Fairfax Hunt
The Country Life of an Artist
“The Country Life of an Artist: How Christmas Cards Tell My Story,” Anita Baarns, Dog Branch Publishing LLC, 2020, 205 pages, 281 works of art, spot gloss varnished, hardcover in Full Sierra cloth, 11-1/4 x 8-3/4, $67.80 (tax included).
Christmas cards help tell the story of an artist’s life.
Review by Norman Fine
Talented animal artist Anita Baarns has produced an intriguing and intimate book about her art and how art relates to her very self. Richly made and oversized in a landscape format to better display the artwork, her book is filled with examples rendered in pencil, charcoal, ink, pastel, watercolor, oil, and...yes...even crayon. In it she shows and tells a story of discovering, appreciating, experimenting, and continually developing her own talents and techniques as an artist.
Falling Off
No fear, suspended
in slow time.
Afterward,
recite your name,
say you’re fine.
Believe it.
Climb back on to prove it.
Ride along, wondering
how you got to Goose Creek –
Albert Poe, Dead at 87
Albert Poe was huntsman of the Middleburg Hunt (VA) for 15 years before retiring from an illustrious career breeding and hunting old Virgnia Bywaters type foxhounds. / Douglas Lees photo
Albert Poe died on Saturday night, May 18, 2019. He was arguably the finest American-born professional breeder of foxhounds of our time. Along with his brother, Melvin, the pair have to be considered the two most storied American-born professional huntsmen that any foxhunter living today could have followed across the country.
Melvin might have been considered the more gregarious personality, but Albert, in his quiet way, was extremely articulate. He could put into words the hunting wisdom which developed perhaps instinctively.
How Randy Rouse’s National Fence Saved Steeplechasing
Steeplechase horses swish through the man-made national fences routinely at most hurdle races around the country today. Brush fences were once expensive and time-consuming to set up, and racetracks were dropping steeplechase races from their cards. / Joanne Maisano photoIt was autumn of 1973, and the world was in turmoil. U.S. forces were pulling out of Vietnam, the Watergate scandal was rocking the nation, and a looming energy crisis was getting global traction.
The steeplechase circuit, too, was in a state of flux. The year before, the bottom had fallen out of the industry. New York basically kicked out the jumpers and went from eighty-three jump races at Belmont, Aqueduct, and Saratoga in 1970 to fifteen in 1973. And those were at Saratoga only.
Huntsman Donald Philhower Is Recipient of the Ian Milne Award
Ian Milne Award winner Donald Philhower, huntsman, Millbrook Hunt (NY) with his pack of attentive and adoring hounds / Capturing Moments Photography
The MFHA’s Ian Milne Award is a serious tribute to accomplished huntsmen across North America. It is awarded periodically to a huntsman of sound character who has made outstanding contributions to the sport of foxhunting. Recipients of the Ian Milne Award have learned the hard lessons of the field and the kennels as well as in life, and they have learned to do it right.
This year, that honoree is Donald Philhower, huntsman for the Millbrook Hounds in New York State. Consider the namesake whom the award personifies.
Ian Milne was respected and liked by all. His hunt service began in England and continued until his last breath here in North America. He was a genuine friend and a generous mentor to aspiring and established huntsmen. He was a gentleman, honest as the day is long, and he lived for hounds and hunting.
Randy Rouse, MFH and Steeplechase Icon, Dies at 100
Randy Rouse on his steeplechase champion Cinzano. The pair went to the starting line 11 times, and won every race. / Douglas Lees photo
Randolph D. “Randy” Rouse—Master of Foxhounds, retired champion race rider, Thoroughbred trainer, musician, and national steeplechase icon, died early Friday, April 7, 2017 at age one-hundred.
He was the oldest trainer in North American Thoroughbred history to saddle a winner, ever. He was ninety-nine last April when his Hishi Soar won the Daniel Van Clief Memorial at Foxfield Spring Races. This season, at age one hundred, just one week before his death, he sent Hishi Soar to the starting line again and won the Open Hurdle Race at the Orange County Point-to-Point in Virginia.
Randy Rouse, 100, Sets New American Record at Orange County
Hishi Soar, owned and trained by Randy Rouse wins the Locust Hill Open Hurdle Race with Gerard Galligan in the irons. / Douglas Lees photo
In May, last year, at age ninety-nine, Randy Rouse, MFH of the Loudoun Fairfax Hunt (VA), saddled his Hishi Soar, put Gerard Galligan up, and won the featured race at Foxfield in Charlottesville—the sanctioned $25,000 Daniel Van Clief Memorial optional allowance hurdle. That feat made Rouse the oldest American ever to train a Thoroughbred winner.
Last Saturday, April 2, 2017, Rouse, brought Hishi Soar to the Orange County Point-to-Point Races at Locust Hill Farm, put Galligan up again, and won the Open Hurdle Race in a five-horse field. That feat, by our reckoning, makes Mr. Rouse the first one-hundred-year-old American ever to train a Thoroughbred winner.
Hooking Kids With a Junior Hound Clinic
Juniors love to go hunting, but for them isn’t it mostly about the rider and his or her horse? How about the hounds? Couldn’t we set the foxhunting hook deeper by connecting interested juniors with hounds as well?
Huntsman and whipper-in, Andy and Erin Bozdan, spend a day with the Loudoun Fairfax juniors acquainting them with hounds. /
The Loudoun Fairfax Hunt (VA) is thinking about just that. They are hosting a Junior Hound Clinic this summer—a one-day affair, easy to put on. I’ve long been involved with hound programs for juniors and this is one idea that I hope appeals to other hunts.
Newsmakers at Virginia
C. Martin Wood, III, MFH / Nancy Kleck photoFoxhounds weren’t the only newsmakers at the Virginia Foxhound Show. A few people were worth noting as well!
Huntsmen’s Room
Three individuals were introduced for induction into the Huntsmen’s Room of the Museum of Hounds and Hunting in ceremonies on Saturday evening. Before dinner under the tent, Jake Carle, ex-MFH, spoke eloquently, reverently, and at the right times humorously about the three men who have hunted hounds with distinction for many years: C. Martin Wood, III, MFH, Live Oak Hounds (FL), G. Marvin Beeman, MFH, Arapaho Hunt (CO), and the late Jim Atkins who hunted hounds for the Piedmont Fox Hounds, Old Dominion Hounds, and the Warrenton Hunt, all in Virginia.
G. Marvin Beeman, MFH Huntsman Jim Atkins
In the Footsteps of a Huntsman
From London's streets to Virginia’s hunt country
Huntsman Andy Bozdan and the Loudoun Fairfax hounds / Laura Riley photo
The job: huntsman. The man: Andrew Bozdan—leader of fifty couple of Old English foxhounds. One hundred canines. How is this possible? In all my life as a dog owner, I’ve only had a handful who actually came when I called. How is it that we mortals have such difficulty in getting our dogs to sit and come and not potty in the house, while this man steers his entire pack in an apparently seamless manner.
The answer is, as always, nothing is ever as easy as it looks. Before the man appears in public, seated atop his skewbald gelding, wearing his scarlet coat, and blowing his copper horn to speak to the mass of hounds seething below, one heck of a lot of work happens and many miles are traveled.
