A Boxing Day Meet in South Carolina
We had the South Carolina version of a blizzard on Boxing Day, but we and some of our hardiest of members decided to brave the elements and go hunting anyway. It had rained all night then turned to sleet and snow, which carried on all day and into the evening. Cancelling was an option but not one we wanted to use. We have always hunted on Boxing Day since the hunt was started, so we hated the thought of missing it this year, especially since the scenting would hopefully be better and we were meeting at our favorite fixture.
To Evoke an Emotion
I was born in France, raised in Holland, and came to the United States in 1988. While visiting friends over Christmas, I met my future husband and decided to study Fine Arts. I graduated summa cum laude from Northern Virginia Community College, and summa cum laude from the University Of Maryland in Studio Fine Arts. In 1993 I moved from Washington, DC to our farm in Loudoun County, Virginia, and established my studio.
I had been painting large abstract paintings in art school, so I began painting impressionistic landscapes. One day a neighbor asked if I could copy a George Stubbs painting of Mares and Foals from a table coaster. Since horses are my second love, I gladly accepted my first commission. A second Stubbs commission followed, and I started to develop an interest in sporting art.
British Hunting Ban Will Go Unchallenged in 2011
England’s Hunting Act will go unchallenged in 2011, despite Prime Minister David Cameron’s earlier pledge for a free vote in Parliament and despite former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s admission this year that passage of the Act was a mistake. Although the government claims there are more pressing issues requiring Parliament’s attention, there is doubt now […]
A Gift Subscription to Foxhunting Life
If you’re scratching your head for another gift for your favorite foxhunter, how about a year’s subscription to Foxhunting Life? Your lucky recipient will enjoy total access to the next twelve months of constantly changing articles; news; book reviews; sporting artist profiles; hunt breakfast recipes; access to our Panel of Experts; calls on the horn […]
Horse Tales and Hunt Talk
Where else but in the hunting fields of Ireland could you have found such larger-than-life and totally disparate characters as Lady Molly Cusack-Smith, Elsie Morgan, American John Huston, and Thady Ryan? Sadly, those four have passed on, but others—Michael Dempsey, Willie Leahy, and Aidan O’Connell—wear big shoes as well and are very much with us still! Also included in this delightful book of personality profiles are North America’s Nancy Penn-Smith Hannum and a smattering of French and Australian characters whom you should also meet.
Photo-journalist Noel Mullins is a regular contributor to The Irish Field, and his work has also been published in Horse and Hound, Baily’s, Hunting and Country Illustrated in England, and The Chronicle of the Horse and Foxhunting Life in the U.S.
“I started hunting with the Galway Blazers with Michael Dempsey when I was eight years old in 1952 on the milkman’s pony, Teapot, but only after I helped him on his delivery rounds!” recalls Mullins.
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.
Remembering Cliff Hunt
Clifford Hunt, a genuine old horseman and a passionate foxhunter, passed away on December 2, 2010 at age eighty-four. I can’t begin to tally the number of individuals whose lives this man changed. He was a teacher who created many dedicated foxhunters. He was a hosteller, and, with his wife and partner Laura, he provided visiting foxhunters with bed, meals, hirelings, and transport at his well-known Hunting Box in Boyce, Virginia for twenty-six years (1978–2004). Sportsmen came to The Hunting Box from Canada and all the northern states to experience foxhunting in Virginia. Many loved it so much they moved here.
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.
UK Huntsman First to Garner Two Convictions Under the Hunting Act
Huntsman Richard Down of the Quantock Hills staghounds has been convicted for a second time under the Hunting Act. He was convicted for hunting a wild mammal with more than two dogs. Down had three. Down’s first conviction was in 2007 when he was found guilty of chasing deer with hounds. In the five years […]
The Story of John Peel
One night in 1829, John Woodcock Graves sat in his parlor with John Peel, a farmer, horse dealer, and foxhunter whose hounds were highly celebrated by the local sheep farmers. From the adjoining room, Graves overheard his son’s granny singing an ancient Irish melody to the child. Graves took that old melody and wrote a new set of lyrics to honor his friend, John Peel.
“I sang it to poor Peel,” Graves wrote, “who smiled through a stream of tears which fell down his manly cheeks, and I well remember saying to him in a joking style, ‘By Jove, Peel, you’ll be sung when we’re both run to earth!’”
Forty years later, William Metcalfe, Choirmaster of Carlisle Cathedral, heard the song at a banquet. He set down the tune in musical notation for the first time together with Graves’ words, composed a piano accompaniment, and had it performed locally. He went on to London with his choir and on May 22, 1869 performed the song at the dinner of the Cumberland Benevolent Society from whence it spread quickly over the English-speaking world, propelling John Peel into the most famous foxhunter of all time.