Orange County Kermit 2015, after three consecutive appearances in the Grand Championship Class at the Bryn Mawr Hound Show over the last three years, proved that persistence pays off. The show was held Saturday, June 2, 2018 on the spacious grounds of the Radnor Hunt in Malvern, Pennsylvania, and Judge C. Martin Wood declared Kermit to be the “best example of an American Foxhound that he had ever seen.” And Mr. Wood has seen a few.
Last year, Kermit was beaten in the Grand Championship Class by Midland Striker, after winning the Grand Championship at Virginia just the week before. One year earlier, 2016, Striker had the same experience; he was passed over at Bryn Mawr after winning the Grand Championship at Virginia as well.
Born March 3, 1943 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, to a family of huntsmen (father, grandfather, uncles, and cousins), Marion’s future could be said to have been predetermined. At the time she was born, Marion’s father, Albert “Pud” Crosson, was the huntsman for Rose Tree Foxhunting Club, moving to Huntingdon Valley Hounds, then Whitelands Hunt, and concluding his career with Pickering Hunt where, in 1976, he “died in the hunting field of a heart attack after his hounds completed a splendid run, marking their fox to ground.” Inducted into the Huntsman’s Room of the Museum of Hounds and Hunting, Marion’s father was known for breeding a hard-running pack of deep-throated Penn-Marydels.
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.
Our subscription blog and e-magazine, FHL Week, is packed with captivating content, while offering valuable reference materials and resources, all in one convenient place.