Horse & Hound
Camden Hunt Hosts Joint-Meet With Sedgefield
Author Susan Provenzano provides a hunt report rich with sport at Camden Hunt, South Carolina, recently hosting a joint meet with the Sedgefield Hunt from North Carolina. Susan whips-in on Gulliver, her accomplished Thoroughbred, the pair well able to lead the field as well. / Holly Swartz photo
As foxhunters, we all look forward to Hunt Ball Weekend. For many hunts, it’s a time when the season is winding down, and we try to truly savor the invigorating mornings remaining of another season spent with our horses, hounds, and friends.
Hunt Ball Weekend in Camden, South Carolina, is no different. This year, however, we spread the enjoyment more than a little by inviting Fred Berry, MFH and huntsman, Sedgefield Hunt (NC), his hounds, and the Sedgefield members to join us. We spread the fun with three days of things to do and places to go—two hunts, one for each pack, and a hunt ball.
The East Galway at McDonagh’s Pub, Tynagh
Huntsman Liam McAlinden and foxhounds move off from McDonagh’s Pub in Tynaugh. / Noel Mullins photo
As the end of the season approaches, it has not come soon enough for some East Galway followers. The hunt could open a hospital casualty ward what with old foxhunting injuries resurrecting themselves—niggling joints, dodgy knees, frozen shoulders, and sore hips. Joint-Master Joe Cavanagh has just had knee surgery, and remarkably he was following by car a few days afterwards. One hunt follower I met was walking very bandy, like a jockey, and he admitted that he would definitely not be able to block a terrier in a corridor! But the East Galway followers are made of stern stuff and despite their temporary handicaps they all look fine when mounted on their hunters!
To further compound matters, some of the hunt horses also need rest. But East Galway has a reputation for producing top-class show jumping and eventing horses, and despite their value they are not being kept in cotton wool; they are being called into action to get followers to the end of the season. No doubt a bit of serious hunting will sharpen them up for the competition season.
Belle Mead Foxhounds Establish New Hunt Record at Tally Ho Lake
Epp Wilson leads foxhounds, staff, and field. / Reflected Glory photo
The radio crackled.“Tally-Ho coyote at the Catfish Pond headed west.”
It was the first day of our annual Joint Meet weekend with the Shakerag Hounds (GA), and we had just unkenneled 22-1/2 couple of hounds. Whipper-in John Bell had already left—standard operating procedure—to get into position for the draw and viewed the coyote away even before we put hounds in. Tally Ho Lake is in the southeast corner of our hunting territory, where only two herds of cattle remain in our entire country.
The Origins of “Tally Ho”
The "Tally Ho" / Nancy Kleck photo
The next time you view old Reynard or that sneaky coyote slipping away from covert, you may be tempted to call out “Tally Ho.” There are occasions in the hunting field when it is appropriate to yell this call out loudly-and-clearly, but with our modern methods it is more likely that the huntsman will be informed by a whipper-in with a quick call over the hunt radio that the quarry has broken cover.
The quiet approach will be less disturbing to the hounds but it will not stir the adrenaline like the old-fashioned blood-curdling call of Tally Ho, yelled out loud at the top of your voice! Such an old-school call in the hunting field causes the mounted field to take in that extra hole in their girth, to cease “coffee housing” with their companions, and for the horses’ ears to prick forward in anticipation of exciting action to come.
The Meath Foxhounds at Scut Fagans Pub
Meath Foxhounds honorary whipper-in Johnny Clarke outside Scut Fagans pub / Noel Mullins photo
Scut Fagans Pub
Those who missed the Meath Foxhounds’ meet at Scut Fagans pub in Moynalvey missed one of the best hunts of the season. But more of that later.
The pub is a step back in time and so tiny that if you are having a drink and standing against the back wall, you probably could still reach the bar! With its galvanized roof, Scut Fagans has probably been there since pre-history! It has been short-listed as one of the top eighteen Irish pubs one should visit before retiring to that great hunting field in the sky.
Ghost Dog
Ghost Dog. That’s how this foxhound is referred to in Fairfax County, Virginia. For nearly a year now, Ghost Dog has been seen hunting through suburban properties by homeowners in Fairfax and Annandale, just west of the Washington D.C. Beltway, between Routes 236 and 50. These are busy high-speed roadways, and local residents fear he may be lost from a nearby hunt or a family, and would like to see him safely home and out of danger. In the photograph, he appears to be clean, well-groomed, and healthy, which suggests that he actually may have an owner who simply allows him to run loose. But the hound is shy of people, and no homeowner has yet been able to lay a hand on him to look for a tattoo or implant. We publish this appeal in the hope a reader may be ably to identify the hound or provide information. Please use the New Comment feature or respond directly to Foxhunting Life. Posted January 23, 2019
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Red Fox Hunting In Snow
Doug Pifer illustration, courtesy of the Pennsylvania Game Commission
Several inches of snow blanketed the ground when I went to the barn to feed the animals. Snow stuck to every branch, stem, and twig, but my eye caught a glimpse of movement in the buffer of trees along the stream. Ducking behind the barn to avoid detection, I glimpsed a red fox about to spring into the air and pounce on a mouse.
Captain Ian Farquhar Closes a Distinguished Career
The Master and huntsman of arguably the most exclusive and storied foxhunting pack in the world—the Duke of Beaufort’s—looks ahead after a forty-five-year career carrying the horn. Captain Ian Farquhar is not encouraged by what he sees.
From his comfortable farmhouse on the Highgrove estate of the Prince of Wales, filled with photos, paintings, and artifacts that could be said to mock his earlier years of untrammelled post-war sport, Farquhar and his beautiful wife, Pammie-Jane—herself a noted horsewoman—contemplate their upcoming move to retirement in the West Country. Just fifteen years ago, like a knife in the heart, a despised piece of legislation, the Hunting Act, was passed by his nation.
The North Tipperary at Loughton House
Visitor Tony Holdsworth, retired huntsman for the Duke of Beafort's (UK) wears the green livery of his former hunt. Center is Denis Gilmartin, Master and huntsman of the North Tipperary. To the right on the gray is Rose Scanlon, mounted side-saddle. To the right again, on the gray and bay horses, are Loughton House hosts, Dr. Michael Lyons and Dr. Andrew Vance, MFH. / Catherine Power photo
It’s been a couple of seasons since we were with the North Tipperary Foxhounds (IRE). A visit was overdue, so when we heard through Arabella Scanlon whom we met last year in East Clare that a very special lawn meet was upcoming at Loughton House, we jumped at the opportunity. Set in more than a hundred acres of fabulous park and farmland in the small village of Moneygall, the eighteen-bedroom estate straddles the Tipperary-Offaly border and, likewise, the border between the North Tipperary and Ormond hunting countries.
Loughton is just a stone’s throw from Barak Obama Plaza. The U.S. President, traveling in the footsteps of his mother’s family, visited Moneygall in 2011.
Dr. Eric Myer Is Still Foxhunting at 82
Eric Myer wears the colors of the Genesee Valley Hunt (NY) early in the season. / Karen Kandra Wenzel photo
Eric Myer, DVM, is currently in his sixty-sixth season of foxhunting. And not just with one hunt. No, no. If that were the case, the hunting season would be far too short to suit him.
At eighty-two, Eric begins his season in mid-July up north near Rochester, New York with the Genesee Valley Hunt. His wife Martha has roots in Geneseo, and the couple has a summer farm there. Then, in mid-October, when the Piedmont Fox Hounds are well into their cubhunting season down south in Virginia, Eric and Martha return to their Boyce farm in the Shenandoah Valley.
