The Westmeath Foxhounds based in the midlands of Ireland was founded in 1854 and is one of the most popular
foxhunting packs in Ireland. They have had a distinguished succession of Joint-Masters over the years, but one of the most flamboyant arrived at the Irish kennels from the USA in 1912 with a retinue that caused quite a stir in the neighbourhood.
The new Master’s entourage included sixteen Thoroughbred horses, a pack of American hounds, five African-American grooms, a yellow open-top sports car, a yellow sulky, and three fighting cocks. His name was Harry Worcester-Smith, MFH of the Grafton Hounds in Massachusetts. He was even better known for the 1905 Great Foxhound Match in the Piedmont Valley with Mr. Alexander Henry Higginson’s English hounds, mainly of Fernie origin.
Worcester-Smith’s American hounds won the contest held over a period of two weeks. Both contestants were arch-enemies and refused to speak to each other. But despite their differences both men had the welfare of foxhunting at heart, and on February 14, 1907 at a meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York with six gentlemen attending and convened by Worcester-Smith the MFHA of America was founded. Although Major Wadsworth from the Genesee Valley Hounds was elected as the organisation’s first President, Higginson was later to assume the office.
Looking around the Westmeath Kennels today one can identify exactly the location of each of the photographs in Worcester-Smith’s books as the kennels has not changed very much in layout since then. He lived in Portloman House beside Lough Owel close to where another American currently lives today, the writer JP Donleavy, author of best sellers such as The Ginger Man.
Puppy Show
Today, the chairman of the Westmeath Foxhounds is The Hon. Kieran Guinness, a great-great-great-grandson of Arthur Guinness who founded the famous Guinness Brewery. His nephew Sebastian is Joint-Master with Dr Mark Mortell and Caroline Preston.
Huntsman Kevin Donohoe of the Ballymacad Foxhounds and Richard Walton who hunts with the Dulverton West Foxhounds judged the new entry. They were really spoiled for choice as huntsman James Lowry and whips Noel Murphy and Jason Mahon had prepared a beautifully turned out new entry that were well in their coats, athletic, and ready to impress the judges. The show was as usual well attended by enthusiastic followers lining the judging ring.
The first to show were the four-and-a-half couple of doghounds. They all had Bedale and Beaufort bloodlines.
Whalebone and Whacker stood out, but when it came to the decision there was no doubt about the winner—Whalebone—a fine, tall, athletic hound with a deep chest that was keen to please his handler. He was whelped in January so he has had adequate time to mature. He is bred in the purple by Bolster out of Duke of Beaufort Whimsey who was part of the Best Two Couple Class winners at Peterborough while she was in the Beaufort kennels.
Three couple of bitches went to the flags for the judges. The almost perfectly matched Daytime and Daylight would certainly have been serious contenders for the Best Two Couple Class at the IMFA National Hound Show if they had been entered. However the judges deliberating for some time decided to give the nod to Grapevine with Daytime as runner up. Some of the pundits around the ring would have reversed that order, but that probably is the fun in attending hound shows; everybody has an opinion, and some may not always concur. Grapevine is by Bedale Hovis out of Duke of Beaufort Gracious ’05. She was whelped in March so the doghounds had a couple of month’s head-start in maturity. Gracious ’05 has been a terrific foxhound over the Westmeath hunting country, and she is still in the kennels. In fact the Best Young Hound for last season Whiskey is also out of her.