Betsy Parker
Puppy Walkers Gone Wild
l-r: huntsman Chris Cerrone (hunting horn by Bounty), first whipper-in Annabelle Whitticar,
honorary whippers-in Ainsley Colgan (7) and Sam Homeyer (9), kennelman Jean Simpson with
Old Dominion hound puppies Feagan (front), Febe (behind left), Fever (behind right) on walk
Betsy Parker photo
What better way to introduce summer campers to foxhunting than by bringing a foxhound puppy or two on the trail ride with the other dogs and then writing it up in the form of a formal hunt report? Good for the puppies to be exposed to all the sights and sounds in the woods and good for the campers who have a fun ride and learn about hunting. All it takes is a multi-talented camp director like Betsy Parker. -Ed.
July 24, 2013, 7:30 am meet at Hunter’s Rest (site of the old Old Dominion Hounds kennels), Flint Hill, Virginia.
Air temp 71 degrees at first cast. BP 29.73 and rising. Breeze variable 3-6 mph from the east/northeast. Fine overcast, cool and cloudy.
Staff: Huntsman Chris Cerrone, first whipper-in Annabelle Whitticar, amateur whippers-in Ainsley Colgan and Sam Homeyer, kennelman Jean Simpson
Hunted hounds: two couple. Old Dominion Feagan, Hunters Rest Mel, Nap and Sneak. (Old Dominion Febe and Fever were left in kennels.)
The pack moved off promptly at 7:29 am from kennels, drawing east toward the Jordan River. Whips rode wide to keep young entry on track as the field jogged along the “Aiken Line” and followed Linden Lane and Redbud Lane to first covert.
The Turning Point
Steve Price and Frosty test their mettle at Old Dominion / Tom Sullivan photoI wouldn’t consider myself a real foxhunter.
True, I’ve ridden to hounds several times, but always more like a spectator than a participant. This September, however, I had an awakening!
Thanks to the good graces of my friends Betsy Parker, proprietor of Hunter’s Rest in Flint Hill, and Norman Fine, of Millwood (and Foxhunting Life), I’ve been wending my way for the past four years from my New York City home to steep myself in semiannual Virginia equestrian sprees. Trail riding on Betsy’s school horses and on one of Norm’s hunters, Guitar, is the primary lure. In addition, Norm has taken me hunting with the Blue Ridge Hunt in the hilltopping field.
Whiskey Road Hunt Week, Aiken, SC
Installment Six
Whiskey Road huntsman Joseph Hardiman takes hounds, staff and field for a long day's hunting.Betsy and friends escape frozen Virginia for a week of hunting in warmer climes. We bring you Installment Six of her daily blog, exclusive to Foxhunting Life.
Whiskey Road Hunt Week, Aiken, SC
Installment Five
Whiskey Road MFH David Smith (left) greets Toronto and North York MFH Wolf von Teichman.Betsy and friends escape frozen Virginia for a week of hunting in warmer climes. We bring you Installment Five of her daily blog, exclusive to Foxhunting Life.
Monday was an open day. Gene and Barbara Hough joined me, Tom, Jackie, and Don for a hack in the Hitchcock Woods. We grabbed lunch at Rio Pablo, an excellent Cuban place downtown. There was a benefit for the Hitchcock Woods Foundation that night at the Wilcox Hotel, one of the town's oldest and most grand buildings.
Tuesday dawned cold and frosty but with that promise of spring in the air. There was a pretty good breeze, though, and I was uncertain of scenting conditions as we headed east towards Bill Scott's Fairview fixture near Lexington.
The Scotts own thousands of acres of managed timberland—pine forests cut for pulpwood and lumber—providing excellent habitat for game of all sizes. Gene Hough told me about hunting at Fairview a few years ago when the hounds held a four hundred-pound boar at bay until the huntsman dispatched it (then famously burned it at a pig roast later!).
Whiskey Road Hunt Week, Aiken, SC
Third Installment
Betsy and friends escape frozen Virginia for a week of hunting in warmer climes. We bring you Installment Three of her daily blog, exclusive to Foxhunting Life.Don Palus and Jackie Burke are ready for the Ball!
I know we need the rain, but, for gosh sakes ...who ordered El Nina?
Just as the weatherman warned, one hundred percent chance of cold, nasty, persistent rain today. Whiskey Road Master David Smith swore at last night's party—a humdinger of a time at new Folly downtown on Laurens Street (precious classic housewares and nifty interior items)—that the hunt would go on, weather or not. My crew consulted briefly at bedtime last night and agreed to put off a decision until the morning.
We heard the rain pelting the tin roof of our cottage all night, and it was without dissent that we collectively decided to can hunting. I heard from several other Hunt Weekers who bailed, too, and we saw more Hunt Week folks around town when we went in to check out the Aiken village,
Whiskey Road Hunt Week, Aiken, SC
Second Installment
Betsy and friends escape frozen Virginia for a week of hunting in warmer climes. We bring you Installment Two of her daily blog, exclusive to Foxhunting Life.
(l-r) Whiskey Road Field Master Geri Rapp, Fairfax Hunt members Ray Moffett, and PetraProbably seventy-five riders in the field this morning from the Batesburg fixture. Whiskey Road hosted a stirrup cup and snack before the meet after which huntsman Joseph Hardiman moved off with the mixed English and Penn-Marydel pack, east towards the cow field adjacent to the fixture.
Hounds struck immediately, coyote, probably, a brace or possibly a leash, and split into two or three groups. Hardiman went with one group, Master/whipper-in Lynn Smith with another, and (seemed like) Master David Smith and the main field with still another.
Whiskey Road Hunt Week, Aiken, SC
Betsy and friends escape frozen Virginia for a week of hunting in warmer climes. We bring you her daily blog, exclusive to Foxhunting Life.
First Installment
Don Palus, Dawn Cline, Maggie Johnston, and Jackie Burke stretch their horses' legs in the Hitchcock Woods in preparation for Hunt Week in Aiken, SC.
It poured rain last night. Woke up several times with rain pelting the tin roof of our cottage, but when I opened the door to see if we were going to float away I couldn't help notice it was weirdly warm. Like sixty degrees warm! Odd.
This morning dawned light and sunny and toasty warm. I stripped down to just my turtleneck layer for the horse trials next door.
At Full Gallop Farm, they hold training horse trials—intermediate level all the way down to beginner novice—attracting hundreds of competitors. Our Hunt Week crew is volunteering for duty to "earn" the right to school/ride/hack over their hundreds of acres of cross country jumps, show jumping fences, and dressage arenas.
The Road Warriors: Day Twelve
John makes a sign for the truck window: East Coast or Bust
Photojournalist Betsy Parker, her friend Beth Rera, and Beth’s seven-year-old son John embarked some days ago on a cross-country horse-hauling odyssey—Virginia to California—to include a West Coast summer vacation tour. Since Betsy can be counted on for compelling copy and excellent photography, FHL decided to go along for the ride. Betsy’s earlier reports may be found under the Horse and Hound drop-down menu/Travel.
Beth was the one who first noticed.
Since Utah on the way out, we’ve been in high desert sierra or rocky mountain morraine. It is beautiful out west, but verdant and lush it isn’t.
Yesterday we stopped over at a horse hotel just west of Albuquerque, New Mexico. We’ve grown accustomed to the western horse-keeping style: outdoor covered stall attached to a twelve-by-twelve-square-foot paddock. And that’s all. No communal pastures, not a blade of grass, no group turnout. It’s not wrong or bad, just different.
The Road Warriors: Day Eleven
Betsy Parker
Photojournalist Betsy Parker, her friend Beth Rera, and Beth’s seven-year-old son John embarked some days ago on a cross-country horse-hauling odyssey—Virginia to California—to include a West Coast summer vacation tour. Since summer vacation appealed to us as well, and since Betsy can be counted on for compelling copy, FHL decided to go along for the virtual ride. Betsy’s earlier reports may be found under the Horse and Hound drop-down menu/Travel
I anticipated that today’s adventure at Universal Studios in Hollywood would be so...o...o different, and far less real than last week’s adventure in breathtaking Yosemite National Park. After all, how antipodean....
Yosemite: Natural splendor—one million-plus acres of untrammeled grandeur, the very definition of real.
Universal: Unnaturally gaudy—less than 100 acres, a crush of humanity, miles of pavement, cartoonish reality at the heart of a Hollywood facade.
Still, after you take a good, hard look, you end up with—surprisingly—plenty of the same thing. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
The Road Warriors: Days Eight, Nine and Ten
Glacier Point, nearly 7,500 feet, rises from the 4,000-foot valley floor. The trail, long and arduous, snakes along its face, but the view from the top is grand.
Photojournalist Betsy Parker, her friend Beth Rera, and Beth’s seven-year-old son John embarked some days ago on a cross-country horse-hauling odyssey—Virginia to California—to include a West Coast summer vacation tour. Since Betsy can be counted on for compelling copy and excellent photography, FHL went along for the ride. Betsy’s earlier reports may be found under the Horse and Hound drop-down menu/Travel.
I will compress the last three-and-a-half days of epic tourism into tidy note form. Any of these subjects is deserving of its own report, if not chapter, and in some cases a volume, but I’ll keep to the strictest of pyramid-style reporting.
Left Merced hotel midmorning Tuesday to get to Crane Flat in Yosemite—the only walk-in campground within the Yosemite National Park with any chance of getting a site without twelve-month advance reservations. Pretty drive in, through California farmland. We left the valley about forty miles out from the park and began rising steadily, through changing elevation/topography/flora and, I’m sure, fauna. It got downright breathtaking, with valley views and granite outcroppings after we entered the park proper (Yosemite National Park is surrounded by a million acres of National Forest.)
