Driver and Trevor: Puppies of a Different Species
One-year-old Driver meets four-year-old Trevor on hound walk. / Glenye Oakford photoWHAT a beautiful day Saturday was! It started with a crashing thunderstorm that prevented me from riding over to catch our trailer ride to the day’s hound walk, so I went out with the hounds on foot for what turned out to be a Very Special Morning. Young entry of two different species, each new to the field, met and got acquainted.
Allen Nixon Rodday: My Teacher, My Friend
Allen Nixon “Nick” Rodday died on July 26, 2011 at his home in Brewster, Massachusetts on Cape Cod at the age of ninety. He’d retired there after giving up his horse farm, Elm Brook Farm, in Concord, Massachusetts about thirty years ago. He bought himself a lobster boat and for the next fifteen years fulfilled a longtime ambition. But he still couldn’t resist stabling horses, and before long he was once again leading rides and driving his carriage.
Nick Rodday ran a riding stable, Victory Lee and later Elm Brook Farm, through most of the latter half of the twentieth century. He gave lessons, rented hirelings, and took his clients hunting. He was a charismatic guy with a beautiful tenor singing voice to boot. He taught me to ride and took me hunting. I met my wife-to-be Joan and many others who became good friends in his riding ring. He stood up for me at our wedding. Without question, he changed my life profoundly.
On Keeping Children in the Hunting Field
Karen Myers photoOne of my recent blogs was titled “Adopt-a-Kid.” It talked about how individual field members can help bring children to the hunting field. Elisabeth Harpham from Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds suggested through the Comments box that we check out what her hunt is doing in Unionville, Pennsylvania. We asked her to tell us, and she did. See her article following this blog.
In addition to the traditional junior activities sponsored by most hunts, the Cheshire Masters recognized that the challenge doesn’t end with simply getting children into the field. You need to offer them enough excitement and incentive to keep them there. Evidently they succeeded, because Elisabeth tells us that in the past six or eight years they have seen a huge increase in the number of children actively hunting.
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.
The Ballad of the Foxhunter
William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939), charcoal drawing by John Singer Sargent / Wikimedia CommonsSomething happened to William Butler Yeats on his way to becoming a painter…in the footsteps of his father. He decided he liked writing poetry better. Certainly he was a favorite of most of the English teachers I’ve ever had, but I don’t remember any of them assigning his foxhunting poems for study! Yeats was born in Ireland, so the foxhunting came naturally.
“Now lay me in a cushioned chair
And carry me, you four,
With cushions here and cushions there,
To see the world once more.
The Ballad of the Foxhunter
Something happened to William Butler Yeats on his way to becoming a painter…in the footsteps of his father. He decided he liked writing poetry better. Certainly he was a favorite of most of the English teachers I’ve ever had, but I don’t remember any of them assigning his foxhunting poems for study! Yeats was born in Ireland, so the foxhunting came naturally.
“Now lay me in a cushioned chair
And carry me, you four,
With cushions here and cushions there,
To see the world once more.
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.
2012 Foxhunting Calendar Has a New Face
The annual foxhunting calendar that we’ve been publishing for almost fifteen years has a new face for 2012. Redesigned for Foxhunting Life, the new cover design carries forward the black and scarlet look and feel of our website banner.
On the inside, while our foxhunting images continue to represent the finest examples of the sporting photographer’s art, another new feature has been added! We’ve gone international with a photo from an Irish hunt and an English hunt!
Dr. Scott Dove Is New Joint-Master at Old Dominion
Dr. Scott Dove, MFH / Karen L. Myers photoThe Old Dominion Hounds (VA) have a new Joint-Master—Dr. Scott Dove. If his name doesn’t ring a bell with you, his dog’s name probably will. Dove owns the most famous dog in America—Foxcliffe Hickory Wind, the Scottish Deerhound that won Best in Show at Westminster this year. But if you know Dove, you know he earned the Mastership through his own hard work at foxhunting.
Dove has served Old Dominion as honorary whipper-in for twenty-three seasons. One of his roles as Master will be mentoring new honorary whippers-in.
Adopt-a-Kid
You’ve come a long way, kid! / Karen L. Myers photoThe average age of active foxhunters continues to rise. Where are the youngsters? we ask. Pointing to all the “usual suspects”—risk aversion, social media addiction (living vicariously rather than actively), animal rights activism—is…well…pointless. Social change continues to be part of mankind’s evolutionary process. What can we do pro-actively? is more to the point.
The MFHA has periodically urged hunts to reach out to nearby Pony Clubs, and many of these efforts have been successful. The Live Oak Challenge sponsored by MFHs Marty and Daphne Wood has introduced numerous young riders to foxhunting by offering financial incentives to the winning Pony Clubs. The Guide to Establishing a Foxhunting Camp written by Joyce Fendley, MFH provides a cookbook approach to running a summer day camp for any hunt wishing to reach out to children. (The booklet is available from the MFHA.)
Hunts can do these things, but there is something we as ordinary members of the field can do. We can adopt-a-kid.