorland Stunning '11) with (l-r) Daphne Wood, MFH, LIve Oak; Mason Lampton, MFH, Midland; Mary Lu Lampton; and Marty Wood, MFH, Live Oak /   Leslie Shepherd photo

“I can’t take credit,” admits Midland huntsman Ken George, “because I didn’t breed him, but he’s one of a kind!”

A sober demon could be considered a contradiction in terms, but Ken describes Midland Striker 2015 as a foxhound possessing surprisingly contradictory traits. The handsome Crossbred dog hound was judged Grand Champion of Show at the tenth annual Southern Hound Show on April 9, 2016 at Live Oak Plantation in Monticello, Florida.

“The whole litter is fantastic,” continued Ken. “As an unentered hound last season, Striker was in on ten kills. He’s always right there.

Huntsmen sometimes worry about a first-year hound being too precocious. Often, by the second or third year, such hounds begin to think too much of themselves as individuals to fit in as good team members of the pack. Ken’s not worried about Striker in that way.

A level pack from the Piedmont Fox Hounds (VA) show in the pack class at Morven Park / Lauren Giannini photo

The Virginia Foxhound Show will remain at Morven Park, and, with that question resolved, the Virginia Foxhound Club has gone forward with repairs and improvements to the kennels and rings. Bob Ferrer, MFH and Show Chairman of the Virginia Foxhound Club (VFC) brings us up to date:

“After some years of uncertainty about the future site of the Virginia Foxhound Show we are pleased to report we have reached an agreement with the new executive director of the Westmoreland Davis Foundation to keep the show at Morven Park.”

Rank these three hounds—green, pink, and yellow—to match the judges’ card, and you’re a winner! In the ring during the Spectators’ Class at the Wicklow Foxhounds (IRE) Puppy Show are (l-r) Judges Mark Ollard and Noel Mullins, whipper in Peter Kavanagh and Master and huntsman Philip Lazenby.

Here’s a superb idea for puppy shows guaranteed to increase spectator interest in and knowledge of foxhounds, and have fun at the same time...and it’s so easy to do!

Noel Mullins, a regular contributor to Foxhunting Life, recently judged the Wicklow Foxhounds (IRE) puppy show along with Scarteen huntsman Mark Ollard. After the pair had finished judging the puppy classes and chosen their Champion and Reserve foxhounds, a final class was held as a judging competition for the spectators.

"Lost Hound" by Jane Gaston: illustration from the book of the same name by Robert AshcomWhat should we do when we see foxhounds in our yard or loose in the country? Our options are (1) try to capture and secure them in a kennel or horse stall and call the huntsman, (2) put them in our vehicle and drive them to the kennel, (3) call the huntsman or the kennelman, tell them what we saw, and leave it in his/her hands, or (4) do nothing.

It’s a conundrum because each of the above answers can be correct, depending on the circumstances. Has the pack been hunting from a meet in the vicinity? How far away are the kennels? Are there busy highways between hounds and kennels? Between hounds and the meet? Are hounds moving with a purpose or just nosing around? Is a hound injured?

Canadian Grand Champion of Show is Toronto and North York Cleopatra 2012 / Mary Raphael photo

Two Toronto and North York littermates have dominated the Grand Champion and Reserve awards at the Canadian Foxhound Show for two years running. The only difference this year was that the dog hound graciously swapped places with his litter sister. On June 6, 2015, in a reversal of fortune, Toronto and North York Cleopatra 2012, last year’s Reserve Grand Champion, was crowned Grand Champion of Show, while her litter brother Clarence, last year’s Grand Champion, settled for Reserve.

The show judges were Major Tim Easby, Director, Masters of Foxhounds Association (UK) and ex-MFH and huntsman of the Middleton and West Yore Foxhounds and Lt. Col. Robert Ferrer, USMC-Retired and MFH, Caroline Hunt (VA).

Cleopatra's sire is Blue Ridge Barnfield 2010 by Duke of Beaufort's Bailey 2003. If Bailey sounds familiar, have a look at the article about this year’s Bryn Mawr Grand Champion, New Market-Middleton Valley Widget, crowned just one week earlier. Widget’s sire was Green Spring Valley Bailey by Duke of Beaufort’s Bailey. That makes two Grand Champions in two weeks whose grand sire is Duke of Beaufort’s Bailey!

New Market-Middletown Valley huntsman Ally Storer shows Widget before judge Daphne Wood, MFH  / Christine Cancelli photo

New Market-Middletown Valley Widget 2014 was judged Grand Champion of Show at the Bryn Mawr Hound Show held this year at the Radnor Hunt in Malvern, Pennsylvania on May 30, 2015. 

Huntsman Alasdair Storer is banking on the beautiful tri-colored Crossbred foxhound and her sister Welcome to be the foundations of important female bloodlines for this Maryland pack to build upon. As Storer’s father—an experienced breeder of hounds in England—commented, “You couldn’t ask for a better pedigree.”

Starting with Widget and Welcome, Storer plans to breed one to an Elkridge-Harford Crossbred and the other to a Millbrook Penn-Marydel. This, he hopes, will give him two strong lines of disparate gene pools to keep his breeding options open.