Douglas Lees to Speak, Exhibit Photographs
Douglas Lees photo The photography of Douglas Lees has long been a benchmark of such excellence that Lees has earned the admiration of even the best of his camera-toting peers. Lees will speak and exhibit his photographs on Sunday, March 2, 2014 at 4:00 pm at Blue Ridge Farm, 1858 Blue Ridge Farm Road, Upperville, […]
Maryland and Virginia Lawmakers Consider Sunday Deer Hunting
Karen L. Myers photoA bill to allow the hunting of deer and other wildlife on private property and state waters on Sunday has been passed by the Virginia House of Delegates and sent on to the state Senate for their consideration. Proponents of the bill cite the falling numbers of hunting licenses issued in the state, and believe that Sunday hunting will help stem the loss in revenue.
Maryland lawmakers are also considering the hunting of deer on Sunday, but seemingly for a different reason—the culling of the expanding deer herds.
There is resistance in both states to the enabling legislation. Some of the resistance comes from predictable directions—anti-hunting activists, hikers, trail riders, religious leaders—yet some of the resistance comes from a surprising quarter—foxhunters.
RSPCA Ratchets Up the Pressure Against Foxhunters
In what the Western Morning News calls a “game-changer,” the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) will soon be able to intensify its surveillance of foxhunting practices in England. An article by Martin Bell claims that The League Against Cruel Sports (LACS) has financed the hiring and equipping of ex-armed forces […]
Hunting in Somerset (UK)
Slip into the saddle with Megan Corp as she takes her own line over the hedges of Somerset with the Blackmore and Sparkford Vale Foxhounds. Wait! Tighten your girth.
Belle Meade, Beagles, and Bunnies
Beagle huntsman Dalton Reeves
“My name is Dalton Reeves, I’m eighty years old and a retired high school football coach and teacher, originally from South Carolina,” our huntsman said, introducing himself to his field of foot-followers—mainly foxhunting guests and members participating in Belle Meade’s “Gone Away with the Wind” Hunt Week—some of whom were out beagling for the first time.
“I’m very happy to hear that I’m following an eighty-year-old huntsman,” I replied. “It means I’m not likely to get left too far behind, the prospect of which has been worrying me.”
“No worries,” Mr. Reeves assured me. “I’ve got two knee replacements and one new hip; I don’t travel too fast any more.”
That said, by the time Mr. Reeves brought the beagles in four hours later, I had been back to the deer camp meet three times to stick my boots into a fire blazing in an outdoor pit to thaw my toes. I also had a bite of breakfast and took a side trip with John McNeil, Sr. to the Rock House—thought to be the oldest house in the state of Georgia—previously a part of the McNeil property, over which the beagles were hunting, but now in the hands of the historical association. In between my retreats to comfort, I enjoyed along with the rest of the field several hours of hound music—some with voices that represented the beagle version of the booming “aroos” of the Penn-Marydel foxhound.
Michael L. Strang, ex-MFH, Rancher, U.S. Congressman
Michael Lathrop Strang, ex-MFH of the Roaring Fork Hounds, died at home on his ranch outside Carbondale, Colorado on January 12, 2014. Born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania on June 17, 1929, his family moved to Colorado in 1932, to a ranch they purchased in the mountains above Golden. Times were tough, so the family made ends meet by bringing eastern kids out west for “summer camp” at the ranch. Mike developed his passion for horses early in life caring for the string of ranch horses that were used to work the cattle and outfit the campers. The family used a team of draft horses to cut and rake the hay they put up and to skid Ponderosa pine logs off the mountain to their sawmill. Mike’s father also raised Thoroughbred racehorses.
Mike and his brother, Bart, were home-schooled by their father until they went to Princeton University. Mike took time off from his studies at Princeton (’56) to serve as a lieutenant in the Army from 1950 to 1953. It was while training future officers at the army’s Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia that he met Ben Hardaway and developed his passion for hounds and foxhunting.
“License and Registration, Please.”
Ashley Twiggs photo Hunts seeking to recruit new members can take a page from the Belle Meade Hunt in Thomson, Georgia. Officer Mike Coke met this Belle Meade foxhound, Colleen, on the highway. The pair obviously hit it off to the extent that Coke, who had no previous experience with foxhunting, was sufficiently smitten by […]
Trainer, Foxhunter Tom Voss, MFH, Dead at Sixty-Three
Douglas Lees photoTom Voss, MFH of the Elkridge-Harford Hunt died suddenly on January 21, 2014 at his home in Monkton, Maryland. He had served as Joint-Master of the hunt since 1993.
In the larger world of horses, Voss was best-known as a top trainer of racehorses both on the flat and over fences. Starting as an amateur timber rider, Voss began training professionally in 1973. He trained the 2010 Eclipse Award steeplechase champion Slip Away and was a five-time leading trainer on the National Steeplechase circuit, capturing that title in 1997, 2000–2002, and 2011.
Pete Waxes Philosophical about Hunting
Foxhunting Life readers may not recognize their old friend, Pete, in this story. We generally find him drunk, misguided, and irresponsible. On this timely subject, however, the author allows him a sober and a somber moment.
Pete settled himself in the chair, took a pull from his pint, wiped the froth from his mouth and belched. Outside the pub it was pitch black and a wind drove hail against the windows, but inside a fire burned in the hearth and its warmth filled the room.
“Job’s buggered,” he said. “Hunting isn’t coming back.”
I looked at him. “Bonner, Barney, and the Countryside Alliance to name but a few would disagree,” I said.
Pete took another pull on his pint and sat considering. Finally he spoke.
“What would happen if it did?” he asked. “T’ hunt monitors will go back to being sabs. Never be like it was in our day.”
Huntsman John Harrrison Returns to Toronto and North York
Former Toronto and North York huntsman John Harrison has been hunting the Ullswater Foxhounds in the Cumbrian fells for the past eighteen years.
John Harrison will return next season to the Toronto and North York Hunt (ON) to carry the horn once again—a post he had previously filled from 1991 to 1996. During those years, Harrison bred a number of outstanding hounds and won many championships at the Virginia Foxhound Shows.
Harrison was born and raised in the Cumbrian Lake District of England, where hunting is in the genes and the country is so rough, horses cannot be used. The literature of foxhunting is replete with accounts of grueling days with the famous foot packs of the area, climbing and descending the scree-strewn crags and struggling to snow-filled borrans.