Lynn Carlisle Breathed Life into her Animal Portraits
Lynn Carlisle was a gifted sporting artist and, though gone, shouldn’t be forgotten. I certainly won’t forget her. Besides my admiration for her artistic talent, I heard coyotes singing for the first time from her back steps in Lexington, Kentucky. (Coyotes hadn’t yet colonized Virginia.) This piece from the Foxhunting Life archives, written by Lynn about her art, was published in January 2012. She was then living in Aiken, SC. Five months later, she was shot dead. Her children maintain a website in her memory and make available prints and stationery bearing reproductions of her animal portraits. -Ed.
For me, drawing animals is an innate gift. My family always had horses, dogs, cats, and all the creatures that we five children could easily collect. At three, my favorite toys were easel and chalk. Recognizing my passion, my parents allowed me to start art lessons at the age of five. By age nine, I was attending all-day class every Saturday at the Art Institute of Chicago, with live models and the entire museum in which to work. It was a young artist’s heaven.
Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Makes Strong Showing at Penn National Hunt Night
Steven Hayes led the Cheshire riders to a strong showing on Hunt Night at the Pennsylvania National Horse Show in Harrisburg on October 17, 2011. Hayes won the Field Hunter Class for riders over thirty-five years of age and the Gentlemen’s Hunter under Saddle Class, riding Clever, owned by Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds (PA). Hayes […]
Why This Foxhunter Cares About Horseracing
Karen L. Myers photo
Over the past couple of months we have run a few News items about the Triple Crown season, kicked off just last Saturday by the Kentucky Derby. We wrote about Uncle Mo, who many in the Thoroughbred industry hoped would be a legitimate Triple Crown contender and breathe new life into the industry. We wrote about Rosie Napravnik who with nearly one thousand wins to her credit hoped to be the first woman to win the Kentucky Derby. True, this isn’t foxhunting, and the question arises whether or not I should be publishing these stories in Foxhunting Life. Why do I?
My answer is because that’s where our great horses come from. The Thoroughbred is the elite athlete of the equine world, and many of our field hunters are off-the-track Thoroughbreds, Thoroughbred crosses, or have Thoroughbred bloodlines in their foundation stock.
If when you take to the field you care at all about grace, generosity, and/or athleticism, you have to thank those bloodlines and those beautiful dreamers—the breeders, trainers, owners, and jocks—who commit their lives, their fortunes, and all their energies to the mostly unforgiving quest of producing a better racehorse. And except for one happy outcome last Saturday, weren’t the hopes of many of those beautiful dreamers cruelly dashed?
Uzi Mows ’em Down at Maury River Hunter Trials
Despite threatening weather, the Second Annual Maury River Hunter Trials were held April 2 and enjoyed by more than seventy competitors, numerous tail-gaters, sponsors, spectators, volunteers, and judges on the rolling cross country fields of the Virginia Horse Center in Lexington, Virginia.
Cheryl Microutsicos and her handsome bay, WoW! Graphic Design’s Up & Coming (a.k.a. Uzi), accumulated the most points in the First Flight Open division to win the Melvin Poe Cup, sponsored by Brooks Cushman of Winbrooke Farm and awarded by the legendary Melvin himself, in attendance with his wife Peggy. Here, Cheryl is congratulated by Melvin and by Brian Ross, co-head of the Virginia Horse Trials.
Just One More Chase
Judy Harris yearns for “Just One More Chase” on her favorite mare, Practice. Bonnie Smith photoI remember the pounding of her strong heart
In sync with mine, she was ready to start.
It was our first morning, a dream come true
Out in the hunt field, alert for a view.
Excitement, adventure and thrills abound
Observe and listen and follow the hounds.
So we kicked on for ten years or more
A bond, a friendship a lasting rapport.
Many years later, she’s fought the good fight
but can no longer carry a rider in flight.
She whinnies from pasture upon my return
Eagerly waiting the day’s story to learn.
Oh, how I wish she were a bit stronger
To carry the saddle, just one day longer
To ride to the hounds, the wind in my face
with my very best friend, just one more chase.
Juniors Meet in Pennsylvania for 2010 Junior North American Field Hunter Championships
Lauren Giannini photo
For their first seven years, the Junior North American Field Hunter Championships took place in Virginia, mostly at Old Whitewood, part of Orange County’s country in The Plains. However, after Alex Matz won the First Flight (12-and-Under) championship in 2009, the notion of staging the next finals in Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire country came to fruition. Blue Ridge Hunt’s David Pawlak partnered with the indubitable Paris to ace the individual test in the First Flight and claim their second consecutive 13-18 championship. Makayla Benjamin (Loudoun West) and Butterfly Painting went home with the reserve tri-color.
Working Your Horse in the Heat of Summer
We’re all busy legging up our horses for the upcoming hunting season now. And the summer has been a scorcher. You’ve no doubt become hot and sweaty while exercising your horse, but did you know that horses are much faster than people to become debilitated by the heat? This weather calls for electrolytes.. The Summer […]
An Unforgettable Field Hunter
Our writer/foxhunter friend Martha Woodham from Georgia has sent us a touching memorial about the life and times of one of the best field hunters in North America. I realize that’s a bold claim, but Martha is telling us about a mare that, at the age of twenty-four, came to Morven Park as the oldest of the sixty top qualifiers from all over the country and placed third in the MFHA Centennial Field Hunter Championship. I watched all those horses go, and they were truly the cream of the crop.
But I have another stake in this story. I had the good fortune to ride that mare with the Bear Creek Hounds (GA) in her twenty-third year, and it was an experience to savor. My visit to Bear Creek constitutes Chapter 18 in my book, Foxhunting Adventures: Chasing the Story, and here’s an excerpt: