Whipping-in on Fearnought, the author’s favorite.Cold and wet from rain on my thirty-six-inch pony Toy Mouse, with my fearless two-legged leader…mom Caroline…at the other end of the lead-line: that’s how I became addicted to a sport known as foxhunting. When we got in from hunting, my wool hunt coat weighed more than I did.
Since then, every autumn, from age four until now (not going to disclose that, but I’ve finished college!), there is a sense of anticipation and adrenaline that rushes through my veins. Foxhunters know how the goose bumps rise on your skin the moment those hunting hounds open up on a fresh scent of a fox or coyote, and away they go! This adrenaline rush only multiples, if you can believe it, when a person is allowed to have the honor of being a whipper-in.
Hunting on Happy Mouse, a saint of a pony.
My first seven years of foxhunting were spent with the Blue Ridge Hunt in Virginia, full of open fields leading to the mountains with big jumping coops set in the fence lines. Luxurious hunt country to say the least. I was honored to have the opportunity to hunt just behind (and sometimes in front of….whoops, not supposed to do that!) the former founder and editor of Covertside and now Foxhunting Life, Norman Fine, who taught me to love and admire the sport.
One day, quite unexpectedly, whipper-in Sue Downing, wife of then Blue Ridge huntsman Dennis Downing, asked me to come up and assist her that day. I was on cloud nine. Any moment that I could, I helped by jumping off my pony and getting a gate for her, or standing at a corner as another pair of eyes. I knew that this would be a one-time deal, and I enjoyed every second. Well, I was wrong! The next Saturday I was asked up as well. I watched the hounds and listened as much as I could to the conversations around me so that I could understand exactly what the huntsman was asking of his hounds and why. After hunting a territory long enough, you come to understand the foxes and where their normal route is. Of course, as anyone who has whipped-in understands, a fox’s job is to prove you wrong. Just when you think you are positioned in the perfect spot, clever fox double backs on himself and you are left all alone, feeling like an idiot!
Author on Fearnought, accompanying whipper-in Sue Downing
More and more, Sue let me go off on my own and figure my way back to the hounds. The heart’s desire of a whipper-in is to always be in front, to have that overwhelming feeling of the world just being you and foxhounds in full cry; however, bringing hounds along is just as important. I watched and listened, soaking it all in like a sponge, trying to understand what the huntsman was saying. If you have ever foxhunted behind an English, Irish, or Welsh huntsman you can understand just how difficult that can be!
I hunted behind Sue for a couple of years, slowly gaining the respect of the huntsman to work as a full whipper-in, and understanding the country. One of the most difficult tasks is learning the country by yourself. When in the main field with everyone else, even if I know where we are, being able to follow someone through the country is much easier than navigating it quite alone. When I was trying to think about where I needed to get to, and where I had come from, it was a challenge, especially as I had to anticipate—hopefully correctly—what might happen next. I learned that my horses often knew more about where we were going than I did.
For any foxhunter, no matter what age, the thrill of whipping-in hugely offsets the agony of being lost, or worse, left behind and of no use at all to the huntsman! The drive to be in the right place at the right time is often defeated by chance. But sometimes chance is on your side, and there is nothing more thrilling than to feel you are at the heart of the sport—quarry sighted, hounds running, your horse on his game, and you are there. If you ever have the opportunity to ride with a whip, for sure say yes!
A horse that loves foxhunting can be your best ally. He listens for hounds to open and instantly starts to dance. Once I started foxhunting seriously, I was lucky enough to have a saint of a pony named Happy Mouse. Every foxhunting day he would be sparkling white and ready to face any coop that I could show him. Before every coop and when the hounds started to speak, Happy would start doing his levade, a slight bounce off of the ground with his front end—never threatening to rear but too excited to not move his front feet! I had a few horses that liked foxhunting but never had the love for it like Happy Mouse, until my current horse Fearnought, who was born to be a foxhunter.
Graduating to Fearnought, my love of whipping-in increased hugely. I hunted with Old Dominion Hounds for three years, as well as hunting behind a highly skilled huntsmen. Every huntsman is different in how he casts his hounds, rewards his hounds, or encourages his hounds. Some huntsmen want to hear a whipper-in but never see them, yet others would rather see you than hear you. Blue Ridge has radios, like most hunts, but Old Dominion Hounds have never used radios. Oddly enough, the staff and hounds almost seem to work better without them. Don’t get me wrong; I have been quite lost and left behind many times, but every time that I found myself alone, I learned more from my mistakes.
I’d like to share one of my favorite foxhunting days. I was on a smallish mare named Puffin who was sixteen hands high, but looked no bigger than fifteen hands. She was quick, and if you did not sit tight, you were separated from her very quickly. I learned the hard way one day, hitting the ground hard when she and I disagreed on which way we were going upon landing after a coop!
On this day, I had never been in the area that we were hunting but hounds were absolutely flying. I took one path after the next, never really having more than a few seconds to think about it. Puffin was flying, and with tears from the wind streaming down my face, all I could think of was: this is what perfection feels like! Hounds were screaming, my horse never took a wrong step, we stayed up with hounds, and we did not get lost! We galloped for twenty minutes through this picture-perfect scene until we came to a sudden stop where the fox had gone to ground in a drain pipe.
I whipped-in to Old Dominion off and on for three seasons. The horses that whip-in never seem to be the ones that people expect could handle it. We would go to Charles Town (our local racetrack) with an empty trailer and come back full with racehorses that did not seem to want to run. All summer we would work with them and let them get used to the noise of the hounds, tractors, cars, and the hunting horn. They would learn all their basic flatwork and jumping and complete their training program for staff horses in three months. Most of them turned out to be reliable horses to be on and did their job with no hesitation. Of course, my favorite days were always on Fearnought, but we did not tell the other horses I rode! Fearnought became a true Jack-of-all-trades. He became the most phenomenal whip’s horse, he was a huntsman’s horse, and I can ride him in the field. No fence could stop him, and even though he does not have the speed of a Thoroughbred (half-Cleveland Bay/half-Thoroughbred), he could out-jump any horse in the hunt field and last for hours.
Since college, I have returned to my home hunt of Blue Ridge and happily hunt once a week on Fearnought. I plan on foxhunting with many more packs but never will I forget what all the huntsmen and hounds have taught me thus far: Just kick on!
Posted September 21, 2017
This article was first published in HARK!, the magazine of the Toronto and North York Hunt. Republished with permission.