Anne Eberhardt Keogh photo
The Woodford Hounds (KY) held their Opening Meet on Saturday, November 26, 2011. The Blessing of Hounds was performed at Shaker Village in front of the Center Family Dwelling on Main Street.
The Woodford and Shaker Village enjoy a symbiotic relationship. The hunt kennels and club property share part of Shaker Village’s northwestern boundary. Shaker Village very graciously allows us to hunt their more-than 3,000 acres. In turn we keep paths mowed throughout a section of Shaker Village known as Little Texas. We also refer to, promote, and encourage use of Shaker Village’s lodging, dining, and stabling to our out-of-town visitors and others. We are a public-relations resource for them.
About eighty riders and more than 150 spectators, including the governor of Kentucky, were in attendance this day. Governor Beshear was there to watch his wife Jane, a member of the Woodford Hounds, and son Jeff as they participated in the day’s hunt.
After the Blessing, huntsman Glen Westmoreland paraded the hounds below Shaker Village into the rough field by the water treatment plant, allowing spectators to enjoy the pageantry. The field jumped two stone walls and forded a small creek.
Hounds were put in along the rough bank below the Entertainment Barn, where they opened on a coyote. Hounds ran down to the creek behind the West Lot Convention Center, site of the Mid-America Hound Show, following the creek into Little Texas and across A.T. Dean Road—all on. Staff followed hounds along A.T. Dean, where they turned into Fred Kelly’s property, then crossed Kentucky Highway 68 into Pleasant View Farm.
The field waited as hounds turned and crossed back over 68, again into Kelly’s. We watched three or four deer cross A.T. Dean into the top of the Tanyard Field, and within two minutes a huge gray coyote followed on the same track! Sneaky coyote, trying to foil the scent.
Hounds poured over the stone wall into the Tanyard field after the coyote, who then turned and crossed 68 again with hounds in pursuit, heading towards the Kentucky River and High Bridge. They ran through the covert along the river from the Harrodsburg water treatment plant back to the railroad trestle to the Shaker Village riverboat landing, back and forth several times. Glen eventually blew hounds back to him and we crossed 68 back into Shaker Village heading for the West Lot covert.
It should be noted that our car whips were indispensable Saturday, because of the amount of traffic on Highway 68 heading toward Lexington for the University of Kentucky-University of Tennessee football game! Traffic had to be stopped several times and the car whips eventually provided an escort for hounds, horses and humans on their return to Shaker Village .
Glen drew the rough banks down toward Shawnee Run heading towards the West Lot covert. One or two hounds opened in the bamboo but nothing came of it. He drew the low areas around the West Lot ponds, working back towards the Red Oak trails when hounds opened on a red coyote and chased him down towards the abandoned salt mines. Hounds had to be stopped there because to continue would have meant leaving the Shaker Village property during deer (rifle) season.
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Posted December 10, 2011