Road Adventures: Bull Run March Madness 2017
A mixed pack of Epp Wilson’s Belle Meade hounds from Georgia and Bull Run’s home pack showed sport over five days of hunting to all who gathered for their season-ending March Madness week. / Lori Brunnen photo
My timing was perfect. With Bull Run March Madness now history, I managed to hunt Saturday, go to work on Sunday, and get sick on Monday. During the days before we left for Virginia, with my nerves activated by a recent snow, my anxiety focused on the fear that I would get sick before, or even worse, during our trip. So I am very content to be sneezing and stuffy now. Worse thing is hubby Rick is also now sick. Sicker than me. He is always sicker than me, even if he has the same thing. But this time he really is sick.
Before the trip, my field hunter Ozzy had recently recovered from a bacterial infection, but not before having lost some weight. Not being a good traveler, I did not want him to lose any more weight. So my pale, borderline pony Frankie was pressed into service for this trip. After picking up Mary’s mare Spyder, Mary followed me in her car to our staging area in the Walmart parking lot. Alas, no one thought to grab ourselves a quick Starbucks for the road ahead of time. Traveling solo, Trish’s horse was rocking her trailer, so we moved out pronto. Our four trailers would caravan to Virginia from there following Mary in her car. Mary needed to head home a few days early to put on a bridal shower so she had to drive separately. It is a pretty straightforward trip to the Funny Farm in Reva, Virginia. Plus we have done it before. As the convoy rolled along I was struck again with how beautiful this part of Virginia is. During our trip every time the mountains came into view we would point and exclaim, “Look, a mountain!” Reminding us why we come here.
Tot Goodwin Speaks
Jefferson “Tot” Goodwin whipped-in to Ben Hardaway for over twenty years, then in 1989 became huntsman of the Green Creek Hounds (SC). He’s the only black MFH in America. From a new book, Foxhunters Speak (The Derrydale Press, 2017), here is one of fifty interviews conducted by the author, Mary Kalergis.
Mary will be signing her books at the Virginia Foxhound Show in the Foxhunting Life booth. Come visit!
My granddaddy and dad always hunted dogs, and I started hunting the beagles every weekend when I was about eight years old. Now my granddaddy was a horseman. He used to break and train horses right outside of Columbus, Georgia. He died before I was old enough to really ride, so as a kid, I never had the opportunity to ride any nice horses. My parents had mules that plowed the farm. As a little boy, I never heard of mounted foxhunting. We hunted coons, rabbit, and deer on foot and ate everything we caught. There were sixteen kids in my family, so we never wasted any food.
Larry Wheeler at the Willcox
Cross Gate Gallery (Lexington) has curated a one-man exhibition of paintings by renowned sporting artist Larry Dodd Wheeler at the Willcox Hotel in Aiken, SC. The Opening Reception was held on Feb 24, 2017, and the paintings will hang through April 14.
The Willcox Hotel is a popular Aiken meeting place for horsepeople of many disciplines—foxhunting, eventing, racing, and polo—and Larry Wheeler’s art should find an enthusiastic audience there. Members and hunting visitors from the Aiken Hounds (SC), Whiskey Road Foxhounds (SC), Why Worry Hounds (SC), and Belle Meade Hunt (GA) are seen at the Willcox throughout the season for cocktails and dinner and especially on Hunt Nights (Tuesdays).
MFHA Elects Tony Leahy President; Promises Season of Celebration
MFHA President Tony LeahyTony Leahy, MFH of the Fox River Valley Hunt (IL), was elected to a three-year term as President of the Masters of Foxhounds Association at the Annual Meeting held on Friday, January 27, 2017 in New York. Leslie Rhett Crosby, MFH, Mooreland Hunt (AL) was elected First Vice President and Penny Denegre, MFH, Middleburg Hunt (VA) was elected Second Vice President. Also, David Twiggs was officially confirmed as the MFHA’s new Executive Director.
Retiring Executive Director Dennis Foster will remain at the office for another two months to complete David’s training. Upon his official retirement, Dennis will continue to assist the MFHA in animal rights and other areas, on a consulting basis.
I had the distinct honor of addressing the Annual Meeting crowd, the largest crowd I have ever seen, to relate how special David and his family are, and to explain President Leahy’s vision for an upcoming season of celebration. It was literally standing room only.
Bull Run Hunt On a Spree at Belle Meade
Bull Run’s Spree was the top scoring foxhound in the Belle Meade Hunt Foxhound Performance Trials held in Thomson, Georgia on January 20 and 21, 2017. Of thirty-six hounds competing, Spree won three of the four scoring categories: Hunting, Trailing, and Endurance. In the Full Cry category, he was second.* His combined score led the field in points.
Six foxhounds from each of six hunts competed—Belle Meade Hunt (GA), Bridlespur Hunt (MO), Bull Run Hunt (VA), Farmington Hunt (VA), Fox River Valley Hunt (IL), and Mill Creek Hunt (IL). The three top scoring hunts, based on the combined scores of their hounds from first to third, were: Bull Run, Fox River Valley, and Belle Meade.
Trial Huntsman Sam Clifton was called upon during the award ceremonies to announce his choice—the hound he’d most like to take back to his own kennels. Huntsman’s Choice is an honorary award and receives no official prize, but, as in past trials, Sam’s reasoning for his personal choice was worth hearing.
Hunting Secrets Revealed!
For any huntsman, staff member, or field member, wouldn’t it be helpful to know the specific time intervals on any given day when the fox or coyote is most likely to be afoot? And when it is most likely to be lying up? These times vary each day according not only to the phases of the moon, but are influenced also by how closely the moon rise and moon set correspond to the times of the sunrise and sunset in your particular hunting country.
Wouldn’t it be helpful also to know which specific days of the month you will experience average, good, or best conditions and the recommended time intervals for hunting on those days? There is a fascinating resource on the web that many sportsmen and women—hunters and anglers—use to advantage.
Epp Wilson, MFH and huntsman of the Belle Meade Hunt (GA), refers to this calendar regularly. “The game table predictions are more accurate than not in our experience,” says Epp.
Coyote In the Tunnel
We enjoy publishing hunt reports. The emphasis may be on humor, a unique hunting country, the horse, or the substance of venery, but rarely all that in one package. Epp’s report covers every base, especially substance. In the course of one exciting hunt, the reader is there as the huntsman conjures the best place for the first draw; reads his hounds as individuals; reaps the fruits of hot summer work in the country; assists the Field Master; uses his road whips to advantage when chasing the wide-ranging coyote; makes quick but necessary decisions—right or wrong—to maintain the pace of his hunt and the safety of his hounds; all the while, tuned to the problems of his mount.
Day’s end. / Ed Maxwell photo
The drought in the U.S. Southeast made September, October and November hunting in Georgia some of the most challenging we and the hounds have had in many years. Dust everywhere. Most of the streams long dried up. In others, just pockets of water.
It has been so dry and dusty that the puppies and even some of last year’s entry were tempted to run deer and pigs. Long, boring days where hounds cannot find a coyote to run tempt all but the most deer-broke dogs. We had two days that scent was so bad they could not run a freshly viewed coyote—even when we got them to the view in less than a minute.
Meet David Twiggs: Soon To Be Executive Director of the MFHA
David and Ashley Twiggs
“It’s not often that one’s business and personal passions come together into a single opportunity,” says David Twiggs, the man selected to replace Dennis Foster as the new Executive Director of the MFHA. Dennis will retire on April 1, 2017.
David Twiggs’ business career has flowered from a passion for the successful integration of sporting activities into rural economies and, with an eye for conservation, developing them into widely recognized destinations and living space. He is currently Chief Operating Officer of the 26,000-acre Hot Springs Village in Arkansas, the largest planned sporting community in the country.
Junior Field Hunter Championships: A Big Tree From a Little Acorn
Claire Goff riding Miss Congeniality was judged 1st Field Champion, 13 and over, of the 2016 Junior North American Field Hunter Championships at the finals hosted by the Iroquois Hunt. With Claire are (l-r) Dr. Jack van Nagell, MFH, host, and President of the MFHA; Marion Chungo, organizer; Douglas Wise-Stuart, MFH, Old Dominion Hounds, and co-founder of the event; Cathy Murphy, daughter of the late Pat Murphy, longtime Iroquois huntsman ; and Cindy Goff, Claire’s grandmother and former member of the Iroquois field. And the cute dog is Bert! / Betsy Burke Parker photo
Junior foxhunters and their parents traveled from thirteen states to Lexington, Kentucky, where the Iroquois Hunt hosted the finals of the 2016 Junior North American Field Hunter Championships. Thirty-three hunts participated over the course of the informal season by holding qualifying meets from which the finalists were chosen by mounted judges. In thirteen years, the program has grown steadily in participation and geographically from its modest start involving a few hunts in Virginia.
The program is succeeding because it’s purpose rises above just competition. Founders Douglas Wise, MFH, Old Dominion Hounds (VA) and Iona Pillion from the Blue Ridge Hunt (VA) had a larger dream: bring children to new hunting countries, broaden their hunting perspectives, and open their eyes to the fact that these hunting countries don’t just happen to be there for them by chance, but have been nurtured and conserved for the perpetuation of wildlife, open space, and for those who treasure the natural world.
“We want these kids to know what a conservation easement is,” said Marion Chungo, one of the organizers.
In All Fairness to Horse and Hound
Epp Wilson, MFH wrote this piece for members of the Belle Meade Hunt (GA). Foxhunting Life subscriber Howard Benson suggested that Epp’s recommendations deserve wider distribution. We agree. What follows is a sympathetic, timely, and heartfelt message as only Epp can deliver it!
Master and huntsman Epp Wilson and the Belle Meade hounds / Lauren Giannini photo
The hound-roading or exercise season is a good time to bring out green horses—or horses otherwise not used to hunting and hounds bolting out of the bushes and dashing at them from behind.
It is a lot easier for green horses to process surprises now, while we are just exercising hounds than it is when we are hunting, and their minds are already overwhelmed with the mental challenges of a coyote chase. Frequently the inexperienced horse is already at wit’s end during a coyote run, so, of course, he is more likely to kick a hound.