Big Crossbred Turnout at Southern Hound Show
Mooreland Wary ’12, Grand Champion, Southern Hound Show / Wendy Butler photoThe seventh annual Southern Hound Show, held on April 6, 2013 at Live Oak Plantation Monticello, Florida, produced a perfect day for showing hounds—chilly in the morning and low seventies in the afternoon.
This year’s judges were Mr. Richard Tyacke, MFH and huntsman of Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn’s Wynnstay Hounds (UK), and Mrs. Tyacke who substituted for Dr. John W. D. McDonald, MFH, London Hunt (ON), who took ill the night before the show. Dr. Charlotte McDonald, MFH, London Hunt, was the apprentice judge.
Mr. Tyacke said that he was thrilled by the amount of quality he saw in every class. He was very impressed with the levelness shown, particularly in the Two Couple Classes where some hunts produced more than one entry.
As is the custom at the show, all hound types are judged together in one ring, as also happens at the Canadian Hound Show. Eight packs showed, which is one more than showed in the 35-couple-or-more in the Crossbred ring at Virginia in 2012.
Foxhounds With a Difference
Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds (PA) boasts a sporting field of superb horsemen and women that love to gallop and take their own lines over the post-and-rail line fences in their country. Seven years ago, the Cheshire Masters and staff embarked on a bold experiment to breed a new foxhound for that country. Our feature article below tells of their decision to cross the The Old English (also called the Traditionally-Bred English) foxhound and the Penn-Marydel foxhound.
Their plan was a gamble because the two breeds are about as dissimilar in type as foxhounds get, and the crossing of the two types would produce litters that varied greatly from pup to pup. However, the Cheshire Masters and huntsman believed that the strong points of each type would tend to compensate for the perceived weaknesses in the other and result in a foxhound superior to either type.
Here are some examples of the perceived differences between the types. Just remember that generalizations are only generally valid!
The Cheshire Crossbred: A Bold Gamble
The new Cheshire Crossbreds combine the best traits of two disparate foxhound types / Jim Graham photo
When an established hunt with a reputation for showing the best of sport to the best of horsemen in the best of countries comes up with a novel idea for breeding a better foxhound, and sees it through to fruition and success, one has to pay attention.
The venerable—one hundred years this season—Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds in Unionville, Pennsylvania traditionally hunted the Old English foxhound under the hunt’s founder W. Plunket Stewart and the active Mastership of his step-daughter, the late Mrs. John (Nancy Penn Smith) Hannum. Masters and members know the breed very well.
Ireland’s County Galway Foxhounds (The Blazers), another venerable hunt renowned for showing world-class sport, also hunts the Old English foxhound. Cheshire huntsman Ivan Dowling grew up following the Blazers, and he too knows the Old English foxhound very well.
History and familiarity notwithstanding, seven years ago the Cheshire Masters and their Galway-born huntsman Dowling decided to continue a breeding experiment begun two years earlier by former huntsman John Tullock. They committed to the notion of crossing the English foxhound with the Penn-Marydel foxhound—two disparate types—in the hope of making a better foxhound for their country. This was a chancy endeavor, understandably fraught with controversy within the hunt.
‘Ware Flitters!
Huntsman Andy Bozdan at the Tennessee Valley HuntWhen I was learning to whip-in I would watch the huntsman and the way he effortlessly walked his pack out in the spring and summer. This particular spring the swallows had arrived early and would flit low across the fields in front of hounds. To my surprise he let his hounds chase them.
Keen to learn, I asked why he did not want me to turn hounds back. He said that this was their time off, and he wanted them to relax and unwind.
A few months later we were out for our first early morning cubhunting. Hounds were held up for a few minutes at the meet and then we move off across a huge stubble field toward our first draw. Huntsman and hounds were halfway across the field when out of nowhere came several swallows flitting down and in front of hounds!
A Brilliant Day at the Piedmont Races
Amateur Highweight Timber (l-r): Dr. Alex (Teddy Zimmerman) will beat Justpourit (George Hundt) after a hard-fought duel in the stretch.
The Piedmont Fox Hounds 2013 Point-to-Point Races went off under brilliant skies on Saturday, March 23, 2013 with some exciting racing over the big, rolling timber course that includes stone walls, drop fences, and reverses of direction. Here are a few highlights, with complete results just a click away.
New Regulations for Fox Pens Endorsed by Virginia Game Regulators
Virginia state game regulators recommended new regulations for the operation of foxhound training preserves. The proposed new regulations satisfied pen owners and disappointed animal rights activists. After a period of public comment, a final vote will be held by the Board of Game and Inland Fisheries in June. The recommendations apply to nearly forty preserves […]
The Sporting Art of Juli Kirk
Autumn Avenue by Juli Kirk, oil on canvas, 20 x 20 inches
Juli Kirk is a classically-trained artist who prefers to work from her imagination. The results to me are both Impressionistic and Expressionistic—the former where the play of changing light on realistic shapes and visible brush strokes stimulate the viewer’s imagination, and the latter where moods and feelings are evoked.
Kirk lives and paints in Easthampton, Massachusetts and Warrenton, Virginia. She is a cum laude graduate of Boston University’s School for the Arts and has also studied art at Queens College (NY), New York Studio School, Cabrillo College (CA), and the University of Santa Cruz (CA).
Juli continued to paint daily while raising three children, riding for a sale barn, running a boarding stable where she gave riding lessons, and training horses on a freelance basis. She was taught to ride by her mother, who was a show rider competing in her youth at the top shows, including Madison Square Garden. Juli got into racing on the fair circuit in western Massachusetts and eventually traveled to Virginia to work with a cousin, Sharon Maloney, who broke racehorses. During that time, a broncy horse at the sale barn bucked her off. The fall resulted in severe back problems.
The Horsemen of Wexford
Lillian Doyle, five-times ladies point-to-point champion, out with the Wexford from a meet at her father’s pub / Noel Mullins photo
What better place to end the season than with the Wexford Foxhounds at John Jude Doyle’s Cloch Ban Pub in Clonroche, County Wexford? Inside there is a picture on the wall of Bree Foxhounds Joint-Master Jay Bowe having a drink sitting on his horse beside the bar!
Doyle is a director of The Irish Horse Board and Horse Sport Ireland, and one can see why. He has an infectious enthusiasm about the Irish horse as a breeder, producer, and organiser of schools, shows, and gymkhanas. He has campaigned his Irish Draught mare Cloghbawn Cailin and her filly Cloghbawn Liaght on the show circuit. Doyle’s daughter Lillian won the Ladies Point-to-Point Jockey Championship five times. His uncle Jim Joyce bred Parkhill, evented by the late Col. Ronnie MacMahon, and his track greyhound Temple na Dubh won seven nights in succession in Shelbourne Park!
Master and huntsman Mary Kehoe is gifted as a handler of horses and hounds and has hunted the Wexford Foxhounds for nine seasons and the Bree Foxhounds for the last twenty-three seasons, hunting hounds four days a week. Her sister Muriel whips in to her. Their father Owen was Field Master of the Island and hunted the Bree. The other whippers-in are Michael Condon, a formidable rider, and former jockey Padraig English, who won three races on the great steeplechaser Danoli. All of them hunt across country on a simple mathematical principle: the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and whatever obstacle is on that line is crossed regardless of complexity! But they can because they produce and ride only the very best hunt horses.
Virginia Senate Passes Ban on Competition in Fox Pens
Yetserday the Virginia Senate passed Senate Bill 1280 which prohibits competitions in fox or coyote pens. This will affect foxhound field trials that use such enclosures for their sport. The bill also limits the number of dogs allowed in an enclosure to no more than five per acre. The bill does not curtail the use […]
Shangri-La?
Huntsman Claire Buchy Anderson takes the Santa Ynez Valley Hounds (CA) to the next draw. This little corner of hunting heaven was captured by photographer Jennifer Calderwood. Posted February 5, 2013