Hunt Reports

Photo by BothSidesPhotography

As our respective seasons come to an end in the northern hemisphere, I would not be sure how the weather has been behaving itself in the US, but here in England and the rest of the UK, we have experienced one of the wettest years on record. Coming on the back of one of the driest in memory it certainly has given Masters and those who are at the very sharp end of hunting considerable challenges in keeping the ‘tamborin a rolling.’ In some areas the season was curtailed by just a few weeks, in others the use of roads and tracks has been an obvious answer. However, the most gratifying aspect of all is to find that our farmers, be they arable men or stockmen, are still the greatest friends to hunting.

Coming from a family who seems to have been involved with the sport for rather a long time has been a privilege to say the least. This is largely due to the very large cross section of people we have worked with, the hounds we have bred, and those vulpine friends of ours who have kept us on our toes for many a year! It has not only been our way of life for four generations of our family, it is far more than that. Hunting seems to be engrained in us, and if you think that as a member of the Barclay family you can escape from it, that I can tell you will not be looked upon as an option!

Cornelia Henderson and Banjo / Shawn McMillen photoI was brushing Banjo's mane before a meeting of the Whiskey Road Foxhounds (SC). It was standing on end from static electricity, and I thought, “Oh, rats. It's not going to be a very good day today....too dry.” Was I ever wrong!

And John Emery had apparently told Master Lynn Smith that if the hounds spent another day in the swamp, he wasn't EVER going back to the Jackson meet. No worries there; John will definitely be back.

We started out toward Averitt Valley Road with hounds speaking in the woods on the in-country side. They worked hard, and first flight took off down and around Kirkland and in by the chicken houses. Second flight held up a bit and listened and watched, finally deciding to move along behind first. That's when all hell broke loose in the middle of the country with hounds screaming away while we were still on the far edge.

125th anniversary joint meet for both the Warrenton and the Deep Run Hunts (VA). Front, l-r: Warrenton huntsman Matt van der Woude and Deep Run huntsman Richard Roberts / Douglas Lees photo

Celebration of any centennial is not just a major milestone, it is an achievement in survival. This season Warrenton Hunt marked 125 years of sporting tradition and, making this anniversary even more special, the future of this American pack of foxhounds looks rosy. Leadership and landowner relations are two key elements, according to Rick Laimbeer, who returned to the Mastership after a brief hiatus. He had only good things to say about Warrenton’s newly minted Joint-Masters Celeste Vella and Kim Nash, along with discussing how the board has been infused with fresh energy and vigor.

The Masters
“Celeste Vella and Kim Nash are both extremely bright and well-organized,” said Laimbeer. “Celeste is an attorney. She’s a very clear thinker, personable and well-liked, and a good rider. She has a daughter who is also an excellent young rider. They are vital to the whole junior connection. Celeste is also very talented in the business-sense and has an extremely artistic flair; she has great taste and does all the decorating for all of our functions.

Lillian Doyle, five-times ladies point-to-point champion, out with the Wexford from a meet at her father's pub / Noel Mullins photo

What better place to end the season than with the Wexford Foxhounds at John Jude Doyle’s Cloch Ban Pub in Clonroche, County Wexford? Inside there is a picture on the wall of Bree Foxhounds Joint-Master Jay Bowe having a drink sitting on his horse beside the bar!

Doyle is a director of The Irish Horse Board and Horse Sport Ireland, and one can see why. He has an infectious enthusiasm about the Irish horse as a breeder, producer, and organiser of schools, shows, and gymkhanas. He has campaigned his Irish Draught mare Cloghbawn Cailin and her filly Cloghbawn Liaght on the show circuit. Doyle’s daughter Lillian won the Ladies Point-to-Point Jockey Championship five times. His uncle Jim Joyce bred Parkhill, evented by the late Col. Ronnie MacMahon, and his track greyhound Temple na Dubh won seven nights in succession in Shelbourne Park!

Master and huntsman Mary Kehoe is gifted as a handler of horses and hounds and has hunted the Wexford Foxhounds for nine seasons and the Bree Foxhounds for the last twenty-three seasons, hunting hounds four days a week. Her sister Muriel whips in to her. Their father Owen was Field Master of the Island and hunted the Bree. The other whippers-in are Michael Condon, a formidable rider, and former jockey Padraig English, who won three races on the great steeplechaser Danoli. All of them hunt across country on a simple mathematical principle: the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and whatever obstacle is on that line is crossed regardless of complexity! But they can because they produce and ride only the very best hunt horses.

Side saddle meet organizer Susan Oakes with her stallion, SIEC Atlas, at The Knightsbrook Hotel in Trim before the meet
The Ladies Side Saddle Hunt at Boyerstown, County Meath in Ireland was the brainchild of the Meath Foxhounds Masters and side saddle enthusiast Susan Oakes who is the current British side saddle high jump record holder at five-feet-nine-inches. (At Aintree last year Susan just rolled the top pole in her attempt at the world record of six-feet-six-inches.)

The meet, or was it a Ladies Gathering, was a world record turnout of lady side saddle riders seen in any hunt country. Up to fifty ladies from Ireland, USA, England, Scotland, Wales, France, Italy, Sweden, and Belgium descended on County Meath, and what an impact they made. It was like a scene from the last century when ladies still rode side saddle, with high standards of hunting dress, style, and elegance.

The author, leading the field / Nancy Kleck photoMasters, staff, and field of the Blue Ridge Hunt are thankful for the recent Martin Luther King holiday. We always advance the meet from our usual Tuesday to any Monday holiday to give the juniors a chance to hunt. With the Virginia hunting country enveloped in sub-freezing arctic air on Tuesday, Monday’s “storybook” hunt—fifty-five minutes on one fox—was a special gift.

The meet was at Catherine Berger’s Rolling Hills Farm. Hounds found their fox in the first covert where it was viewed across the open fields by a car follower. Before horses were even warmed up, we found ourselves racing to the first fence—a brand-new, raw, double-wide coop standing high on its timbers.

Belle Meade Hunt Week attracted a happy throng of visitors. / Bella Vita Fotografie photo

Masters and members of the Belle Meade Hunt in Thomson, Georgia celebrated their Hunt Week with an event-packed schedule for friends and guests from Monday, January 14 through Saturday, January 20, 2013. The week featured three days with the Belle Meade hounds and a day each with the Aiken Hounds and the Why Worry Hounds. Stirrup cups, hunt breakfasts, and optional trail rides were featured, and the week finished up in style with the annual Hunt Ball.

Here’s Robbie Gilmore’s report on the sport shown by the Belle Meade hounds during their first two days in the field:

Coyote takes refuge after nine-and-a-half miles across country  /  Pam Gamble photo

The Longreen Foxhounds met at Eastover Plantation in Clarksdale, Mississippi on Saturday, January 5, 2012 under a light rain and gentle wind in thirty-eight degree temperatures. While most riders opted for raincoats, whipper-In Chip Carruthers boldly rode out in his scarlet.

Hounds moved off at 10:00 am just as the rain was stopping. Blue skies opened over the first covert—the Cigar Woods. Hounds trotted the mile across the turn row from trailers to woods, with the field branching off to the west. Staff was already in position. Hounds have been known to erupt in full cry on coyote once inside woods and always in full cry by the southern end of this covert.

Not so this day. Cigar Woods, blank. Swamp Woods, blank. Hounds were picked up and hacked down Reinhart Rd to the Twin Woods. Blank. Now overcast with temperature rising slowly.

Joe Bills / Monica Powell photoThis excellent hunting morning started early, as I arose at 5:00 am to check the forecast and discuss it with Carrollton Hounds MFH and huntsman Dulany Noble. Being "the weather guy" in the hunt, I checked radar and several different weather services as sleet had been predicted the night before. The precipitation had been shoved back so we decide to give it a go.

I drove out to the barn to prepare Joe, Jr. for the day’s hunt. Luckily my barn is within hacking distance from the fixture, so I got him ready and tacked up. We went up the driveway, down into the bottom, back up through the neighbor’s and up to Begg Road. We saw a family out walking with a small child and stopped to wish them a Merry Christmas. We paused to give the child her first encounter with a horse. Then on we went up the road. I enjoyed the view from the ridge, looking over the farms of Maryland’s Carroll County and seeing the houses decorated for the season. The skies grew steel grey as the morning progressed, portending the coming precipitation. The air was heavy and winds slight.

Joe Cavanagh, MFH flies a stone wall / Noel Mullins photo

A Dublin-based journalist once wrote that the only way you would find the village of Taughmaconnell in County Roscommon was if you took a wrong turn! But this is far from the truth, and in fairness he later wrote that if one wanted a world free from distraction, then Taughmaconnell was the place!