Grand Champion Brazos Valley Playboy 2016 is shown by Sandy Dixon, MFH. Standing are (l-r) Johna Sewell, Brazos Valley; Nick Badgerow, Show Chairman; Judge John Tabachka. / Howard Gwin photoBrazos Valley Playboy 2016, an American foxhound, was crowned Grand Champion of the Central States Hound Show in Stilwell Kansas, on May 12, 2018.
Playboy was bred much like European royalty—all in the family—but even more so. Breeders know that the results of inbreeding can be successful beyond one’s wildest dreams. Or a nightmare.
“People are going to wonder, ‘What was she thinking?’” Sandy Dixon, MFH of the Brazos Valley Hounds (TX), readily admitted last year when Playboy’s littermate, Precious, was judged Grand Champion of the Southwest Hound Show. Just as riders don’t plan for the occasional involuntary dismount, so Dixon didn’t plan on this involuntary mount.
Playboy’s sire and dam were littermates: Brazos Valley Mystic 2010 and Molly 2010, respectively. After the “accident” and Dixon’s initial uncertainty about what to do, she decided to go ahead and whelp the litter, then decide. Fortunately, all the puppies turned out “perfectly normal,” she says. They entered to the pack two seasons ago like any other puppies, and Dixon knows that luck rode with her on this one.
Both sire and dam, Mystic and Molly, were hound show winners in Virginia, and their sire and dam were hound show winners as well. The four foxhounds comprising the two generations behind Playboy account for eight grand championships at MFHA-sanctioned hound shows!
Playboy’s sire Brazos Valley Mystic 2010 won the Grand Championship at the Southwest Hound Show for three consecutive years, and was Grand Champion at the Central States Hound Show in 2010. Mystic’s and Molly’s sire Brazos Valley Catfish 2006 also won three consecutive Grand Championships at the Southwest Hound Show. Mystic’s and Molly’s dam Brazos Valley Meadow 2006 was Grand Champion at Central States in 2013.
Meadow was bred at the Potomac Hunt (MD) by huntsman Larry Pitts, drafted to and entered by Dixon at Brazos Valley. Meadow’s sire was the knockout handsome Potomac Jefferson 2005, the MFHA Centennial National Grand Champion Foxhound in 2007, the king, the Clarke Gable of the North American foxhound world. Today, we are seeing Jefferson in the ancestry of more and more hound show champions, proving his prepotency beyond question.
Six hunts showed hounds at Central States: Brazos Valley Hounds, Bridlespur Hunt (MO), Fort Leavenworth Hunt (KS), Mill Creek Hunt (IL), Mission Valley Hunt (KS), and North Hills Hunt (NE). Judging hounds was John Tabachka, huntsman, Sewickley Hunt (GA); Show Chairman was J. Nick Badgerow; and Show Secretary was Dr. Steven Thomas, MFH and huntsman of the Fort Leavenworth Hunt. Click for complete show results.
Posted June 6, 2018