“We now have twice the country and twice the membership at one-half the cost,” said Donna Rogers, MFH of the newly merged Loudoun Fairfax Hunt. “It was a no-brainer!” Good sense notwithstanding, the courtship that finally resulted in an official union of the two hunts—Loudoun West and Fairfax—lasted two years.

“We had a long engagement,” agrees Rogers. “We hunted together, we socialized together, and we became happier and happier with each other.”

Compromises were required for the resolution of many questions. Who will hunt the hounds? What will be the name of the hunt? What will be the new hunt’s colors? What days will we hunt?

“The hardest issue was that of the huntsman,” said Rogers. “If we retained either of the existing huntsmen and let the other one go, there would have been great unhappiness on the other side. We decided that the fairest to both memberships would be to start with a clean slate.”

As a result of that difficult decision, British-born Andy Bozdan becomes the first huntsman of the Loudoun Fairfax Hunt. (Click to read an amusing anecdote from Andy’s days as a whipper-in.) Foxhunting Life has already reported on the round-robin of huntsmen changes set off in part by the Loudoun West-Fairfax merger. (Click to read Huntsmen on the Move and New Huntsman at Loudoun.)