with Horse and Hound

Whipper-In: What’s In the Name?

This article was first published in 2013. With an archive of thousands of articles available on our website, we hope you will agree that at least a few are worth republishing!

booli selmayr.kirsten edlundBooli Selmayr, professional whipper-in, Millbrook Hunt (NY): “A good day whipping-in is not having to be told, but instead, allowing natural instinct to guide me: listening to the horn and hounds, reading the terrain, and quickly distinguishing whether fox or coyote.” / Kirsten Edlund-Tunkel photoTo the uninitiated, the term whipper-in might conjure images of a callous fellow laying his whip across the backs of hounds for every infraction. In fact, the whip is used primarily for its loud crack as an attention-getter. The explosive noise breaks the concentration of hounds from whatever they are doing that the whipper-in wants to stop.

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