The Lunesdale and Oxenholme Staghounds
Not your ordinary fell foot pack!Don’t bother looking this one up in Baily’s! (Not to be confused with the Lunesdale Foxhounds.) The Lunesdale and Oxenholme Staghounds concluded its sporting operations upon the outbreak of World War II. The hunt was an anachronism in the Lakeland fells of northern England, and its history, as related by Ron Black in a just published fifty-eight page booklet, taught me something of carted stag hunting that I found sufficiently fascinating to relate here.
Outreach at Cheshire Brings More Children to the Field
The late Mrs. John Hannum, former Master of Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds (PA), was always thrilled to see a new child at the kennels on a summer morning. Nothing pleased her as much as giving a child—at the kennels for hound walking—his or her first opportunity to observe working hounds at close range.
Building on that early philosophy, the current Masters have introduced new incentives that have greatly increased the number of children in the field.
Raymond Carter: Complete Horseman
Ray Carter hunting the New Market-Middletown Valley hounds in 1981 / Janet Hitchen photoRaymond Allaeys Carter died peacefully at home in Middletown, Maryland on June 20, 2011 from complications related to prostate cancer. Ray was born in Yorkshire, England in 1930. Times were tough in those years and money was scarce. Ray, however, with a natural love of horses always found a way to beg rides on farmer’s draft horses returning from work in the fields.
He cleaned stalls at a local stable to be able to ride. He was a natural athlete and was soon riding some of the fancier ponies in local gymkhanas. When he finished school at age fourteen, his parents, loath to let him work in the local mines, arranged an apprenticeship for him with a racing stable in Newmarket. He was basically an indentured servant, receiving only a pound a month for learning a trade. At the end of five years he was earning twenty pounds a year.
Rockview Harriers Show Includes Both Scent and Sight Hounds
Lurchers in flapper race chasing the lureThe annual Rockview Harriers Working Terrier, Hound and Lurcher Show in County Kilkenny, Ireland enjoyed a large turnout with working dog enthusiasts traveling from all over the country. The show drew representatives from England and Wales as well.
The Happiest Man in England
The happiest man in England rose an hour before the dawn;
The stars were in the purple and the dew was on the lawn;
He sang from bed to bathroom—he could only sing “John Peel”;
He donned his boots and breeches and he buckled on his steel.
He chose his brightest waistcoat and his stock with care he tied,
Though scarce a soul would see him in his early morning ride.
Cambridge University Draghounds (UK)
Jack Day, MFH flies a big Leicestershire hedgeA number of universities in England maintain packs of foxhounds or beagles hunted on horseback or afoot. Students often comprise the staff—Master, huntsman, whippers-in—and this tradition has provided a start for some of the most successful and brilliant Masters and huntsmen that England has produced—the late Ronnie Wallace for just one.
At Cambridge University a pack of foxhounds are maintained that hunt a drag laid by student volunteers, normally from the cross country track team. Hounds usually complete three or four “lines” during a day’s hunting, which might take two to three hours.
Whiskey Road Hunt Week, Aiken, SC
Second Installment
Betsy and friends escape frozen Virginia for a week of hunting in warmer climes. We bring you Installment Two of her daily blog, exclusive to Foxhunting Life.
(l-r) Whiskey Road Field Master Geri Rapp, Fairfax Hunt members Ray Moffett, and PetraProbably seventy-five riders in the field this morning from the Batesburg fixture. Whiskey Road hosted a stirrup cup and snack before the meet after which huntsman Joseph Hardiman moved off with the mixed English and Penn-Marydel pack, east towards the cow field adjacent to the fixture.
Hounds struck immediately, coyote, probably, a brace or possibly a leash, and split into two or three groups. Hardiman went with one group, Master/whipper-in Lynn Smith with another, and (seemed like) Master David Smith and the main field with still another.
Why Worry?
Charles Sainsbury-Plaice photo
“Would you like to ride up with me?” asked George Thomas, MFH and huntsman of the Why Worry Hounds. Thomas is a direct descendant of the Bywaters family of Virginia—renowned foxhound breeders of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—and he hunts a pack of Crossbred hounds, most of which carry the old Bywaters bloodlines. The meet was at Basset Hill in Aiken, South Carolina, home of Ward and Mary Lou Welsh. I was being offered a chance to watch a lovely pack of hounds work their country.
The Kildare Foxhounds
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.
Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds: An Oasis in Suburbia
If you want to see stunning hunting country, I commend you to FHL’s latest Photo Gallery slide show. We feature Elisabeth Harpham’s lovely photos of Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds in Unionville, Pennsylvania.
The Cheshire hunting country is an oasis between the developed suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Wilmington, Delaware. This is hunting country for any foxhunter to drool over. But you have to know that country like that just doesn’t happen by a stroke of luck. It’s the product of years of commitment by strong-willed individuals determined to protect what they have.