Fox Hunting News
Big Sky Hounds Celebrate 10 Years!
Big Sky Hounds, Three Forks, Montana. Photo by Gretchen Pelham.
If you are in Montana, you need to hunt with the Big Sky Hounds. Great hounds, great country, great people. It is, as their website says, “Foxhunting Montana-Style.”
They are the real deal.
A Season of Field Hunter Competitions
Virginia Field Hunter Championships. Photo by Liz Caller.
At the start of every hunt season, several field hunter competitions showcase the skills of hunt members and their mounts. The nature of our sport doesn’t usually lend itself easily to competition, so each venue has come up with creative ways to quantify the skills needed to ride to hounds. Some competitions lean more towards jumping skills in an arena, while others try to keep as close to the hunt field as possible. These competitions can be a fun way for members to tune up their mounts for the hunt season. A few of the unique tasks required from competitors during individual rounds are opening and closing a gate while mounted, dropping a rail while mounted, halting from a hand gallop, dismounting and remounting from a stone wall, blowing a horn, and cracking a whip to name a few. Usually, only hunt members in good standing with their hunt clubs riding horses that are considered to have been fairly hunted are allowed to compete.
A Dorset Huntsman Convicted of Illegal Hunting
Photo by Gretchen Pelham
Mark Pearson, Joint Master and Huntsman for the South Dorset Hunt, was found guilty this October of illegal hunting. A video of Pearson was taped by hunt saboteurs that allegedly showed him “encouraging” the pack to kill a fox, violating the Hunting Act 2004. The incident occurred last December 2021 in Dorset, located in southwest England.
Bull Run Hunt’s New Kennel Construction
Bull Run Hunt photo by Gretchen Pelham
An over-110-year-old fox hunting club is updating its kennel.
MFHA Field Hunter Championship – Celebrating That Special Horse
Photo from the 2007 MFHA Centennial Fieldhunter Championships, by Gretchen Pelham
The 2022–2023 hunting season becomes the foxhunters’ year of the horse as the Masters of Foxhounds Association (the “MFHA”) organizes a series of horse competitions across North America. The MFHA Field Hunter Championship is more than a celebration of the foxhunting horse; it’s a chance to earn regional and national field hunter titles that distinguish riders and their hunts. Additionally, it's an opportunity for hunts to raise funds.
New Forest Hounds Have Converted to a Bloodhound Pack
by Keith Simpson Photography
The New Forest Hounds in England has converted its foxhound pack to bloodhounds for the 2022-2023 season. The hunt club uses the historic New Forest, a national park consisting of over 71,000 acres in southern England.
Verdict of Guilt Is Reversed
Last year, a senior UK foxhunter and board member of the British MFHA, Mark Hankinson, was found guilty in Westminster Magistrates' Court of contravening the despised Hunting Act of 2004. He was also ordered to pay the court £3,500 in fine and fee. The deputy chief Magistrate concluded that he was "clearly encouraging the mirage of trail laying to act as cover for old-fashioned illegal hunting."
The case involved the question of whether or not Hankinson, in a webinar seen by about one hundred hunt leaders, promoted ways for hunts to covertly hunt illegally by making it appear they were trail hunting.
This year, a court heard his appeal and considered whether Hankinson's words were intentionally encouraging an offense. The court decided to the contrary, reversed the original verdict, and Hankinson was adjudged not guilty.
Hankinson explained he was referring to the practice of laying dummy trails to fool saboteurs.
Tryon Hounds Offering Scholarship
Trip Hoffman Memorial Riding Scholarship Applications Being Accepted
TRYON, NC (June 20, 2022)— The Tryon Hounds is proud to present the Trip Hoffman Memorial Riding Scholarship for fox hunting enthusiasts in Polk, Henderson, Rutherford, Spartanburg, and Greenville counties for the 2022-2023 hunt season. Fox hunting has been a part of the areas culture for nearly one-hundred years and enjoyed by equestrian enthusiasts who appreciate the sport and tradition. This scholarship helps ensure the sports place within the community for future generations by assisting with membership dues.
Britain’s National Trust Members to Vote on Draghunt Ban
In late October, more than five million members of Britain’s National Trust will be asked to vote on whether or not trail-hunting should be banned on trust-owned land. Seems ironic considering that so many of the donors of the properties and lands now held by the trust were country sportsmen, sportswomen, and foxhunters. A similar vote was taken just five years ago. Trail hunting prevailed by just one percent of the very small percentage of members who voted. To achieve that result, the board used discretionary proxy votes to defeat the proposal. At the same time, however, the board banned the continued use of animal-based scents like fox urine. The issue is even more divisive today. “Trail-hunting’ is a cover for foxhunting,” opponents claim. The League Against Cruel Sports (LACS) plans a protest outside October’s Annual General Meeting. Draghunters insist that trail-hunting does not involve animal cruelty. Notwithstanding the results of the 2017 vote, last year the National Trust joined a group of other large landowners in Britain who claimed that trail hunt organizers planned to kill foxes. The trust joined those landowners in suspending trail-hunting. If the anti-hunt campaigners win in October, the suspension will become permanent. “We’ve been listening carefully to both sides of a highly polarized and passionate debate,” the trust said, as reported by Jane Dalton in The Independent. Posted September 6, 2021
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Quorn Members Found Not Guilty
Hugo Mynell of Quorn Hall, Leicestershire, and considered the Father of Modern Foxhunting, was Master of The Quorn from 1753 to 1800.
Quorn huntsman John Finnegan and his whipper-in at the time, Rhys Matcham, accused of hunting wild mammals with dogs in contravention of England’s Hunting Act of 2004, were cleared of all charges in Leicestershire Magistrates’ Court on August 24, 2021.
The League Against Cruel Sports (LACS) provided filmed evidence to the court from which prosecutors claimed the footage showed "a proper fox hunt going back to the olden days." The incident is alleged to have occurred on February 24, 2020. Finnegan and Matcham denied the charges and entered not guilty pleas in March 2021.
