Full Cry Largo Wins Top Honors at Belle Meade
Full Cry Largo, hunting back home, just after being judged top hound at the Belle Meade Foxhound Performance Trials. She still carries her number 17, which was painted on her for the competition. Adrian Jennings photoFull Cry Largo was judged top hound at the Belle Meade Foxhound Performance Trials held in Thomson, Georgia on February 25 and 26. Belle Meade Lifeguard was runner-up to Largo, and, with three hounds in the top ten, Belle Meade took top honors among the hunts. For complete results, click here.
“Largo’s story is a great testament to how hunts and huntsman can work together to help each other out and find the right fit for hounds,” says David Hyman, MFH and huntsman of the Full Cry Hounds (AL). “It’s truly a unique fraternity.”
The Ballymacad Foxhounds at Castlerahan
Huntsman Kevin Donohue at Carrichavee RockThe area around the Ballymacad Foxhounds meet at Castlerahan on the outskirts of Oldcastle, County Meath in Ireland is steeped in Irish history. It is part of the old Royal Capital of Ireland. There are many hunting references to be found in the area. The entrance to the town of Oldcastle is over Sliamh na Callaigh which looks out on Loughcrew, the five-thousand-year-old site of the Summer Solstice, where one of the most important High Kings of Ireland, King Ollamh Fodhla was buried in 1277 BC. He officiated at the Feis Teamhrach or The Great Fair held on the Hill of Tara, where in addition to legislative affairs of the ancient Brehon Laws, he introduced horse fairs, horse racing, and hunting.
The Kildare Foxhounds
Whipper-In Ado Moran negotiates the double bank.
The Kildare Foxhounds, kennelled on the grounds of Punchestown National Hunt Racecourse in County Kildare on the east coast of Ireland, met recently at the village of Grangecon in County Wicklow. The countryside and the village were a sea of autumn colours; even the roads were a carpet of multi-coloured leaves.
Hounds met at Moore’s Pub which is run by Paul Moore, the fourth generation of the family. It is still a gem of an old-fashioned pub and was originally an old coaching stop. It is a sensibly laid out pub for hunting and racing fans, as when you are sitting at the short bar having a drink, you can also pick up a copy of The Irish Field, The Farmer’s Journal, and The Racing Post, which are strategically positioned within arms reach.
Whiskey Road Hunt Week, Aiken, SC
Installment Five
Whiskey Road MFH David Smith (left) greets Toronto and North York MFH Wolf von Teichman.Betsy and friends escape frozen Virginia for a week of hunting in warmer climes. We bring you Installment Five of her daily blog, exclusive to Foxhunting Life.
Monday was an open day. Gene and Barbara Hough joined me, Tom, Jackie, and Don for a hack in the Hitchcock Woods. We grabbed lunch at Rio Pablo, an excellent Cuban place downtown. There was a benefit for the Hitchcock Woods Foundation that night at the Wilcox Hotel, one of the town’s oldest and most grand buildings.
Tuesday dawned cold and frosty but with that promise of spring in the air. There was a pretty good breeze, though, and I was uncertain of scenting conditions as we headed east towards Bill Scott’s Fairview fixture near Lexington.
The Scotts own thousands of acres of managed timberland—pine forests cut for pulpwood and lumber—providing excellent habitat for game of all sizes. Gene Hough told me about hunting at Fairview a few years ago when the hounds held a four hundred-pound boar at bay until the huntsman dispatched it (then famously burned it at a pig roast later!).
On Puppy Walking
Foxhound whelps—tiny creatures that in a few short years will be the very ones we rely on for our sport—are making their entrance into our world as we slide into the tailing end of the season. Hunt members and hunt supporters—”puppy walkers”—will be taking the lucky ones from the kennels to their own homes and farms to start the puppies’ education in a free and pleasant environment.
Puppy walker Heather Kuenzi wants to do her best for her huntsman and her puppies. She writes:
“I was recently asked by our huntsman to bring two puppies (Penn-Marydel bloodlines) to our farm for the winter and walk them out! Any words of wisdom, or training tips for when I’m out walking the fields with them? I’m curious to know if hounds are simply born “biddable” or if there are things I can do to work on developing those traits. I’d like to continue to walk puppies for our hunt with future pups and am working hard on returning them as honest members of the pack! I also have a half-foxhound house dog who is also enjoying “helping” me with raising them!
Photo Essay: Old Dominion Hounds
(September 11, 2010)
The photo essay is posted at KLM Images.
Shadow as second subject
Creative use of shadows
Always be alert for unexpected bonuses. I did not deliberately frame this shot to capture the shadow, too; I just tried to place myself in such a way that the subject was well lit. But when I looked at the results afterward, I was pleased to see two subjects striding along the horse trailer, not just one.
Picking hounds out of the pack
A study of hounds heads
There’s a lot of action in a pack of hounds, but many complications as well.
No matter how small the group, at least one (usually right in the center of the frame) is doing something you don’t want to record for posterity. Even when they are all well-behaved, they may be arranged unhelpfully, with heads buried, shadows cast on each other, and so forth.
Florida Bans Fox Pens
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has banned the use of enclosures in the hunting of fox or coyote with hounds. The decision, made at a commission meeting on Wednesday, September 1, made permanent the temporary ban instituted in February. The ban is the result of complaints concerning at least one pen owner’s non-compliance […]
Florida May Shut Down Training Pens
Foxhound training pens are used by many hunts around the country as a part of their puppy training program. The pens are also used by individuals who simply enjoy running their hounds. Foxes (or coyotes) are provided with refuges within the pen to allow them to escape hounds when pressed. There are rules that limit […]
The Part-Time Whipper-In
Karen L. Myers photo
The Question
“I have read Lt. Col. Foster’s book Whipper-In which states the basic premise that whips must know the names of each hound to truly be of assistance,” writes Kathy Rubin. “What contribution can I make as an honorary whip when I cannot devote the time to know each hound? Where should I set my sights so I can be of help to my huntsman despite the fact that I cannot be with hounds on a daily basis? I believe many of the smaller hunts in the country face the same problem. Can you give me some guidance and recommend additional reading?”
Knowing that Messrs. Scott, Robards, and Peel—world authorities on the subjects of foxhounds and the hunting of hounds in the field—are geared to thinking at the most sophisticated levels of hound management, I had to wonder, as I posed Kathy’s question to them, if they could truly identify with her less than ideal aspirations. They did. But at the same time, they didn’t let her completely off the hook.
The Road Warriors: Day Seven
They told me it was worth it. To go to the hassle of dropping my trailer in L.A. To go to the trouble of wiggling east, then back west to find Highway 1. To suck up a whole tank of fuel just for a hundred miles of roadway.
And they were right.
The legendary Pacific Coast Highway earned top marks from our intrepid traveling band for beauty, raw power, force of nature, and inspiration, and not necessarily in that order. I read somewhere that lots of people fly into San Francisco, rent a convertible, and drive the route north to south (the preferred direction). I agree. This was fun enough in a diesel truck, but how much more so in, oh, say, a ’97 Esprit Turbo. Highway 1 is built for sin.