Teagan, celebrating her fourth birthday on her first hunt. Mom has the lead line, but our author took over on foot and learned a lot of hunting wisdom from her youthful charge. / Lori Brunnen photo.
This is a foxhunting forum and I do realize that is what readers come to read about. Still I would like to share one personal thing. My husband of forty-two years died on June 10th, 2018 just four months after being diagnosed with an inoperable malignant brain tumor. His name was Rick. Four months of disbelief, struggle, suffering, and finally grief. Moving to a new place last September with the horses following in December left me missing the first half of the 2019 season as well as the last half of 2018.
Starting mid-season is a little more difficult than during the traditional slower start with cub hunting. I found myself with an unfit horse with hunting in full swing. As a full member of one hunt and an associate member of another, 2019 was an expensive season with little to show for it. Retired since March and living alone for the first time in my life, I thought that going out with two small private packs as well would have provided me with ample opportunities. Still, it had been a struggle to actually get myself out.
I spent a beautiful, mild day with a small private pack in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The past two Sundays had apparently produced hunts with a blistering pace, but this day was quiet. A huntsman, two whips, and two in the field—the Master/huntsman’s Mom and I. The fixture is trappy with lots of bushwhacking and water crossings through mostly woods. This is one of my favorite times of year to hunt since the lack of leaves gives me an unobstructed view of hounds. And the small pack worked honestly and methodically but the scent appeared to be spotty. It was quiet. The huntsman encouraged hounds quietly while we stood and watched them work. His cheerful words and the hounds were the only sounds.
This was my fourth hunt with this pack. My second was a joint meet between the two private packs—their first joint meet. The expected small group suited my mule Moses so I brought him. He had been out hunting before but not yet this season. The first time we hunted here we parked by the house. Since there were more of us for the joint meet we parked next to the kennels. The commotion of hounds left behind jacked up my jack, but he soon settled once we were moving. Heavy rains had the numerous creek crossings steep and deep. And, thankfully, too wide for Moses to jump.
He jumps like a kangaroo, both taking off and landing on his hindlegs. They say that if mules were easy, everyone would have one. Eventually I was met with a rocky bank and a creek begging to be jumped. Picturing myself falling onto the rocks and shattering like a lightbulb on impact, I excused myself (chickened out) and headed back alone. Never thinking that I would have to negotiate the first nasty crossing alone. Which we did without drama. Quickly rejoining the field, we emerged from the mist like your worst nightmare.
Much of the exhilaration of foxhunting was absent. No wild gallops, big jumps, long runs or cracking whips. It made me question what is it about foxhunting that fills me with such satisfaction? If not the hell-bent-for-leather running and jumping to keep up with hounds, what is it? Why do I not feel complete or happy without it? What drives me to do it? What about the sport obsesses me so? Can I even call myself a “real” foxhunter without these elements as an integral part of the sport?
The answer is watching hounds work. Simply watching hounds working together to unravel scent. Sterns swaying. The pack honoring and running in from different directions. Watching them streak away on a line. Hounds working against a rocky hill with snow. Watching them work in the winter with no leaves on the trees. Seeing soybeans move knowing the hounds are in there but unseen. Tail tips poking above beans. Hearing them rattling through standing corn. Rustling through fallen leaves. And viewing the fox. Once I view that fox I say, “I can die now.”
2020. What a year. And it is not over yet. Still, with the sale of the home I shared with my husband for twenty years finalized this summer, the completion of lengthy renovations and my final move completed a year ago, I hoped that I would now be able to resume hunting regularly. It has not actually worked out the way I had hoped it would. And that is okay. I find I am able to take these smaller disappointments in stride. Maybe not immediately, but in the end they feel of little consequence compared to recent tragedies and a global pandemic.
Cub hunting was difficult for a few reasons. First was the pre-dawn start time. I am fully aware of why we do it. It has always been one of my favorite times even though, in a perfect world, I would have four hours between opening my eyes and actually doing anything. Unfortunately my move has put me at least thirty minutes further from the fixtures. Without electricity in the barn the only horses I can actually see in the dark are the cremello driving horse and the flea bitten bucker who is currently in bucking reform school. Of course they are always waiting at the gate.
An hour-and-a-half into one hunt made me fear I had undone all the driving horse’s seventy-dollar-per-hour lessons. My primary hunt horse has been trying to tell me for the past few years that he would like to retire by making himself invisible—plastered against the farthest fence somewhere in the dark. I would have to find him by the whites of his piggy little eyes. So although I did get out acouple of times I largely skipped cub hunting. I can hear generations of “real” foxhunters collectively tsk-tsk this obstascle with their own tales of sleeping standing up fully kitted-out before they trudged through the predawn darkness at three am, uphill both ways, in a blizzard, to the fixture carrying their horses on their backs. Been there and done that. Just not this season, and I can live with it. Missing some hunting is no longer the tragedy it once seemed two years ago. Could it possibly be two years? It still feels like yesterday.
Yesterday I had one of my best days foxhunting ever and I walked the whole way. On foot. Again with a private pack. The Last Chance Hounds is a Penn-Marydel bi*ch pack. PMDs are my favorite hound for both my chosen pace and local territory. They are slower, methodical, and have beautiful voices. A plus are their long ears and slightly saggy baggy exterior.
I’ve been hunting my twenty-year-old Thoroughbred who also wants to retire since he was five. For thirteen of those years he hunted twice a week. He is not a naturally bold horse but is such a gentleman and does his job unfailingly. He led the field for a decade. Traveled for Hunt Weeks. So for him to lose his mind over the presence of a molly mule was very out of character. Especially considering he shares his pasture with a mule. And a donkey. It was not clear to me if he thought the mule was Moses or what was going on but he lost his mind.
“George Harne had just had a haircut. The baby had no hair at all.” / Lori Brunnen photo
For the first time in fifteen years I was afraid to be on him. He was balled up, threatening to rear, and I dismounted and put him back on the trailer fully tacked. Hounds had barely exited their trailer. Prepared to descend into crankiness and a powdered sugar vanilla cream donut, I spotted George Harne waiting to follow by car. Grabbing my mask I sprinted for his wife’s little sedan asking if I could join his little group which included the landowner cradling her seven week old great-grandson. I shared the back seat with a photographer and a Jack Russell. From the back of his head I could tell George had just had a haircut. The baby had no hair at all.
The landowner’s great-grand-daughter, Teagan, was celebrating her fourth birthday with her first foxhunt. She was being led by her Mom who was also astride. When Mom’s borrowed horse objected to being left behind by the field, I offered to lead the little girl. That is where my day went from simply pleasant to spectacular.
Rick and I never had children but we both had a massive softspot for them. (Rick volunteered at a friend’s kindergarten class which I took over.) When hounds spoke the child shushed me with a raised finger and told me, “The hounds are talking to the fox. We need to stay back.” Going up hill she told me, “I have to lean forward.” Going down hillshe told me, “I have to lean back.” She held onto the horn of her little western saddle with one hand and the reins of her thirty-seven-year old pony with the other. The same pony her Mom learned to ride on when she was a child. She had lost her cowboy boots (a birthday present) on the road so she was riding in her socks. She talked non stop. Between the crunch of the fallen leaves her pony was stirring up and my social distance I missed much of what she was saying but itdidn’t seem to matter. She told me to never take a ride from a stranger because they will take you and “throw you in a pond.” She told me she had two cats and two dogs. She was sure she heard and saw the fox multiple times. If her Mom’s horse took a misstep ahead of us she yelled ahead, “Knock it off!” Crossing a small bridge over a creek she said, “Let’s stop here for a while.” And we did, standing together in silence.
When hounds could be once again heard but not yet seen we walked back to the car followers and her Dad who was following on a gator with her older brother who was on crutches. She assured me, “He will get better.” In Dad’s arms sleeping, with his perfectly round, perfectly bald head at an impossible angle, was her seven-week-old brother. It was a warm day so I lifted her off her pony and she prepared to tie the reins to the gator. I told her I would hold the pony. I took off her little blue hunt coat and her helmet. Grandma had a juice box for her and a bottle of water for me. When the field returned she declined a ride back in the car and we followed them back to the trailers.
I told Teagan that my horse had gone “crazy” so I was able to walk with her and was having more fun with her than if I had ridden. I told her I had a big black horse that I was hoping to hunt. She said maybe I could come back with my big black horse and foxhunt with her again. Because she wants to go again. Hounds, kids, open country, family and friends on a beautiful fall day. My little charge and I did not get to see much hound work but we could hear them and anticipated correctly which way they were headed. It was one of the best days I have ever had hunting, although some may argue we were hunting at all.
Respecting his recently disclosed wishes, my aged Thoroughbred Ozzy has now been retired, sound, after fifteen years of flawless work in the hunt field.
Posted November 23, 2020