Fanciful Fibs and Other Sins
Photo by Karen MyerSome Foxhunting Life readers have already seen this opinion piece, published more than a year ago. While it attracted a number of comments for which I’m grateful, the message hasn’t, and of course never will reach everyone. So after having seen a new batch of newspaper articles from around the country, containing cringe-worthy quotes by foxhunters attending Opening Meets this season, I’m obliged to re-publish my argument. If it reaches another pair of eyes or ears and changes the mind attached, it will be worthwhile!
As Pogo once famously said, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” I think of that bit of comic strip philosophy whenever I hear foxhunters attempt to con the public or distance themselves from the truth about our sport.
Will Ersland’s Style
Hunters Moon by Will Ersland, courtesy of Cindy Piper, MFH, Long Lake Hounds (MN) Someone once told Will Ersland, “The horses and people in your paintings have great action—even when they’re standing still!”
Ersland sees himself as a visual journalist. “My paintings record a moment in time,” he says. “They are cropped the way I see the action, and each brush stroke is laid down with confidence and purpose based on my academic background and decades of drawing and painting.”
Ersland’s use of short, flat, planar brush strokes to highlight rounded shapes strikes me as an effective and unique element of his style.
“My style is dictated by the medium—acrylic paints—which dry very fast,” he explained. “I don’t even try to blend them. Instead, I build up form by starting with the darkest values and layering on the lightest values, usually following the form of the object with my brush strokes.
The Second Whip
Illustration by Gilbert HollidayOver he goes, with a crash and a rattle,
Hound couples clinking, ’gainst saddle and thigh;
Over he goes, and the light of the battle
Gleams like a spark in his eager young eye.
Twigs of the hawthorn fly backward together,
Meeting again with an ominous swish;
Over he goes, landing light as a feather,
One with his horse and quick as you’d wish.
Kinds and condition of fences don’t matter,
Straight as a ramrod he rides at them all;
Over he goes with a bang and a clatter,
Knocking loose stones off the top of the wall.
Captain Ronnie Wallace, MFH: A Huntsman Like No Other
Captain Ronnie Wallace with hounds while Master of the Heythrop / Oil portrait by Michael Lyne
Captain Ronnie Wallace, MFH was the undisputed dean of British foxhunting and a frequent and popular visitor to the U.S. He was a genius in the art of venery and in his uncanny breeding sense. He was arguably the English breeder most influential in the development of today’s modern English foxhound.
It’s been thirteen years since Captain Wallace died in an automobile accident at age eighty-two, yet whenever hunting conversation turns to amazing feats of hound work performed by a superb huntsman, I’m reminded of an astonishing story that illustrates Wallace’s supremacy.
Scottish National Party Delays Attempt to Relax Hunting Ban
In a reversal of expectations, the Scottish National Party (SNP) has threatened to oppose the pro-hunting effort to relax a key provision of the Hunting Act in England. The SNP move appears to doom chances of passage. As Foxhunting Life reported last week, British Prime Minister David Cameron, a former foxhunter, decided not to test […]
Lady Anne Hemphill (1929–2015)
Lady Anne Hemphill (nee Ruttledge) passed away this week at Craughwell Nursing Home in County Galway. An elegant and friendly lady, with a pleasant greeting for everyone, she will be remembered as one of the most accomplished Field Masters for the Galway Blazers, a role she filled with style for fifteen seasons.
I remember hunting in Oranmore when Michael Dempsey was huntsman, and as he drew the last covert at the Rifle Range in near darkness, hounds found immediately and we were away. Lady Anne leading the field came down in a narrow lane when her horse slipped. Deciding to stop and help we got a glimpse of her hand barely visible over the wall waving us on as she was trying to extricate herself from under her horse, saying,” Go, on, go on, don’t mind me, enjoy yourselves!”
A Plan to Modify England’s Hunting Act
With Prime Minister David Cameron now leading a majority government, pro-hunting Conservatives are looking to him to make good on his pledge to bring a free vote to the floor in Parliament to repeal the despised Hunting Act of 2002. Despite his majority, however, Cameron is loath to risk a free vote. Too many members […]
Foxhunting Life in Print?
We have an idea, but only you—Foxhunting Life readers—can tell us whether it’s a good one. Hence, we’re asking you to take a very short survey of no more than three yes-or-no questions. For the past few years, we have been emailing our twice-monthly e-magazine, FHL WEEK, in electronic form. We know many of you […]
T&NY Littermates Dominate Grand Champion Class at Canadian
Canadian Grand Champion of Show is Toronto and North York Cleopatra 2012 / Mary Raphael photo
Two Toronto and North York littermates have dominated the Grand Champion and Reserve awards at the Canadian Foxhound Show for two years running. The only difference this year was that the dog hound graciously swapped places with his litter sister. On June 6, 2015, in a reversal of fortune, Toronto and North York Cleopatra 2012, last year’s Reserve Grand Champion, was crowned Grand Champion of Show, while her litter brother Clarence, last year’s Grand Champion, settled for Reserve.
The show judges were Major Tim Easby, Director, Masters of Foxhounds Association (UK) and ex-MFH and huntsman of the Middleton and West Yore Foxhounds and Lt. Col. Robert Ferrer, USMC-Retired and MFH, Caroline Hunt (VA).
Cleopatra’s sire is Blue Ridge Barnfield 2010 by Duke of Beaufort’s Bailey 2003. If Bailey sounds familiar, have a look at the article about this year’s Bryn Mawr Grand Champion, New Market-Middleton Valley Widget, crowned just one week earlier. Widget’s sire was Green Spring Valley Bailey by Duke of Beaufort’s Bailey. That makes two Grand Champions in two weeks whose grand sire is Duke of Beaufort’s Bailey!
New Market-Middletown Valley Widget Is Bryn Mawr Grand Champion
New Market-Middletown Valley huntsman Ally Storer shows Widget before judge Daphne Wood, MFH / Christine Cancelli photo
New Market-Middletown Valley Widget 2014 was judged Grand Champion of Show at the Bryn Mawr Hound Show held this year at the Radnor Hunt in Malvern, Pennsylvania on May 30, 2015.
Huntsman Alasdair Storer is banking on the beautiful tri-colored Crossbred foxhound and her sister Welcome to be the foundations of important female bloodlines for this Maryland pack to build upon. As Storer’s father—an experienced breeder of hounds in England—commented, “You couldn’t ask for a better pedigree.”
Starting with Widget and Welcome, Storer plans to breed one to an Elkridge-Harford Crossbred and the other to a Millbrook Penn-Marydel. This, he hopes, will give him two strong lines of disparate gene pools to keep his breeding options open.