Bull Run Hunt
Performance Trial Champions Shine
-Bull Run is Champion Hunt; Goodwin’s Indigo is Champion Foxhound.
-Bull Run shows pack depth with four hounds scoring in the top twenty-five percent of the pack of previously qualified hounds.
-Goodwin’s Indigo is champion foxhound, amassing the highest individual score of all fifty-four hounds in the pack.
Guest huntsman Tony Leahy, MFH, and his pack of finalists. / Mark Jump Photography
Fifty-four foxhounds from twenty-two hunts across the country converged at the J. Robert Gordon Field Trial Grounds in Hoffman, North Carolina, to compete in the Championship Performance Trial finals this year. How does a hound qualify for the finals? It finishes among the top-ten hounds in any one of the regional qualifying trials held around the country over the season. On March 25, 2022, these proven hounds convened to be numbered and to duke it out over the next two days of hunting as a high-octane pack.
Guest huntsman for this talented pack was Tony Leahy, MFH and huntsman of the Fox River Valley Hunt (IL) for the past twenty-six years and a former president of the MFHA of North America. The venue was worthy of the caliber of the competitors: nine thousand acres of flat, sandy footing, streams and natural growth, no obstacles or jumps to slow down the mounted judges, and sand roads and fire lanes to traverse. The grounds are stocked annually with three-thousand quail, but the foxes and coyotes remain undisturbed all year.
A Storybook Pack
Each hound in this pack is a top-ten qualifier from one of nine qualifying foxhound performance trials held across North America this season.
Trial Huntsman Epp Wilson and his guide, huntsman Graham Buston, in the Blue Ridge country / Joanne Maisano photo
This Blog is to celebrate an exclusive pack of foxhounds that will hunt the fox at the J. Robert Gordon Field Trial Grounds in Hoffman, North Carolina, from March 25−27, 2022. The hound that earns the top score in this trial will be named the 2022 National Champion Performance Trial Foxhound.
Each hound in this unique pack earned its place by qualifying in one or more two-day performance trials held over this season from coast to coast. To qualify for this, the National Championship Performance Trial, each hound here compiled a score during its qualifying trial that placed it among the top-ten scoring hounds in that trial.
Why should that matter to hunt officers, Masters, huntsmen, hound breeders, and field members?
The First Flight
An ode to the “gallant First Flight,” this is one Ogilvie poem that your editor has too often overlooked. No longer!
By John F. Herring
While there’s one on his feet with a tale to repeat
And another is sampling a drink,
The eager First Flight have a girth to pull tight
Or a chain to let out by a link;
While the boisterous laugh in that circle of chaff
The opening music has drowned,
You will hear the First Flight as they whisper “That’s right!’
To the note of a favorite hound.
Bull Run/Blue Ridge Foxhound Performance Trial
Middleburg Brings a Lovable Veteran; Blue Ridge Shows Depth
Trial Huntsman Epp Wilson, MFH, Belle Meade, leading hounds, is ready to mount up and move off for the second day of the Bull Run/Blue Ridge Performance Trials. Directly behind is his guide through the country, Blue Ridge huntsman Graham Buston. Judge Grosvenor Merle-Smith, ex-MFH, is on foot. The faces visible behind Grosvenor are (l-r) Lindsay LeHew, her father, Jeff LeHew, MFH, Blue Ridge, Anne McIntosh, MFH, Blue Ridge, and whipper-in Ross Salter. / Joanne Maisano photo
The fourth Foxhound Performance Trial of the 2021/2022 season was hosted jointly by the Bull Run Hunt and the Blue Ridge Hunt in Virginia. Hounds hunted on Saturday, October 23, 2021, in the Bull Run hunting country of open farmland, fields, and woods, followed by dinner and first-day awards. On Sunday, October 24, hounds hunted in the Blue Ridge country by the western banks of the Shenandoah River through open flood plains, over scarcely negotiable cliffs above the river, through woods, and across open farmland.
Hounds from eight hunts competed: Blue Ridge Hunt, Bull Run Hunt, Deep Run Hunt (VA), Farmington Hunt (VA), Marlborough Hunt (MD), Middleburg Hunt (VA), Rappahannock Hunt (VA), and Thornton Hill Hounds (VA).
Performance Trial Hounds to Vie for National Championship
Mission Valley 2018 Performance Trials: Fort Leavenworth Tracker 2010 (#71) was overall High Point foxhound after two days of hunting. / Allison Howell photo
The schedule of Foxhound Performance Trials for the 2021/2022 foxhunting season has been released by Trial Chairman Fred Berry, MFH, Sedgefield Hounds (NC). Nine qualifying trials will be run across the country, and the tenth and final trial will crown a Grand Champion and the top ten performance hounds in North America.
"'Pretty is as pretty does' really applies to foxhounds," says Fred. The Brits invented mounted foxhunting and hound show, but they shouldn’t have stopped there.
The Hunting Horn: What to Know and How to Know It
A Conversation with the Author, Grosvenor Merle-Smith
The Hunting Horn: What to Know and How to Know It, Grosvenor Merle-Smith, introduction by Tony Leahy, former president, MFHA, Dementi Milestone Publishing, 2021, hardcover, landscape, color, 8.5 x 11 inches, 288 pages, ISBN 978-1-7360885-5-5, $75.00. Order from the website, or contact via email.
Grosvenor Merle-Smith’s new book is a labor of love. Between its covers, you’ll find everything you ever wanted to know―even things you never knew you wanted to know―about hunting horns.
Your editor knows of no resource that compares to this meticulously researched, artistically designed, and lavishly produced book. The book’s title and cover design were heavily influenced, with the author’s tongue in his cheek, by an old pamphlet written by L.C. Cameron for Köhler and Sons, The Hunting Horn: What to Blow and How to Blow It. That pamphlet was the subject of a recent Foxhunting Life article. For any foxhunting library, these two publications―Merle-Smith’s and Cameron’s―constitute the sum and substance of just about all that's known concerning the hunting horn, its history, materials, manufacture, sources, and music used in hunting the fox with hounds.
Liam Clancy: Foxhunter, Artist
“Elegance.” Maureen Conroy Britell out with the Piedmont Fox Hounds (VA). Acrylic paint on textured acrylic paper.
Irish artist Liam Clancy made a fast tour of the Virginia and Maryland hunting countries during the first week of March 2020—just before the world stopped in its tracks as the result of COVID. He got in some hunting, both mounted and on foot, and he gathered material for his work—painting commissions.
Liam works mostly in acrylic paint, which he likes for its versatility. “I can dash off something that looks like a watercolor, or build up a painting in layers as you would with oils,” he explains.
Shawnee Hounds Top the Hunts at Belle Meade Performance Trials
Coming through the pecan grove at the Larry Knox summer house / Allison Howell photo
Three foxhounds from the Shawnee Hounds (IL) finished among the overall top ten scorers (out of twenty-four hounds that completed the trials) propelling Shawnee to first place among the six other competing hunts. Following Shawnee, in order of finish, were Hillsboro Hounds (TN) second and Tennessee Valley Hunt (TN) third. Other competing hunts were Belle Meade Hunt (GA), Midland Foxhounds (GA), Mission Valley Hunt Club (KS), and Bull Run Hunt (VA). The trials were hosted by Belle Meade in their Thomson, Georgia country on January 17-18, 2020.
Shawnee supporters were ecstatic as the results were announced. Not bad for first-season huntsman Kalie Wallace! Shawnee Master and former huntsman Dr. Mark Smith, who has been the brains behind the hunt’s breeding program, handed the horn over to Kalie at the start of this season.
Like Falling Off a Log
Andy Bozdan hunting the Camargo foxhounds on foot over wet country.
The author, as we reported in our last issue, is the new huntsman at the Camargo Hunt (OH). During his career, Andy Bozdan has served as huntsman in England, Australia, and the U.S. Recently, he’s been whipping-in at the Blue Ridge Hunt (VA). Foxhunting Life asked Andy what it’s like to carry the horn again and be The Man in Front!
So, after a couple of seasons whipping-in to Graham Buston at Blue Ridge Hunt, I took up the horn again at the Carmargo Hunt in Kentucky and Ohio. I can remember one or two of my friends jokingly asking if I’d remember how to blow the horn, or get on the right side of the horse, etc. But it is, for sure, very different when you take on a pack and suddenly ... your it!
Everything becomes your responsibility, and very quickly you have to make decisions on the care of the hounds, how best to hunt the country, and plan ahead with a breeding program. To be honest I’ve been so busy since I arrived here that I have barely had time to stop and think!
Huntsmen On the Move: 2019
Huntsman Steve Farrin, parading Amwell Valley hounds at the Pennsylvania National Horse Show (2013).
It’s time for our annual report on the recent moves of huntsmen across North America. The huntsman is my hero. From the time we mount up and for the few hours that follow, it is he or she most directly responsible for the day’s sport. How the huntsman has bred, trained, deployed, and communicated with his troops—the hounds—has everything to do with the satisfaction of our day in the field.
The moves have been numerous this season, and, in a two cases, we have experienced whippers-in finally achieving their dream of a pack of their own to hunt. We’ll catch up with Alasdair Storer, Andrew Bozdan, Kathryn Butler, Stephen Farrin, Danny Kerr, Emily Melton, and Timothy Michel.
