college valley
T&NY Littermates Dominate Grand Champion Class at Canadian
Canadian Grand Champion of Show is Toronto and North York Cleopatra 2012 / Mary Raphael photo
Two Toronto and North York littermates have dominated the Grand Champion and Reserve awards at the Canadian Foxhound Show for two years running. The only difference this year was that the dog hound graciously swapped places with his litter sister. On June 6, 2015, in a reversal of fortune, Toronto and North York Cleopatra 2012, last year’s Reserve Grand Champion, was crowned Grand Champion of Show, while her litter brother Clarence, last year’s Grand Champion, settled for Reserve.
The show judges were Major Tim Easby, Director, Masters of Foxhounds Association (UK) and ex-MFH and huntsman of the Middleton and West Yore Foxhounds and Lt. Col. Robert Ferrer, USMC-Retired and MFH, Caroline Hunt (VA).
Cleopatra's sire is Blue Ridge Barnfield 2010 by Duke of Beaufort's Bailey 2003. If Bailey sounds familiar, have a look at the article about this year’s Bryn Mawr Grand Champion, New Market-Middleton Valley Widget, crowned just one week earlier. Widget’s sire was Green Spring Valley Bailey by Duke of Beaufort’s Bailey. That makes two Grand Champions in two weeks whose grand sire is Duke of Beaufort’s Bailey!
The Hardaway-Morgan-Bell Connection
Captain Tom Morgan (seated) presents the Isaac Bell Perpetual Challenge Cup to South Tyrone Foxhounds Honorary Whipper-In Paul Kinane and huntsman Ryan Carvill for Beauty, winning un-entered female hound, at the National Irish Masters of Foxhounds Show. / Noel Mullins photo
The above photograph caught my eye because of the man in the wheelchair, Captain Tom Morgan. The photo is one of several sent by photo/journalist and author Noel Mullins, a regular contributor to Foxhunting Life, reporting on the National Irish Masters of Foxhound Show held on Sunday, July 6, 2014.
Captain Morgan, now in his mid-nineties, is one of the few people still alive who intimately knew and worked closely in his hound breeding program with the late Isaac “Ikey” Bell, father of the modern English foxhound. The only other living individual I know who knew and benefitted from his relationship with Ikey Bell is Ben Hardaway, also in his mid-nineties.
If it weren’t for Ikey Bell and Tom Morgan, Ben Hardaway would not have his Hardaway Crossbred as we know it today. And if it weren’t for Bell, we wouldn’t have the modern English foxhound as we know it today.
