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Bill McDevitt: Friend and Benefactor
Bill McDevitt, honorary whipper-in and benefactor of the Los Altos Hounds (CA) since 1963, passed away at his waterfront Sausalito home over the weekend. He will be remembered by his many hunt buddies and the numerous Masters he served, including Tom Harris, W.W. Mein, Richard Collins, Eugene Rettig, Mrs. Jay Foss, and Albert Schreck. He served as Vice President from 1981 until 1985 and maintained his membership until 2000. He and his great friend Niels Schultz, Los Altos member for many years, were great benefactors of the hunt in the early years, often meeting with landowners and hosting hunt breakfasts, not only in Marin County but also in San Benito County, and providing needed funds, labor, and vehicles for the hunt, his friends recall. Bill and his son “Willie” often rode as a pair in the Los Altos Hunt Pebble Beach Race Meet. Bill also rode jumpers and played polo. He was the honored guest at the 1993 Hunt Ball held at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. He was owner and founder of McDevitt and Sons construction company in Marin County and is survived by an extended family. Funeral arrangements were private, but a party for his friends is planned in mid-September, to be announced later. Posted September 1, 2011
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New Evidence Pushes Back Earliest Domestication of Horses
It has long been thought that the domestication of horses goes back about five thousand years to central Asia. New evidence could push that estimate back by another four thousand years and change the locale. Among the remains of a recently discovered ancient civilization in the Arabian Peninsula was a three-foot tall bust of a horse. “A statue of an animal of this dimension, dating back to that time, has never been found anywhere in the world,” said Ali al-Ghabban, vice-chairman of the Department of Museums and Antiquities in Saudi Arabia. “This discovery shows that horses were domesticated in the Arabian Peninsula for the first time more than nine thousand years ago.” Click for more detail in Discovery News. Posted August 26, 2011
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Red Rock Hounds to Parade at $25,000 Jumping Derby
The Red Rock Hounds are scheduled to parade at the 2011 Franktown Meadows USHJA International Hunter Derby in Carson City, Nevada on Labor Day, September 5. The “best horse and rider combinations in the country” are expected to compete over this beautiful course in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Hounds will parade around the course at noon with mounted staff, and the Derby will begin at 1:00 p.m. Red Rock Master Lynn Lloyd believes it’s an appropriate venue for both her hounds and the spectators. “The derby came because of field hunting,” she said, and we are “presenting its roots. I think [the spectators] begin to understand that this is where hunters in the show ring began, and that hunting in America is still available….I want people to understand the freedom [of hunting] and being in nature. I think it grounds people, and I want them to remember the fun of horses. Sometimes I think they forget that.” More information about the derby is available from the Phelps Media Group. Posted August 17, 2011
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Promised Vote on British Foxhunting Ban “Dead and Buried”
A new generation of urban Tory has upset the countryside’s applecart. Notwithstanding Prime Minister David Cameron’s pre-election pledge to allow a free vote in Parliament on the hunting ban, twenty members of his party are opposed to revisiting the ban. Calling themselves the Blue Fox group, they comprise a younger set of MPs who are conservative on economics but liberal on social issues. They insist that the Tory party should no longer be identified with “the hunting, shooting and fishing fraternity” and characterize Cameron’s pledge as “dead and buried.” Privately, some MPs of a more traditional view are also reluctant to insist upon a vote. They take the view that the ban as passed in 2004 is so unworkable and full of holes that hunting with hounds is proceeding without much police interference anyway. See Brenda Carlin’s article in the Mail for more details. Posted August 15, 2011
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Troubled Illinoios Racing Industry Gets Windfall
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan paved the way for a $141 million windfall to Illinois race tracks and horse owners when she denied the request of the state’s casino companies to continue holding the funds in escrow. The funds, earmarked for the racing industry pursuant to a 2006 law, had been collecting in the escrow account for nearly five years. The law required the four biggest casinos to divert three percent of their earnings to the race tracks to bolster that industry, which was suffering as a result of competition from the casinos. The racing industry will use the cash to boost purses to winning owners in an attempt at reviving the horse racing business in Illinois. The money was released at midnight on Monday, August 8. The casinos have a separate lawsuit pending in federal court. Read more details in Kurt Erickson’s article in the Southern Springfield Bureau. Posted August 10, 2011
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Storms Wreak Havoc in Belle Meade Hunting Country
As the result of recent storms through Georgia, fifty percent of all the trails in the Belle Meade hunting country are blocked, according to Epp Wilson, MFH. Hounds and coyote are able to get through, but not horses. “There are more large trees down across our trails than I have seen in forty-five years of hunting this territory,” said Wilson. “The country is virtually unhuntable.” The Belle Meade Masters have called out their membership and friends to come and help. They need tractors with mowers and front-end-loaders and people to operate chain saws and four-wheelers. The Saturdays of August 13 and August 20 have been designated as official workdays. Posted August 10, 2011
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Harry Miliner, Former Field Master, Loudoun West
Liz Callar photo Harry Miliner of the Loudoun West Hunt (VA) has made his final point and now resides in perhaps a better place. Harry finally succumbed to cancer on July 21, 2011. Harry came to hunting a bit later than many, not born of a hunting family (much like myself), but when he took up the sport he did so with a passion and conviction that revealed his true sportsman’s heart. Moving from his Maryland home to Northern Virginia where he was convinced the hunting was the best in the world (one of the few points on which we disagreed, as gentlemen will), Harry and his wife Dixie soon found a second home. With mentoring hunting friends such as Dr. Joe Rogers and Donna Rogers, MFHs along with Sherman Haight, ex-MFH and Peggy Haight, they quickly settled in and became an integral part of the Loudoun West hunting fabric. Harry was ultimately recognized as a more than competent Field Master for Loudoun West. No one got more pure joy from foxhunting than Harry. He was a big man with a huge heart, and as a Field Master, he was warm and welcoming. He fully ascribed to John Jorrock’s old sentiment, “Tell me a man’s a foxhunter, and I loves him at once”! Suffice it to be said by a very old friend, “Harry, you will truly be missed.” Posted July 25, 2011
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Helmet Cams on Every Jockey
Small video cameras are enlivening TV coverage of sporting events from NASCAR to football, bringing viewers into the driver’s seat and onto the playing field. Some horse racing professionals are hoping that cameras mounted on the helmet of every jockey in the race will help stimulate viewer interest in their sport. Cameras on riding helmets may be nothing new, but Kenleigh Hobby, a student in the Horse Racing Industry Program at the University of Arizona is taking the idea one step further. He is mounting cameras on every jockey in the race as well as the trainers and the starting gate personnel. His new company, EquiSight, is said to be meeting with success in marketing a system that records races for playback. But his dream is to allow viewers to “Ride the Race.” Viewers would even have the option of selecting which camera to watch, in effect riding their particular favorite in the race. “We’ve seen what [the technology] can do for other sports,” said Hobby. “Horse Racing is still stuck in the binoculars age.” There are obstacle, however, as Hobby has discovered. Not only is horse racing bound by old traditions, making it difficult to introduce new ideas, but there is no commissioner with jurisdiction nationally and no uniform set of rules. Each state is different. What continues to propel Hobby, however, is the knowledge that horse racing is in trouble, and if the industry is to be turned around, changes are inevitable. Read more in Bud Foster’s article in KOLD News 13. Posted July 23, 2011
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Tabachka and Buckley: Engaged
John Tabachka, huntsman for the Sewickley Hunt (PA) and Jennifer Buckley, honorary whipper-in for the Reedy Creek Hounds (VA) are engaged to be married. The wedding date has not yet been set, but plans are in the works. For those who don’t know Tabachka, click here to see and hear his brilliant work on the hunting horn. Posted July 23, 2011
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NSLM Announces Inaugural Exhibition
Catalog Cover: William Tylee Ranney, On the Wing, 1850, private collectionThe National Sporting Library and Museum in Middleburg, Virginia has announced details of the inaugural exhibition to be hung in its new museum building. The structure has been built around the nucleus of the 1804 brick mansion, Vine Hill, that housed both The Chronicle of the Horse and the National Sporting Library for so many years. The exhibition, Afield in America: 400 Years of Animal and Sporting Art 1585–1985, is curated by F. Turner Reuter, Jr. and will run from October 11, 2011 through January 14, 2012. The exhibition is based on Reuter’s book Animal and Sporting Artists in America, published in 2008 by the National Sporting Library. Designed to appeal to a wide audience, Afield in America presents works by iconic American artists such as Albert Bierstadt, Alfred Jacob Miller, and Frederic Remington, as well as those by recognized masters of the animal and sporting art genre, including John James Audubon, Edward Troye, Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait, and William Tylee Ranney. “The works of other fine American sporting artists, which have long been esteemed by enthusiasts of the genre but, until recently, were often overlooked by art historians, are an important focus of the exhibition,” says Mr. Reuter. This group includes: William Herbert Dunton, Herbert Haseltine, Thomas Hewes Hinckley, Anna Hyatt Huntington, Alexander Pope, Ogden Pleissner, Percival Rosseau, and John Martin Tracy. Click for more details. The National Sporting Library was founded in 1954 by George L. Ohrstrom, Sr. and Alexander Mackay-Smith. It is a library, research facility, and art museum now containing more than seventeen thousand books and works of art in the collections. One week before the exhibition opens—from October 7–9, 2011—a historic coaching drive and gala will take place to commemorate the opening of the museum. Posted July 2, 2011
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