Inaugural Sporting Art Auction
Over the Ditch by Sir Alfred MunningsPut the expertise of the world’s largest Thoroughbred auction house—Keeneland—together with Gregg Ladd’s premier gallery of sporting art—Cross Gate—both located in Lexington, Kentucky, and you get what should turn out to be an exceedingly important auction of sporting art. This inaugural Sporting Art Auction will take place on Wednesday, November 20, 2013 at 4:00 p.m.
To be sold are 174 lots, both paintings and sculptures. The focus is on sporting art by nineteenth and twentieth century American and British artists—realists and impressionists—such as Sir John Frederick Herring, Sir Alfred Munnings, John Emms, Pierre Jules Mene, John Skeaping, Lionel Edwards, Edward Troye, Franklin Voss, Peter Curling, Peter Biegel, Michael Lyne, three generations of Wyeths (N.C., Andrew, and Jamie), Mary Cassatt, and Andre Pater.
Nancy Dillon Honored
Nancy Dillon has taught children to ride and hunt for nearly half a century. / Liz Callar photo
Nancy Dillon is a living, legendary treasure of the Piedmont Fox Hounds in Virginia. She is the longest subscribing member of the hunt, having started hunting at age eight in 1943. For nearly a half century she has taught and led more children into the hunting field than anyone can count. Her truck and trailer pulling into the meet have been likened to the car at the circus where the clowns just keep coming out.
On Friday, November 8, 2013, the hunt threw a party at Buchanan Hall in Upperville to screen a specially-produced documentary—Lessons in the Piedmont—in tribute to Nancy. Throughout this beautifully-produced and heart-warming film, children (some grown, others still growing), Masters, hunt members, and citizens of the community expressed their love for this woman and their heart-felt appreciation for what she has done to instill a love of the sport, respect for the land, and personal values to generations of children.
Night Hunting with Dad
This is a true story as best as I can recollect. I was about six or seven years old that night, but as you can imagine this was a story told and retold around many a local foxhunter’s fire for many years thereafter.
Dad often took me foxhunting with him when I was little. I don’t have many memories of those hunts other than falling asleep in the back of whatever old car dad had at the time. The foxhunting that dad and his friends participated in did not involve horses or fancy scarlet coats. Their steeds were Ford and Chevy, GM and Oldsmobile; the uniforms worn were usually whatever work clothes they had been wearing that morning.
John Dean Is New Huntsman at Radnor
John Dean has returned to Pennsylvania to become huntsman for the Radnor Hunt. Although he spent his last seven years hunting coyotes in Missouri, Dean is well-known to veteran foxhunters in Pennsylvania. Dean was huntsman for the old West Chester Hunt, an un-recognized pack in that state, and served as professional huntsman for the Wicomico […]
Leith Griswold, Matriarch of Maryland Hunting Family
Leith Symington Griswold, matriarch of a Maryland riding and foxhunting family, died at the age of ninety-seven, on Tuesday, October 29, 2013 at her home in Monkton. Her favorite sport was foxhunting, and she hunted not only in Maryland, but in England and Ireland as well. It was in Ireland at Molly Cusack-Smith’s Bermingham House […]
Andrews Bridge Foxhounds, New Huntsman Have a Red Letter Day
Andrews Bridge first-year huntsman Adam Townsend praises hounds for their work. Mounted rider is whipper-in Charlie Fleischmann.
Adam Townsend joined the Andrews Bridge Foxhounds (PA) this past April as its first professional huntsman in many years. Adam came to us from the Elkridge-Harford Hunt (MD) where he served as first whipper-in for the last three seasons. Since his arrival he has been working diligently with our pack of Black & Tan Penn-Marydels. Each day’s hunting has shown excellent sport but on Monday, October 28, 2013, Adam’s efforts were rewarded with a red letter day.
WANTED: Opening Meet Photos!
It ‘s time to change the photos in our Foxhunting Life banner slide show (above), and with the formal season starting we’d like to post a collection of all Opening Meet photos in our new banner. Horses, hounds, blessing ceremonies—we posted some beautiful photos last season. Send your photo prospects directly to me at [email protected]. […]
A Short History of Foxhunting
Librarian Lisa Campbell shows Alastair Jackson around the stacks at the National Sporting Library, where the author talked about his new book and signed copies. / Maureen Gustafson photo
Excellent books have been written on the history of foxhunting by such notables as The Duke of Beaufort, Roger Longrigg, and Joe Thomas. However, the operating word in the title of this new book by two contemporary notables—Alastair Jackson and Michael Clayton—is “Short.”
“Michael came to me with the idea,” said Jackson last night at the National Sporting Library in Middleburg, Virginia, where, after wine and appetizers, he talked about his book and signed copies. “There are so many people hunting today that don’t know about our history. We wanted to provide something concise, entertaining, and easy to read rather than the academic and often dry histories that have been published in the past.”
Jackson wrote the text and drew the delightful pen-and-ink illustrations reminiscent of the styles of Eleanor Iselin Mason and Edith Somerville. His sketches accurately capture the attitudes and posture of hounds, horses, people, and quarry in motion with economy of line. Clayton provided his vast experience reviewing and editing the text, and wrote the short verses that provide the lead for each chapter.
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.
Wicked Goes A-Hunting
Roger Collins in Middleburg, Virginia owns several retired foxhounds—“some more retired than others,” explains his friend Liz Williams, who sent us this GPS track. Roger fitted Wicked, a Penn-Marydel female (we must use the graceful word here, lest some computer firewalls mark us as Spam!) with a Garmin GPS DC-40 tracking collar and downloaded her track, complete with statistics of her jaunt, to Google Earth with the Garmin Astro 220 base unit.
Wicked started from home (upper left) traveling in a southerly direction, found a fox, made three big loops easterly primarily clockwise, from whence her fox abandoned the open fields and struck out for the woods (bottom right). There he remained, circling countless times, Wicked doggedly on his trail. Finally Wicked broke off the chase in the area where she kept having trouble with the line and struck out for home in the most direct route available, across the creek, along the edge of a field where she broke out onto Miller Road and straight home.