Virginia Grand Champion Mooreland Wary 2012 shows herself before (l-r) huntsman Rhodri Jones-Evans; judge Jack Van Nagle, MFH; Mooreland MFH Jon Moody; Virginia Foxhound Club President Joan Jones; and Mooreland MFH Liz Saint John. / Lauren Giannini photo
“This is going to be an excellent Grand Championship class,” said Daphne Wood, MFH of the Live Oak Hounds (FL), as we all waited for the class to begin. “The English and Crossbred Champions are both beautiful hounds, and I’m told that the American hound is excellent as well. Jack’s going to have a tough time picking one.”
Daphne was referring to Jack Van Nagle, MFH of the Iroquois Hunt (KY), who was scheduled to judge the class and who would soon be—if he wasn’t already—feeling the pressure!
Vying for the highest honor at the Virginia Foxhound Show at Morven Park, Leesburg, Virginia on Sunday, May 26 were the English foxhound Champion Hillsboro Sable, the Crossbred Champion Mooreland Wary 2012, the American Champion Potomac Templeton 2012, and the Penn-Marydel Champion Golden’s Bridge Phoenix 2012.
Although Daphne’s Live Oak Hounds didn’t have a dog in this fight, she and husband Marty certainly had a stake; the English Champion Hillsboro Sable was bred by Live Oak and drafted unentered to Hillsboro. Which reminds me of Hillsboro’s Senior Master Henry Hooker. If he were present, he would have said, as he often does, “Well, an honest mistake has been made!”
The un-entered Sable had a tough hill to climb, however, if she were to take the Grand Championship. As lovely as she is, it’s difficult for a young hound to prevail over fully developed foxhounds who have had a season of hunting to build muscle over their otherwise impressive frames.
In the end it was Mooreland Wary who prevailed for her second Grand Championship of the season. On April 6 she was judged Grand Champion of the Southern Hound Show.
“I like the way she covers the ground,” said her happy huntsman, Rhodri Jones-Evans. “We need that in our Alabama cotton country. The game runs big, and we need scopey hounds to put the pressure on. She’s just completed her first season. She entered well, and she’s been consistent.”
Rhodri-Jones is looking forward to next season. “It’s typical of her bloodlines that they start to shine in their second season,” he said. “They are phenomenal markers, and Wary has already shown that determination. We have a lot of old culverts and pipes that coyotes wind up in, and she gets right up there in the coyote’s face. I spend a lot of time letting them mark. They learn; they get game savvy. When we go down the road, I see them checking out every culvert and pipe.”
Wary is by Fox River Valley Keg 2005, himself a Grand Champion at Virginia in his time, as was his dam Fox River Valley Secretary 1999. Wary’s dam is Mooreland Wedlock 2008 who goes back in tail-female to Warwickshire bloodlines. She has Cotswold blood top and bottom, Midland behind the Fox River Valley tail-male line, and American Walker blood from the London Hunt (ON). She is one-eighth Penn-Marydel as well, a legacy from the Rose Tree Foxhunting Club (PA) kennels.
Posted May 28, 2013