In February 2024, I decided to take a road trip to hunt my way across the US and back after finally being cleared to ride again after a massive back surgery. I hunted all the way to Pennsylvania before turning back west to hunt my way home to Nevada.
At this point in my trip, I had been gone about 5 weeks. During that time, I had hunted in six states, gone to two hunt balls, and come down with COVID and then the flu. The miles were starting to take toll. As I drove through West Virginia on a side road to avoid tolls, I slowed down to take in the mountain creek surrounded by high-elevation rhododendrons. It was beautiful.
Kentucky Pit Stop
The Cerulian 1860-era farmhouse and bed and breakfast. Photo by Gretchen Pelham.
I was overnighting at the Cerulian Irish Draughts Farm outside of Shelbyville, Kentucky. This beautiful farm is located just north of the Kentucky Horse park near the Bulleit Distillery. Jeanette Aumon runs the breeding farm along with a bed and breakfast in the historic 1860-era farmhouse. This was the perfect place for me to hole up for a day, as I was only a few days off the flu and less than a week after COVID.
Cerulian Southern Cross. Photo by Gretchen Pelham.
Cerulian Farm is home of the Irish Draught stallion Bridon Belfrey, RID, who is a well-known stallion for many disciplines, including foxhunting. The old man was calmly eating his hay in his paddock and didn’t pay much attention to me as I wandered around on my tour of the farm. His son, Cerulian Southern Cross or “Cole” was another story. This young stallion decided that he loved to have his picture taken and wouldn’t stop mugging for the lens no matter where I went.
Also on the farm was an American Foundation Bulldog Quarter Horse, Jaz Poco Zorro. Jeanette has taken on the task that she would do what she can to preserve the authentic breed type of the American Quarter Horse. Zorro doesn’t give the impression of a rare and important stallion, as he’s too laid back for that. There was a herd of weanlings and yearlings near the entrance of the farm, a mix of Irish Draughts and Quarter Horses. I loved hanging out with the babies, even if Cole was stalking me from the other pasture behind me every step I took.
Curious foals by Jaz Poco Zorro (the bay and dun) and by Bridon Belfrey, RID (the black).Photo by Gretchen Pelham.
Jeanette and I went to a Mexican restaurant, talking horses, breeding, and foxhunting. I had the whole farmhouse to myself that night in the BnB and thoroughly enjoyed the enclosed, wrap-around porch. What a fantastic stop on my trip.
Driving through Indiana, I almost had to stop the car and turn around. This cross-country trip had me seeing some unusual sights, but this Indiana groundhog had me laughing so hard I almost couldn’t drive. The very ambitious rodent was literally sitting on top of the guard rail, by the fast lane mind you, watching the interstate traffic wiz by. He was balancing on his haunches, with his front paws just hanging in front of his belly, his head going back and forth as he followed the cars, as calm as one can be. Looking for all the world like he was wanting to hitch a ride; all that was missing was a thumb in the air.
Being early March, Illinois and Missouri were awash in purple henbit that blanketing the endless fallow corn fields. I was beginning to feel a bit road foundered, desperately looking for another hitchhiking groundhog to keep my attention.
Mission Valley Hunt Club Fin and Feather Fixture March 13
Louisburg, Kansas at an Elevation of 1093 in the Cherokee Lowlands
I finally made my way to my friend, Tracy Frank, in Kansas. She lives a mile from the Mission Valley Hunt Club kennels and just down the road from MFH Jane Jeffers. Jane joined us for dinner at Tracy’s house, where I raided Tracy’s extensive bourbon collection.
The next morning, we hunted from the kennel fixture where their Fin and Feather clubhouse is located. The Fin and Feather started in early 20th Century as an all-men’s club for fishing and bird hunting for the Kansas City wealthy. Mission Valley Hunt Club was founded in 1952 with hounds drafted from Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds.
Mission Valley Hunt Club just across the street from the Fin and Feathers clubhouse at the start of the hunting day. Photo by Gretchen Pelham.
The fixture is just over the Kanas state line from Missouri. Rolling pastures were dotted large silos, ponds, and coverts full of hardwoods. The spring frogs in the many ponds competed for notice by the raucous Red-winged Blackbirds and swooping Meadowlarks. Patches of Osage Orange Trees, with their large, green fruit littering the bridle paths, and Honey Locust Trees, defended by two-inch thorns all along their branches, required an attentive rider as the hounds hunted through the coverts.
The Mission Valley hounds recently drafted a few Penn-Marydels from Shawnee Hounds into their mixed pack of English crossbreds. Most of the English blood came from Hillsboro Hounds.
Mission Valley Hunt Club final check before hacking back to the meet. Photo by Gretchen Pelham.
The hunting day was warm with Bluebird blue skies. I was riding one of Jane Jeffer’s steady Eddie’s, a large drafty mare who knew more about hunting than myself. One of the newly drafted Penn-Marydels found an old coyote line right off the bat just down the road from the kennels and Fin and Feather clubhouse. The line took time and diligence from the pack, so they picked along most of the morning. As the morning warmed up, the new spring grasses and the rising heat worked their influence to evaporate the scent or mask it completely. The day was called after the hounds were spent.
It was Professional Huntsman Ryan Beer’s birthday, so our hunt breakfast was spent at a local restaurant celebrating. I’ve known Ryan since he was the new kennelman for Mission Valley. I’ve always his loved eagerness to learn and the quite professionalism he has. We met at a joint meet in Montana several years ago and shared the unfortunate experience of riding the same terrible hireling one day after the other. I think I bailed on the horse and swapped with the cowboy before the end of day, but Ryan suffered the whole hunt on a horse that had decided it hated hunting.
I was only in Kansas for a couple of days before I headed out to Juan Tomas Hounds’ Closing Meet just south of Albuquerque. I had one more stop on my cross-country of the US. As far as driving days, this was my hardest drive in almost 6 weeks. There is no interstate from Kansas City to Albuquerque, and even though I’m used to driving in the desert for hours, I think the road founder had fully taken hold on this day. And unknown to me, the titanium in my spine was about to start complaining. Loudly.
Sporting photographer Jim Meads achieved a personal milestone and undoubtedly established a world record on December 5, 2010 when he photographed the Loudoun West Hunt near Leesburg, Virginia. This was the five hundredth unique hunt that Meads has photographed over the course of a career spanning sixty years.
Meads, who lives in Wales, follows hunts on foot and in vehicles and always seems to appear where the action is, even before the mounted followers arrive. His long legs and astounding endurance has allowed him to capture many of the greatest action shots of foxhunting ever recorded on film. He has photographed hunts in England, Ireland, Canada, and the U.S.
Meads has worked for The Field, Shooting Times, and Horse and Hound magazines in the U.K., and has been a regular contributor to In & Around Horse Country here in the U.S. He has published five books of his photographs, starting with Full Cry, My Hunting World, They Will Always Meet at Eleven, They Still Meet at Eleven, and Going Home, his last book, published in 2008 by the Quiller Press, UK.
One day in 1962, Meads took his young sons to watch the airplanes at the De Havilland Aircraft Company airfield, where he had worked just after WWII.
“For some unexplainable reason, I took a camera with me, which I never do unless I am working,” writes Meads. “Suddenly a jet fighter coming in to land had a hydraulic malfunction and decided to crash less than one hundred yards from where we were standing. In an instant I had the camera up to my eye and pressed the trigger as the pilot left his plane by the ejector seat. Result: Picture of the Year Worldwide for 1962.”
Jim Meads set the goal of five hundred hunts for himself some years ago, and achieved it at the age of eighty. Those who know him well are waiting to hear what he is planning next!
Jim Meads captures huntsman Martyn Blackmore of the Loudoun West Hunt bringing hounds home at day’s end.
Douglas Lees photo
A slide show of Meads’s Loudoun West Hunt milestone, photographed by our own Douglas Lees, is posted in Gallery.
December 7. 2010
The king of horse and hound photographers, incomparable in number of hunts photographed, nations covered, mileage on foot with camera in hand, and career longevity, died just a month shy of his ninety-fourth birthday.
Jim Meads earned his sobriquet, the Running Photographer, early in his career as a professional photographer in the hunting field. Frustrated with the static set shots of horses and hounds posing at the meet and loving the woods and fields where the action was, he realized he would have to rely on his legs and feet. He had hunted as a pony clubber and knew the rules of the field.
His presence in the hunting fields of England, Ireland, across the U.S., and Canada was unmistakable. My mental image? A tall, long-legged fellow in a loose, forest green slicker, long wool sox up to the knees, a woolen hat pulled down to his ears, holding a camera. Yes, he’d be snapping away before the meet until the huntsman moved off with hounds to draw the first covert, the field bouncing along in the huntsman’s wake. Jim might be seen somewhere near the first draw, standing quietly and ready.
But you’re there to hunt. And hounds would find. And you’d be galloping after the music, this way and that for maybe thirty or forty minutes, and hounds would check. And you’d stop with the rest of the field while the huntsman let hounds cast themselves to recover the scent. And, son-of-a-gun, there’s Jim on one knee, camera to his eye, capturing the action. And hounds would recover the line, and you’d be galloping along after the music again for perhaps another forty minutes, really covering some ground. And you’d finally ride up, horse in a sweat, hearing the huntsman blowing “Gone to Ground” and making much of his hounds. And, son-of-a-gun, there’s Jim snapping away as hounds paw and scratch at the earth.
Action is fleeting when one is holding a camera, with little time for the photographer to consider artistic composition and a background that will enhance rather than interfere with the subject. But looking at his split-second action photos, it seemed like Jim always had that part of the process solved before he ever positioned himself for whatever action might develop. There’s a bit of genius to that, and Jim had it.
Some Career Highlights
Frank Meads, Jim’s father, was a photographer and undoubtedly a mentor to him. At age sixteen, in 1946, Jim quit school and went to work as a trainee photographer at DeHavilland Aircraft Company. The work was exciting. World War II had just ended, and he found himself flying with many famous wartime pilots, photographing one plane from another, often in close formation. In the late 1940s, he did an eighteen-month stint in the Royal Air Force. He shot foxhunting meets and hound shows and began seeing his images regularly published in Horse & Hound. By 1950, Jim began his career as a self-employed sports photographer.
A freak career milestone occurred in 1962. On a Friday afternoon, while caring for his two young sons, Jim drove to the Hatfield aerodrome where he had worked during his flying days a decade earlier. He thought his sons would enjoy seeing the airplanes taking off and landing.
Photo by Jim Meads.
Jim writes, “For some inexplicable reason I took a camera along with me, something I never do unless I’m working. As we watched a Lightning jet fighter coming in to land something went wrong and the plane went into a vertical dive, at very low altitude, while the pilot left his cockpit in the ejection seat. The ensuing photo was voted Picture of the Year 1962, [published worldwide,] and I was famous for a few days….”[See this article for more information about the photo above: Fear of Landing – The Story Behind an Unbelievable Photograph.]
In 1968 Jim started a partnership with Sir Andrew Horsbrugh-Porter, a hunting correspondent for The Field magazine, as Sir Andrew’s photographer. It was a happy partnership that lasted for thirteen seasons.
When Michael Clayton was about to become editor of Horse & Hound magazine in 1973 and was publish his famous series of hunt reporting articles under the pen name, Foxford, he called Jim Meads. Clayton wanted Meads as the cameraman.
Jim also worked for The Field and Shooting Times in the U.K. He was a regular contributor to In & Around Horse Country and graced the pages of Covertside and Foxhunting Life with his images here in the U.S. He has published five books of his photographs, starting with Full Cry, My Hunting World, They Will Always Meet at Eleven, They Still Meet at Eleven, and Going Home, his last book, published in 2008 by the Quiller Press, UK.
Achievements, Awards and Recognition
Jim achieved a personal goal he’d earlier set for himself. He wanted to photograph five hundred distinct and separate hunts over his career. He achieved that goal at the Loudoun Hunt West (VA) while on his 186th visit to the U.S. The date was December 5, 2010, and he was eighty years old. The achievement was memorialized in Foxhunting Life two days later with photos of the Running Photographer taken by America’s own Eclipse Award and Bryce Wing Trophy winning photographer, Douglas Lees.
At age eighty-six, Jim Meads was honored for his seventy years of photographing the Peterborough Royal Foxhound Show in the UK. It is a stunning achievement, considering that Jim first photographed the show in 1946, the year it was resumed after the conclusion of World War II. For the 1948, 49, and 50 Peterborough shows, a period when Jim was serving in the RAF, he had to secure special twenty-four-hour passes from the Service.
Leading the ceremony at Peterborough in 2016, as the crowd seated around the show ring applauded, Sir Philip Naylor-Leyland, MFH and chairman of the show committee, presented Jim with a bronze fox sculpture in recognition of his faithful commitment to the show. Lord Annaly, ex-MFH and ring steward for many years at Peterborough, announced the proceedings.
In a follow up interview with Horse & Hound, Jim admitted to missing one show at Peterborough when, in 1969, he captained the Queen Mother’s Cricket Team on a tour of the Isle of Wight. He was substituting for National Hunt jockey David Nicholson, who had fallen and broken his leg the day before the Peterborough Show.
Jim, we celebrate your extraordinary life and thank you for an era of memorable imagery left behind in your enormous body of work.
The British Hound Sports Association put out an informational video explaining Trail Hunting versus hunting live game (now illegal in the England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland). This video comes on the heels of Scotland passing legislation to outlaw trail hunting, and the Labour Party in England announcing their intention to follow Scotland in banning trail hunting. Trail hunting has become under attack from those who believe that it is a cover for illegally hunting live game with hounds.
A statement from the British Hound Sports Association was released with the video, “Following on from our trail hunting demonstration days, we have produced a short video which explains how the sport effectively replicates a traditional hunting day, but without an animal being chased, injured or killed.”
Barclay Rives in front of the Keswick Hunt Club fields on his last hunt as a whipper-in. Photo by Gretchen Pelham
Barclay Rives decided that at the end of this 2023-2024 season, he would retire from hunting with Keswick Hunt Club in Virginia. Rives has been whipping-in for 53 years with Keswick, and he is a prolific writer (his book called “See You at Second Horses” is a personal favorite). To meet Barclay is to experience the most gentle and charming smile. I was privileged to interview him at Keswick’s Closing Meet party this past March.
When did you start hunting? My first hunt was when I was 11, and my childhood friend, John Kohls, was whipping-in for Keswick for the first time. My first job was to unbox the hounds from the truck.
I have always hunted with Keswick. But when Grosvenor Merle-Smith was Master and Huntsman for Bull Run Hunt, I had many good runs with them. There were some seasons that I hunted with both hunt clubs. Once when catching up with Deep Run Hunt MFH Jim Covington, better known as Red Dog, I said, “Red Dog, I’ve hunted 115 times this season.” I had bested him. And he said in that deep southern accent, “Barclay, you are my idol.”
How many years have you hunted? I’ve hunted for 58 years. But the proper answer is that I’ve been hunting since I was in utero because my mother (Mary Jo Rives, MFH for Keswick) hunted with me while pregnant and Master. Then she went hunting ten days after I was born, which isn’t such a great thing to do. Certain things gotta heal!
Why are you retiring? I’m retiring this year because of my two horses – one can’t jump and one can’t breathe. And while it’s better to be on one that can’t breathe, I decided that both horses needed to retire. So, I’ll retire with them as I’m not ready to get a new horse.
I also had a hard fall recently. The sound of the helmet hitting the ground was not fun. I watched my father go downhill as he aged, and he was a much better rider than I am. He had several ghastly falls. I thought to myself that I wanted to leave the party early to avoid what he went through.
I also have some new books that I want to write. And I have two granddaughters ages 5 and 8 living next door to me.
Both of your parents were MFH of Keswick. Have you ever been a Master? No, and I haven’t wanted to be either.
My father, Alexander Rives, was MFH for Keswick for eight years. Momma and Daddy were not joint masters at the same time, but when Daddy was Master two disgruntled members came by one evening to complain about hunting. Daddy was a gentle soul and practiced some passive resistance. Mamma was upstairs listening to this going on. While out to here pregnant with my brother, Mamma threw on a robe and went downstairs to give the two of them hell for foolishly complaining.
What is your career? Instead of saying, “Do what you love and the money will follow”, change that to, “Do what you love and just do without everything else”. I was a blacksmith for a while and was also a tin roofer and a writer. So my resume is blacksmith, tinsmith, and wordsmith.
Does your wife hunt as well? Before my wife, my utility bill was $4 a month. I had power in my house but did not have running water. Someone once sketched what would be my life when I was in my twenties, it was a picture of a scarlet coat hung on an outhouse door. It was so perfect for me. But then my wife came along, and she demanded plumbing.
My wife Aggie of 38 years, who does not hunt, has supported my hunting all along. Unlike some people who say, “Oh, we’ve been married nearly 38 years and never had an argument”, but that’s not true with us! Aggie has been wonderfully accepting of me and my riding.
I introduced Aggie to one of this country’s great equestrians, the late Elli Wood Baxter (1921-2023), who set the standard in the show ring for brilliance. It wasn’t how many strides between fences that mattered to Elli, it was how many strides did she leave out! Elli (MFH Farmington Hunt) would go around the ring or hunter trial course as if hounds were running, and she had to keep up. (In 2022, Ellie Wood was awarded the National Show Hunter Hall of Fame Founder’s Cup for Excellence, joining Olympian William Steinkraus as one of the only two recipients thus far.) Elli’s mother taught me how to ride. I introduced my wife to her, and Elli said upon learning that my wife didn’t ride, “Isn’t that great that you don’t have to find a horse for her!”
Where have you hunted? I’ve hunted here, Ireland, and England (before the ban), and have outridden at several steeplechases.
What has been your favorite thing to do on horseback? That’s easy, it’s to be hunting hounds in full cry here with Keswick. Radios are necessary, but I never carried a radio. For one thing, if it’s necessary to have a radio then I could always find someone with one for me to borrow. But to me the whole thing of hunting is to use my instincts, use my horse, and get myself in the right place to help the huntsman, all so I could enjoy the hunt.
Have you ever wanted to be a huntsman? A couple of times I carried the horn when the huntsman was unable, and it’s a whole different experience. I was able to get all the hounds back. Once hounds got on a fox when I had the horn, but I didn’t swing wide enough. The hounds got on the heel line. I am an introvert and a solitary person, so whipping-in is much more me than being the huntsman.
When did you start Whipping-In? I started whipping-in in 1971-1972 in high school (I graduated college in 1976). I had moved into an abandoned house on my parent’s property. I figured that I would stay there and fix up the house while I hunted and figured out what to do with my life. Well, the house still needs fixing up, and I still haven’t figured out what to do with my life. For the first years as staff I was walking hounds, and I still didn’t know what I was doing. About 5 or 6 years into whipping-in, I started to get some inkling of what to do.
Who helped you learn how to whip-in? Joe Collins was kennel huntsman. He was a very country guy from around here, and he had encouraged me and other juniors. He said, “Let me give you a little tip on this whipping-in. Get out in front. That way you can see what the hounds are running. Then you can do some good. Otherwise, you are just trailing along and following. And don’t go following me.”
Also, professional whipper-in Charlie Brown with Rappahannock Hunt was one of the best professionals that I’ve ever known. After Charlie’s tutelage was Grosvenor Merle-Smith, first the kennel huntsman for Keswick and later a top-notch huntsman for Bull Run. I had the benefit of being around people with superior skills.
What secrets would you reveal to a new whipper-in? In my case, I learned so much by watching some of the good ones. Watch your hunt, but then go hunt with other hunts to see how other people do it. And then just dedicate yourself to the job. Learn the names of hounds. Learn country.
What’s one thing that you wish you had done? I’ve hunted all over with a lot of different people, so I have no regrets. I can’t think of anything I wish I had done.
The Garner Ranch in Southern California hosted a flower trail ride for Santa Fe West Hills Hounds. Photo by Gretchen Pelham.
The third weekend of May this year, the Santa Fe West Hills Hounds, based in Southern California, hosted a trail ride to enjoy the flower blooms at the historic Garner Ranch in Idyllwild, outside of Palm Springs. This working cattle ranch has been a fixture for the hunt for a long time. It has also been a film location for several Hollywood B-Westerns and the television series “Bonanza”. Many of the opening credits scenes for “Bonanza” (1959 – 1973) and its episode “The Grand Swing” was filmed on the ranch.
The floor of the Garner Valley floor was covered in flowers for the Santa Fe West Hills Hounds trail ride.Photo by Gretchen Pelham
Surrounded by the San Bernardino National Forest below the San Jacinto Mountains, with the Pacific Crest Trail just a few miles away, the ranch is in long, narrow valley. The Garner family have owned the ranch for over 100 years. The peak of the flower bloom in the valley was a week or so before the ride, but the valley still looked painted with color.
Santa Fe West Hills Hounds flower trail ride. Photo by Gretchen Pelham.
About forty riders showed up to the ranch, a mixture of guests and hunt members, that were split into two groups. Joint Master Marti Manser lead the fast group, Alex Perryman lead the walking group. Joint Master and Huntsman Terry Paine welcomed everyone with a horn blow before the start of the ride.
Garner Ranch fixture for Santa Fe West Hills Hounds in California. Photo by Gretchen Pelham.
After the ride, we gathered at the ranch house for some bar-b-que chicken and tri-tip while a local musician played for us from the porch. The day ended with a group barn dance, kind of a cross between a line dance and square dance.
It was a fun, with proceeds benefiting the hounds.
Garner Ranch. Photo by Gretchen Pelham.
From the US Forest Service (see Garner Valley (usda.gov)) about the flowers in the valley: Valley floor wildflowers include spectacular patches of yellow goldfields (Lasthenia californica) and tidytips (Layia ziegleri) in early spring and magenta fields of the endemic four o’clock (Abronia villosa var. aurita) during the summer. Along the edges, a wide range of interesting species grow in a narrow abound just above the valley: the endemic Johnston’s rockcress (Arabis johnstonii), California penstemon (Penstemon californicus), long-spined spineflower (Chorizanthe polygonoides var. longispina), and rock jasmine (Androsace elongata ssp. acuta). The view to the south, along drainages of Thomas Mountain, includes stands of big cone douglas fir (Pseudotsuga macrocarpa), an uncommon conifer of southern California. Two species of pinyon pine intermix in the southern edge of Garner Valley: single leaf (Pinus monophylla) and four-leaf (P. quadrifolia).
