Midland Striker Is Grand Champion at Virginia
Midland Striker 2015 captures the William W. Brainard, Jr. Perpetual Cup on the lawn in front of the Morven Park mansion. Midland huntsman Ken George holds Striker’s attention as three generations of Lamptons and Hardaways gather to accept the trophy from Virginia Foxhound Club President Joan Jones. Dr. John W.D. McDonald, MFH (lapel ribbon) judged this final class of the day. / Nancy Kleck photo
With six hundred foxhounds from thirty-seven hunts showing in five separate rings at the Virginia Foxhound Show at Morven Park on Sunday, May 29, 2016, the hour gets late before the four individual division champions—American, Crossbred, English, and Penn-Marydel foxhounds—finally get their chance to face off for the William W. Brainard Jr. Perpetual Cup designating the Grand Champion of Show.
The hour arrived, somewhere around six p.m., as four handsome champions came together before Dr. John W.D. McDonald, MFH, judge of this prestigious class. It had been a long, hot, and tiring day for everyone—spectators, judges, handlers, and hounds alike. But one foxhound looked like he was still ready and happy to run from one end of the field to the other, which he did when asked to show his movement. With long, powerful, yet graceful strides that looked like a slow-motion camera had been set up just for him, Midland Striker made his statement and would not be denied.
“He is one of the most beautiful movers anyone could expect to see,” said Judge McDonald in admiration. “And he has perfect conformation.”
Why Worry’s Heythrop Rachel Is Grand Champion at Carolinas
Why Worry Hounds’ Heythrop Rachel 2011 is Grand Champion of the 2016 Carolinas Hound Show.
Why Worry’s Heythrop Rachel 2011 was judged Grand Champion at the fortieth annual Carolinas Hound Show held at the Springdale Racecourse in Camden, South Carolina on May 7, 2016. It’s one thing for a visiting MFH to pick up a nice draft to bring back to the home kennels; it’s another thing entirely to know what to do with it. Here’s where George and Jeannie Thomas, MFHs, Why Worry Hounds (SC), showed their breeding acumen.
While visiting friends in England and judging a puppy show at the Heythrop kennels, George mentioned that he needed a bi*ch* to introduce new bloodlines into his breeding program. We have just the hound for you, he was told. So he brought home a nicely-bred entered bi*ch, Heythrop Rachel 2011.
Southern Hound Show Champion Is a Sober Demon
Grand Champion Midland Striker 2015 (Midland Rocket ’11 ex Staffordshire Moorland Stunning ’11) with (l-r) Daphne Wood, MFH, LIve Oak; Mason Lampton, MFH, Midland; Mary Lu Lampton; and Marty Wood, MFH, Live Oak / Leslie Shepherd photo
“I can’t take credit,” admits Midland huntsman Ken George, “because I didn’t breed him, but he’s one of a kind!”
A sober demon could be considered a contradiction in terms, but Ken describes Midland Striker 2015 as a foxhound possessing surprisingly contradictory traits. The handsome Crossbred dog hound was judged Grand Champion of Show at the tenth annual Southern Hound Show on April 9, 2016 at Live Oak Plantation in Monticello, Florida.
“The whole litter is fantastic,” continued Ken. “As an unentered hound last season, Striker was in on ten kills. He’s always right there.
Huntsmen sometimes worry about a first-year hound being too precocious. Often, by the second or third year, such hounds begin to think too much of themselves as individuals to fit in as good team members of the pack. Ken’s not worried about Striker in that way.
Hillsboro Hounds: Home of Grand Champions!
Huntsman John Gray and professional whipper-in Leilani Hrisko show Virginia Grand Champion Hillsboro Siskin ’14. Looking on (l-r) are Judge J.W.Y. “Duck” Martin, Virginia Foxhound Club Co-Chairman Mrs. Richard Jones, and huntsman John Holliday, Belvoir Foxhounds (UK). / Lauren Giannini photo
Virginia Foxhound Show, Morven Park, May 24, 2015: Okay, says Hillsboro huntsman John Gray, if you don’t like Graphic, I’ll show you Siskin!
On May 9, 2015 at the Carolinas Hound Show, Hillsboro Graphic ’14 was judge Tony Leahy’s pick for Grand Champion of Show. Two weeks later, at the Virginia Foxhound Show, Leahy, judging in the Crossbred ring, chose un-entered Midland Striker over Graphic for the Crossbred Championship.
It proved but a minor setback for Hillsboro. In the final class of the day in the English ring, Judge Charles Frampton chose Hillsboro Siskin ‘14 as the Champion English Foxhound. So when the very last class of the day rolled around—Grand Champion of Show—English Champion Siskin faced off against Crossbred Champion Midland Striker, who had just beaten Siskin’s kennel mate, Carolinas Grand Champion Graphic, for the breed championship.
The other formidable opponents in the ring were un-entered American Champion, Orange County Kermit and Penn-Marydel Champion, De La Brooke Tullamoore ’11. But Hillsboro was not to be denied. Judge J.W.Y. “Duck” Martin crowned Hillsboro Siskin ’14 Grand Champion of Show. Crossbred Champion Midland Striker was Reserve, and Hillsboro leaves town with two Grand Champion foxhounds in the last two hound shows!.
Hillsboro Graphic Is Grand Champion at Carolinas
Grand Champion Hillsboro Graphic ’14 with professional whipper-in Leilani Hrisko. Judges (l-r) are MFHs Tony Leahy and Dr. Jack Van Nagell / David Traxler photoHillsboro Graphic ’14 was judged Grand Champion of Show at the thirty-ninth annual Carolinas Hound Show held at the Springdale Race Course in Camden, South Carolina on May 8 and 9, 2015.
Whelped to royal bloodlines—American on the sire’s side and English on the dam’s side—it should have been no surprise to see Graphic garner top honors. Her sire is Hillsboro Jethro ’08, son of the magnificent Potomac Jefferson ’05, Grand Champion Foxhound at Virginia in the year of the MFHA Centennial celebration, 2007.
On the dam’s side, Graphic goes back in tail female to North Cotswold Grapefruit ’95, a Peterborough Champion and dam of several influential foxhounds in North America including Iroquois Grundy ’98, Master Jerry Miller’s all-time favorite foxhound, and Mid-Devon Grocer ’00, sire of Virginia and Bryn Mawr champion hounds from Blue Ridge.
Foxhounds from fourteen hunts and five states trod the flags at Carolinas: Aiken, Camden, DeLa Brooke, Green Creek, Hillsboro, Keswick, Lowcountry, Moore County, Red Mountain, Sedgefield, Tennessee Valley, Tryon, Whiskey Road, and Why Worry.
The Refugee Foxhounds
With the seventieth anniversary of V-E Day, May 8, 1945, just days away, we’re reminded of two sportsmen—one in America and one in England—who together tried to preserve the best bloodlines of the modern English foxhound as that type was developing and gaining acceptance over the heavy and ponderous English foxhounds of the so-called “Shorthorn Era.”
Mason Houghland, MFH of the Hillsboro Hounds (TN) and Major W.W.B. Scott, MFH of the North Cotswold Foxhounds (UK) were good friends. As Hitler invaded Poland (September, 1939), and war threatened to engulf Europe for the second time in the century, English foxhound breeders prepared yet again for their government’s mandate of destruction. (In World War I, thousands of foxhounds had been destroyed by the English authorities as a measure to conserve food and grain supplies.) Houghland received the following cablegram from Scott:
“Can you take seventeen couple of hounds for the duration of the war? Lend to friends those you have no room for. Please reply.”
Southern Hound Show Kicks Off the Season
Live Oak Fanfare ’10 is Grand Champion of the Southern Hound Show. (L-R): Daphne Wood, MFH, Live Oak Hounds; Michael Ledyard, Esq., MFH Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds; C. Martin Wood III, MFH, Live Oak Hounds; Dale Barnett, huntsman
Captain Ian W. Farquhar, MFH of the Duke of Beaufort (UK), who judged at this show seven years ago, was joined in the ring by John J. Carle II, ex-MFH of the Keswick Hunt (VA).
Ian Farquhar, huntsman for thirty-eight seasons, judged his first show forty-two years ago and has bred nineteen Peterborough champions. Jake Carle, who hunted hounds for twenty-eight seasons, has judged for over forty years at all the major hound shows in the United States. Over the course of the weekend these two very senior judges enjoyed each other immensely and got along famously in the ring despite their English and Bywaters leanings respectively. Interestingly, thirty-four ribbons were won by Crossbreds, and twenty went to English hounds. Two Champions were Crossbred, and two were English.
Crossbred Hounds Dominate at Southern Hound Show
Grand Champion of Show Live Oak Dandy and (l-r) Sally Bickerstaff; Daphne Wood, MFH; Judges Linda Armbrust, Nigel Peel, and Franklin Whit Foster, MFHs; Marty Wood, MFH; and huntsman Dale Barnett / Cathy Taber photo
The eighth annual Southern Hound Show was held at Live Oak Plantation, Monticello, Florida on April 5, 2014.
It is interesting to note that of the fifty-four ribbons awarded, not including Two-Couple or Championship classes, thirty-seven ribbons went to Crossbreds and seventeen went to English hounds, which proves the value of breeding the best English hounds to the best American blood.
The day was cloudy and cool which made the spectators comfortable and allowed hounds to show at their best in the large grass ring. Kennels were set up nearby in a three-sided hay shed where hounds from Fox River Valley (IL), Green Creek (SC), Hillsboro (TN), Midland (GA), Mooreland (AL), and Bear Creek (GA) were kenneled. The Live Oak were shown out of their home kennel.
The Whipper-In Is the Huntsman’s Right Hand
Neil Amatt, professional whipper-in, Piedmont Fox Hounds (VA): “Anticipation, punctuality, how you present yourself—all these things are drilled into you in the English system. You start in the kennels, and you have to really want it before you’re even allowed on a horse.” / Nancy Kleck photo
With the start of a new season just around the corner, we bring back this article, first published in 2013, not only for the benefit of all new and aspiring whippers-in, but also for those field members who wish to appreciate all that happens in the hunting field.
Last season, after forty-five years of hunting, I witnessed a simple act of sophisticated whipping-in that left me shaking my head in admiration. For a huntsman or an experienced whipper-in, it was perhaps no big deal.
My hunt fielded an all-new professional staff last season—huntsman and whipper-in—both of whom were learning the country on the fly. Hounds had checked in a thick covert, and we in the field could see them, heads down, trying to recover the line. The whipper-in came galloping by headed for the end of the covert.
“Over here,” called the Field Master, pointing to a concealed trail. “You can get in over here.”
The whipper-in came back, talked urgently to the Field Master, then turned his horse and continued in the direction he was originally going.
After the meet I asked him what that exchange was all about.
Mooreland Wary Is Grand Champion Foxhound at Virginia
Virginia Grand Champion Mooreland Wary 2012 shows herself before (l-r) huntsman Rhodri Jones-Evans; judge Jack Van Nagle, MFH; Mooreland MFH Jon Moody; Virginia Foxhound Club President Joan Jones; and Mooreland MFH Liz Saint John. / Lauren Giannini photo
“This is going to be an excellent Grand Championship class,” said Daphne Wood, MFH of the Live Oak Hounds (FL), as we all waited for the class to begin. “The English and Crossbred Champions are both beautiful hounds, and I’m told that the American hound is excellent as well. Jack’s going to have a tough time picking one.”
Daphne was referring to Jack Van Nagle, MFH of the Iroquois Hunt (KY), who was scheduled to judge the class and who would soon be—if he wasn’t already—feeling the pressure!