Bryn Mawr Grand Champion Midland Striker 2015 (Midland Rocket 2011 ex Staffordshire-Mooreland Stunning 2011) / Karen Kandra Wenzel photo
Midland Striker 2015 was judged Grand Champion Foxhound at the 2017 Bryn Mawr Hound Show on Saturday, June 3, 2017.
Bryn Mawr is the one that got away from Striker last year. In 2016, this graceful moving, handsome Crossbred dog hound had a big year in the ring. He was judged Grand Champion at the Virginia Foxhound Show and at the Southern Hound Show. But the hat trick at Bryn Mawr wasn’t to be his. Now, Striker can add the Bryn Mawr notch to his collar.
In this year’s Grand Championship Class at Bryn Mawr, Striker prevailed against Orange County Kermit, the handsome American dog hound that was judged Grand Champion at Virginia just a week earlier. And while there’s no Reserve Grand Champion recognized at Bryn Mawr, Striker’s littermate, Midland Stellar, was Reserve Crossbred Champion to Striker.
There’s more. Striker sired a litter at Hillsboro that showed un-entered this year: one son, Stafford, was Grand Champion and one son, Spitler, was Un-Entered Champion, both at Carolinas. It’s a family of all-stars.
“Midland Kate 1995 is the key,” said Mason Lampton, MFH of the Midland Fox Hounds (GA). “She was the start of our K-line.” Lampton estimates that in the last seventeen years, get from her line have won eleven Brood Bi*ch Championships. Mason noted how consistently the K-line progeny have produced Champions at Virginia no matter which judge is in the ring. “They all pick from that line,” he said.
A son of Kate was given to Tony Leahy at Fox River Valley. That male line produced Fox River Valley Keg 2005, a Grand Champion at Virginia. In 2013, Mooreland Wary, a daughter of Keg, was Grand Champion at both Virginia and at the Southern Hound Show. A grandson of Keg, Woodbrook Kent 2014 won the Grand Championship at Western States earlier this month.
And the K-line isn’t producing just pretty faces. Striker’s littermate, Bull Run Spree 2015, demonstrated his hunting abilities by winning the Belle Meade Foxhound Performance Trials last season. There are huntsmen all over who are thankful for Midland Kate 1995, another reason why even the smaller hunts around the country that may not even enter hounds in shows really owe support to the MFHA-sanctioned hound shows in whatever way they can show it. All hunts, small and large, benefit from the prodigious know-how and prepotent bloodlines that originate in the major breeding kennels and are generously spread across North America.
Striker’s K-line is all on his sire’s side of the pedigree. His English dam, Staffordshire-Mooreland Stunning is no slouch herself. She was Champion English Foxhound at Virginia in 2014.
The Grand Championship Class at Bryn Mawr was judged this year by former huntsman Andrew Barclay, a 2015 inductee to the Huntsmen’s Room at the Museum of Hounds and Hunting.
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Posted June 28, 2017