Movement in Parliament to Ease the Hunting Ban
A surprising multi-party coalition of MPs—Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Labour, and Plaid Cymru—in sympathy with the plight of farmers suffering livestock losses from foxes are backing Parliamentary proposals to ease one aspect of the Hunting Act. Under the Act as it stands, when a farmer wants foxes on his property killed, only two hounds are allowed […]
The Clipper that Stands in the Stall at the Top
Illustration by Lionel EdwardsNot long ago we polled our readers and were pleased to find that the great majority of you enjoyed reading the classic foxhunting poems. Here’s one such classic that to me best expresses the pride, gratitude, and love the foxhunter feels for that one special horse—the most generous, the most reliable, the most gentlemanly of all we’ve had—that takes us over the day’s obstacles and brings us safely home.
Go strip him, lad! Now, sir, I think you’ll declare
Such a picture you’ve never set eyes on before,
He was bought in at Tatt’s for three hundred I swear,
And he’s worth all the money to look at, and more;
For the pick of the basket, the show of the shop,
Is the Clipper that stands in the stall at the top.
In the records of racing I read their career,
There was none of the sort that could gallop and stay,
At Newmarket his sire was the best of the year,
And the Yorkshiremen boast of his dam to this day;
But never a likelier foal did she drop
Than this Clipper that stands in the stall at the top.
How to Find Past Articles on FHL
Karen Myers photoI thought it might be helpful now and then to point out the tools provided on Foxhunting Life for finding past articles or for finding articles on any particular subject of interest.
Readers will notice, we hope, that our Home Page is continually being updated with new articles. As new articles are posted, the older material is pushed lower on the Home Page until it disappears. Or does it?
No, it doesn’t! After three years of publishing FHL, there are more than 800 articles covering virtually every aspect of our sport that are available to you with just a few keystrokes.
Here are three simple ways to find articles of interest: the Search function, the Hunt Club Pages, or the article Category.
The Dawgs of Dixie
Douglas Lees photo In 1989, ghosts of the Great Hound Match of 1905 were awakened from their long slumber in the Piedmont Fox Hounds country of Virginia when Ben Hardaway, MFH of the Midland Fox Hounds (GA), brought his pack of Crossbreds (English crosses on American July bloodlines) to duel on alternating hunting days with […]
2013 North American Field Hunter Championships Survive Summer Temps
2013 North American Field Hunter Champion Greyland Woods, owned by Karen Mantz and ridden by daughter Teresa Croce, jumps to victory over Judge Jean Derrick’s scarlet coat (Belle Meade colors). / Liz Callar photo
Blistering hot weather visited Virginia for the past four weeks. While not unusual this time of year, the length of the hot spell, with temperatures hovering in the high eighties and even reaching into the low nineties, has proved miserable to man and beast alike, but it failed to deter foxhunters who entered this year’s North American Field Hunter Championships.
On Monday, September 30, the Championships began at Keswick. Hounds met at Glenwood, a fixture in the neighborhood of James Madison’s Montpelier, outside the town of Orange. Contestants from as far away as Florida and Georgia traveled to compete in the event, as well as to enjoy early autumn hunting in Virginia. They were not disappointed. Keswick huntsman Tony Gammell provided a fine day of sport in the lovely rolling countryside as hounds ran across the nearby road, back again, and beyond the fixture into a scenic expanse of woods and cornfields. Afterward, everyone enjoyed a tailgate as five contestants were selected for the finals.
On Tuesday, October 1, hounds met at Owl Run Farm in Warrenton, home of Casanova Hunt Joint-Master Mrs. Joyce Fendley. Previously the home of Donna and Jack Eicher, huntsman at Rombout and later Farmington Hunt, the grounds include a lake and a cluster of graceful weeping willows out front. The residence and barns all exude the charm of old Virginia Hunt Country—weathered stone, stout board and batten, low eaves and metal roofs. A special surprise awaited the field this morning when shortly after casting hounds, an eruption in a cornfield revealed that hounds had encountered a black bear! Fortunately, the pack obeyed their orders to ignore the bear as it beat a hasty retreat. The remainder of the morning proved quieter, and as the field hacked in, Mrs. Fendley positioned herself, as she always does at the end of a hunt, such that she could personally thank everyone in the field as they passed by on their way to their trailer. This small but thoughtful act is just one of many that make hunting in Virginia so special and unique. It was a hot, thirsty, and tired field that gathered under a tent to drink and devour a delicious crab dip while recalling the excitement of having gone on their first bear hunt! This morning, six finalists were announced.
Crawley and Horsham Prosecuted Again under the Hunting Act
Huntsman Nicholas Bycroft of the Crawley and Horsham Foxhounds in West Sussex, England admitted in court last month to illegal foxhunting after being filmed by an animal rights activist. A year ago, three members of the Crawley and Horsham, including the former huntsman, pleaded innocent of contravening the Hunting Act but were found guilty. Evidence […]
Charles Church in Open Air
Private commission by Charles Church
I wrote recently about the paintings of Sir Alfred Munnings and his portrayal of the horse in motion—flowing, graceful, muscles rippling, indescribably beautiful—on the occasion of the brilliant exhibition of his works at the National Sporting Library in Middleburg, Virginia. I am hopeful that one day I can announce to you an exhibition of the works of a contemporary artist—Charles Church—at that same venue!
Church, 43, is today an internationally renowned painter of horses, landscapes, and country life. Upon the occasion of his last critically-acclaimed exhibition, the Prince of Wales wrote of Charles’ “unique sensitivity and profound understanding of his subject matter.” His commissions have included The Royal Pageant of The Horse for H.M. The Queen, as well as paintings for H.M. The Sultan of Oman and H.H. The Aga Khan. His racing commissions include more than thirty-seven Group or Grade 1 winners.
Essex Fox Hounds Celebrate a Century of Incorporation
The Essex Fox Hounds (NJ) will reach out to their community on October 12 and 13, 2013 with “A Weekend in Gladstone.” Members will celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the hunt’s incorporation with a series of activities aimed at reaching out to their community. On Saturday, foxhounds will meet at Bedminster Farm, and the organization’s […]
John Peel
“Peel’s view-halloo would waken the dead” / Illustration by Frank Paton from “The Songs of Foxhunting” by Alexander Mackay-Smith, 1974
Like Tom Moody, John Peel owes his celebrity to a song, though I am bound to say that the Cumberland huntsman was far more worthy of such a distinction than the Shropshire whipper-in. And what canny Cumbrian is there, the wide world over, whose heart is not stirred within him by the dear, familiar words and tune of “D’ye ken John Peel,” even as the hearts of his Scottish neighbours across the Border are stirred by “Auld Lang Syne”!
It has been sung in strange places, that famous Cumberland hunting-song. Its chorus rang out hearty and homely from the huts at Balaclava and the dreary trenches before Sebastopol. It cheered the spirits of the band of beleaguered heroes in the Residency at Lucknow. The future King of England, our jolly sport-loving Prince, has been known many a time to join lustily in its spirit-stirring chorus. I myself have heard it sung on the boards of Drury Lane by some seventy comely lasses, whose shapely figures, clad in the hunting costume of the other sex, made one of the prettiest pictures I ever saw upon the stage, and gave an effect to the song which roused the audience to enthusiasm.
And yet, world-famous as the song is, I don’t suppose that one person in a thousand knows who wrote it, or has the faintest notion who or what John Peel was beyond the fact that he was fond of hunting. Indeed, I have often heard the question asked, whether John Peel was a real person or merely a mythical hero. Well, that question is easily answered.
New Book Explores Origins of Mounted Foxhunting
George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham died of a chill caught while foxhunting. His mother bred some of the earliest Thoroughbred racehorses at Helmsley Stud. Portrait by Peter Lely, courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery.A new book on the beginnings of mounted foxhunting in the English shires—From the Deer to the Fox: The Hunting Transition and the Landscape 1600-1850—has been published by the University of Hertfordshire Press and released on September 15, 2013. Written by Bandy de Belin, the book disputes one commonly-held theory of why English sportsmen shifted from hunting the deer to hunting the fox as the primary quarry.
Traditional theory, according to de Belin, suggests that the disappearing woodlands and increased enclosures of the open space led to the decline of the deer population, so hunts, by necessity, turned to the fox.