Horse & Hound
Potomac Hunt Master’s Horse Wins Maryland Hunt Cup
Potomac MFHs Irvin “Skip” Crawford, owner of Maryland Hunt Cup winner Senior Senator (left) and Vicki Crawford, cradling the hunt cup, with John Coles, MFH, Orange County Hounds (a three-time rider over the Maryland Hunt Cup course in the 1980s). / Douglas Lees photo
Skip Crawford, MFH, Potomac Hunt (MD) left his golfing buddies and flew home to watch his horse run in the Maryland Hunt Cup. A good decision, as it turned out. With young Eric Poretz in the irons, Senior Senator won the stiffest timber race in the world by half a neck in an exciting finish. The date was April 30, 2016 at Worthington Farms, Glyndon, Maryland.
From the start, Poretz allowed his horse to go to the front and set his own pace, a pace which gave him a lead of as much as twenty-five lengths over much of the four-mile course. “That’s the way Senior Senator likes to run,” said Skip’s better half, Vicki Crawford, MFH. “He likes to be in front.”
The horse sure looked like he makes a lot of his own decisions. On the course, at whatever speed he was running, he seemed to judge distances on his own, meeting every fence well, jumping cleanly, and going away without a hiccup. Maybe Poretz was helping, but if so, it was so quietly and sympathetically, that this scribe couldn’t see it.
The Cad, Part I
Martha wrote this story after studying The Life of an American Sportsman: Being Reminiscences by Harry Worcester Smith during the course of her 2016 John H. Daniels Fellowship at the National Sporting Library & Museum in Middleburg, Virginia.
Harry Worcester Smith at his writing desk, possibly in Aiken, SC or Grafton, MA / Courtesy of NSL&M
I’m not sure that many people would have characterized Harry Worcester Smith as a good-for-nothing “cad.” On the other hand, neither might they have called him a gentleman. He was highly opinionated and he had a temper. He had a wicked sense of humor and he suffered no fool. He was a scalawag, a bit of a braggart, maybe a knave, possibly a scoundrel. It’s perhaps divine providence or poetic justice that his favorite horse, his horse-of-a-lifetime, was named “The Cad.”
Middle-Aged Mom Is Grand Champion at Southwest Hound Show
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.
Southern Hound Show Champion Is a Sober Demon
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 Good Day for Runners at Old Dominion Point-to-Point
In the Open Hurdle (l-r) is Prima Facie (Jeff Murphy up) and Kingofalldiamonds (Jacob Roberts up), the winner. / Douglas Lees photo
The turf was good, the day cloudy and cool, and, for a few moments of variety, a snow shower floated down upon the Old Dominion Point-to-Point Races at Ben Venue Farm, Virginia, on Saturday, April 9, 2016. The eight-race card included hurdle, timber, and flat races, most of them well-entered.
Noble Stables’ Kingofalldiamonds won the Open Hurdle race for the second consecutive year over the Old Dominion course. It was trainer Neil Morris’s second win of the day, and the horse’s second win in as many races this season. (Kingofalldiamonds won the Open Flat race at the Warrenton Hunt Point-to-Point last month.) Jacob Roberts was in the irons for both outings this season as well as for last year’s hurdle win—this day substantially repeating his winning strategy from the earlier flat race. Roberts allowed Daybreak Stables’ Manacor to set the pace and, with three fences remaining, took over the race and won by four-and-a-half lengths going away.
Do You Recognize This Aging Rock Star?
Photo by Lili Wykle, MFH and huntsman, Stonewall Hounds (VA) In his day, this aged celebrity, now basking in retirement, had the judges (and the female foxhounds, many of whom he knew ... intimately), swooning at the sight of him. Now weary of autograph seekers and those pesky selfie-photographers, he prefers to hang out incognito, as you see.
He was perhaps as strikingly handsome an American foxhound as this reporter has ever seen, and he passed his genes on to generations of grand champion foxhounds—both male and female—to follow.
Trainer Neil Morris Goes Three for Five at Orange County
Novice Timber (l-r): Zanclus (Kieran Norris) first, Le Chevalier (Mark Beecher) second / Douglas Lees photo
Trainer Neil Morris made the best of his home turf advantage by saddling three winners on the five-race card at the Orange County Point-to-Point on Sunday, April 3, 2016.
In Novice Timber, the only race over fences, Morris-trained Zanclus won his second timber race in just two Virginia starts this season, both under Kieran Norris. His earlier win was at Blue Ridge. Le Chevalier, ridden by Mark Beecher, winner of the Novice Timber at Warrenton two weeks earlier, mounted a strong challenge in the stretch, but Zanclus prevailed at the wire by a neck.
The Lad and The Huntsman
What follows is the author’s Introduction to his forthcoming book, Chappie: color cover, black and white illustrations, about 6 x 8-1/4 inches, $45.00 USD (price includes postage), release date August, 2016. Fifty copies will be printed; half are already pre-sold. Click for purchase instructions.
Chappie, painting by Wilk, reproduced with permission
One morning in the early 1960s, a young lad took a day off school to go hunting; he had planned it down to the smallest detail. Hounds were meeting in the Troutbeck valley at 9:30, but that was on the other side of the 1601-foot-high fell known as Wansfell Pike. As usual he left home about 8:15 am but instead of heading for the playground near the church to meet his mates and play football, he turned left at the Salutation Hotel and took the road for Wansfell.
Dakota Slew Owns Piedmont’s Timber Course
At the finish Dakota Slew (Mark Beecher up in solid blue cap) holds off Drift Society (Connor Hankin) for a third consecutive Open Timber win at Piedmont. / Douglas Lees photo
The Open Timber course at Piedmont on Saturday, March 26th, was a happy hunting ground once again for Dakota Slew. Ridden this year by Mark Beecher, the brown gelding captured his third Open Timber Race in as many years over the Piedmont course for owner Magalen Bryant who took home the Rokeby Bowl yet again. He moved patiently up to first by the last fence and held off a hard challenge by Drift Society in the stretch to win by a neck. The Richard Valentine-trained Dakota Slew was the Leading Timber Horse in Virginia in 2015.
Hunt Point-to-Points Are a Cherished Tradition
Nostalgia: a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. Tradition: the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation.
Up close and personal at the 2014 Piedmont Point-to-Point / Douglas Lees photo
Few events embody more fully the combination of nostalgia and tradition as does a day of point-to-point racing sponsored by the local foxhunting club. These races are a living link back to the days when fast horses flew over open country while the local folks cheered them on.
The running of the first hunt point-to-point is believed to have been hosted by the Warrenton Hunt (VA) on March 24, 1934. This was a time when Lowell Thomas narrated Movietone newsreels, which often featured updates on horse racing to the delight of a national audience. On that March day in ’34, an unassuming yearling colt, who would soon capture the imagination of the entire country, was frolicking in his pasture in Lexington, Kentucky. His name was Seabiscuit.
