Tracy Cover’s Brandywine Is Virginia Field Hunter Champion
Tracey Cover receives Championship trophy from (l-r) Catherine Berger and Linda Armbrust, MFH. / Betsy Parker photo
Tracey Cover from the Middleburg Hunt swept the boards at the 2013 Virginia Field Hunter Championship on Sunday, October 20 with her elegant bay, Brandywine. Judged Best Turned Out early in the day, she went on to win the 2013 Virginia Field Hunter Championship against a highly competent field of riders on some brilliant field hunters. The event had been postponed one week due to a three-day rainfall that dumped seven inches of rain on Virginia’s hunting country.
This year’s championships were hosted by the Blue Ridge Hunt at Woodley in recognition of Barbara Batterton’s win on Linda Armbrust’s Nicki in 2012. Woodley, the home of Brooke and Michelle Middleton, is the well-known venue for the Blue Ridge Hunt Point-to-Point Races and the Blue Ridge Fall Races. Spectators are able to view nearly the entire racecourse panorama from a gently rising hillside along the eastern edge of the course.
The Clipper that Stands in the Stall at the Top
Illustration by Lionel EdwardsNot long ago we polled our readers and were pleased to find that the great majority of you enjoyed reading the classic foxhunting poems. Here’s one such classic that to me best expresses the pride, gratitude, and love the foxhunter feels for that one special horse—the most generous, the most reliable, the most gentlemanly of all we’ve had—that takes us over the day’s obstacles and brings us safely home.
Go strip him, lad! Now, sir, I think you’ll declare
Such a picture you’ve never set eyes on before,
He was bought in at Tatt’s for three hundred I swear,
And he’s worth all the money to look at, and more;
For the pick of the basket, the show of the shop,
Is the Clipper that stands in the stall at the top.
In the records of racing I read their career,
There was none of the sort that could gallop and stay,
At Newmarket his sire was the best of the year,
And the Yorkshiremen boast of his dam to this day;
But never a likelier foal did she drop
Than this Clipper that stands in the stall at the top.
Foxhunter/Patriot to Be Honored in Bronze
Jonas Cattell from “Memoirs of the Gloucester Foxhunting Club” by William Milnor, Jr., Philadelphia, 1830Jonas Cattell, foxhunter and revolutionary hero, will be honored with a seven-foot bronze statue to be erected in Haddonfield, New Jersey. We foxhunters know about Cattell’s exploits in the hunting field thanks to Alexander Mackay-Smith’s classic book, The American Foxhound: 1747–1967, but I never knew about Cattell’s heroism during the American Revolution. He turned the misfortune of his arrest by Hessian mercenaries into advantage for the Colonial cause.
Cattell whipped-in for the Gloucester Foxhunting Club, the first organized foxhunting club in North America. It was founded in 1766 by a group of Philadelphia gentlemen and named for Gloucester County, New Jersey, directly across the Delaware River. According to Mackay-Smith, quoting Clifton Lisle describing their sport, “When Cupid, the huntsman who succeeded Old Natty, was in the saddle with Jonas Cattell whipping-in to him, amazing runs were made.”
“In 1798, for example, one is recorded that went to Salem, a distance of forty miles by the map from find to kill. Another ended on the ice of the Delaware, a Jersey fox crossing it with fifteen couple of hounds not a hundred yards from his brush—to be rolled over just short of the Jersey shore. Robert Wharton, president of the club at that time, was the first man up, next to Jonas Cattell, the whipper-in, who had crossed the river on foot.”
Field Hunter Championship of North America Is Scheduled
The 2013 Field Hunter Championship of North America will be held in Virginia from Monday, September 30 to Sunday, October 6. Competitors will hunt four days, with fixtures at Keswick Hunt, Casanova Hunt, Snickersville Hounds, and Piedmont Fox Hounds. The Finals will be held on Sunday, October 6 at Glenwood Park. The final day at […]
D. Harcourt Lees, Jr., ex-MFH
In nearly a half century of foxhunting, I have never seen a more handsome, elegant, and classically turned-out man astride a horse in the hunting field than Harcourt Lees. Nor did I ever meet a kinder or more pleasant gentleman in the hunting field. For me, he epitomized the grace and courtliness of a bygone age. It was an honor to know him, and I shall never forget him. What follows is the obituary of this sportsman/businessman/civic leader as released. -Ed.
With the passing of Douglas Harcourt Lees Jr. on July 21, Warrenton and Fauquier County, Virginia lost not only a respected businessman and sportsman but also a living link to a simpler time of grace and civility. Mr. Lees, 91, suffered a stroke on July 9 and was hospitalized briefly before returning to “Blackrock,” the Lees’ family home on Springs Road.
Foxhunter Stimulates Children to Read
Karin Winegar brought her horse and her book for a show-and-tell and book reading.
Foxhunting Life is always mining for a good story. And so, upon the conclusion of each hunting season we ask (on our FaceBook page), “What do you do in the off-season?” We got a dandy answer (and a story!) from author/journalist/foxhunter Karin Winegar of St. Paul, Minnesota. She’s introducing inner-city youngsters to horses and reading.
Karin, whose reports from Ireland and New Zealand you have seen on FHL, recently held a reading at Folwell School in Minneapolis for her first children’s book, Tina of Grand Avenue (Horsefeed Press). Tina was born too small and had an imperfect leg, but she had an “I can do it!” attitude that made her fearless, so Karin donated her to the St. Paul Mounted Patrol. Tina went through special training, encountering everything from sirens to gunfire. Karin’s book tells the true story of Tina’s adventures and her career with Officer Mark.
Betty Davis, ex-MFH, Dead at Ninety
Mrs. Putnam (Betty) Davis, ex-MFH of the Rombout Hunt and the Stone Valley Hunt (NY) for over thirty years, passed away peacefully on Sunday, June 2, 2013. She was ninety years old. A passionate foxhunter, she also served on the MFHA Board of Directors for her district. Betty was raised in New York City, spending […]
Hunting with Dogs in New York City
An unregistered pack of dogs is hunting in New York City according to Fox News. The Ryders Alley Trencher-fed Society has been meeting weekly at promising fixtures throughout the city for about ten years. Recently they met near City Hall on a couple of nights to draw the nearby alleys with two Border Terriers, a […]
Blue Ridge Runs Postponed Point-to-Point
Whodoyoucallit (Woods Winants) wins Novice Timber. / Liz Callar photoThe Blue Ridge Hunt Point-to-Point Races, originally scheduled for Saturday, March 9 but postponed due to a snowstorm, were finally held on a sunny but cool Sunday, April 21, 2013—six weeks later. A good crowd of spectators enjoyed a brilliant day out-of-doors, but entries were down with the sanctioned Middleburg Spring Races having been run the day before.
Eva Smithwick—2012 leading trainer in Virginia—saddled two winners for Indian Run Farm, both ridden by Woods Winants. Fogcutter, with two previous hurdle wins at Thornton Hill and Old Dominion, won the Amateur/Novice Rider Hurdle, and Whodoyoucallit, with a win earlier in the season at Thornton Hill, won the Novice Timber. Neither horse was seriously challenged.
Unmanned Drones to Spy on Foxhunters in England
The League Against Cruel Sports (LAS) has announced its intention to use unmanned drones with video cameras to bolster their prosecutions in court against illegal hunting in England. A spokesman said they would provide the evidence to police. The LAS claims that the airspace above private property is free and open to their surveillance. They […]