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!
Brian Kiely Wins Fourth National Horn Blowing Championship
Brian Kiely bested a strong lineup of fourteen participants to win his fourth National Horn Blowing Championship. / Liz Callar photo
Brian Kiely broke his own record by winning his fourth National Horn Blowing Championship. Since the start of the competition in 1995, five men have won the title twice—Andrew Barclay, Steve Farrin, Ian Milne, Adrian Smith, and John Tabachka—but with his fourth championship Kiely continues to move the goal posts for the rest of the field. Kiely is the new huntsman at the Potomac Hunt (MD), and his victory was accompanied by the cheers of his supporters led by retiring Potomac huntsman Larry Pitts.
The 2015 National Horn Blowing Championship was held at Morven Park on May 23, 2015 over the Virginia Foxhound Show weekend. The large crowd on hand under the Saturday night dinner tent listened enthusiastically to the fifteen entries in a strong lineup of contestants.
After the first round in which all participants blew three calls on their horns, three individuals were asked to return for a blow-off: Brian Kiely, Adrian Smith, and John Tabachka. This was an all-star lineup with all three finalists holding multiple titles. Adrian Smith is huntsman for the Metamora Hunt (MI), and John Tabachka is huntsman for the Sewickley Hunt (PA).
Advice From a Junior Whipper-In
Here’s astute, peer-to-peer advice for juniors aspiring to become honorary hunt staff. I can’t help but wonder how many huntsmen out there would love to have Carmen on his/her staff!
We, juniors, are the future of foxhunting. It is our responsibility to be knowledgeable and to keep this fantastic sport alive and traditional.
Have you ever peered past the first Field Master at those tiny white specs in the distance—the hounds—and wondered what’s going on up there, what that blast of the horn meant, where that scarlet-clad rider is galloping off to in such a hurry? Ever think about whipping-in?
What to Think About Before You Decide to Whip-In
Whipping-in can be the most exhilarating, amazing adventure ever, or it can be the most terrifying, stressful experience ever. It largely depends on how you handle the thrills and horrors that being a whip sends your way.
Whipping-in doesn’t only take place on your horse in the hunt field. It takes place in the kennels, in the stables, at home with a mountain of books, and in the mud on your backside watching your mount vanish into the distance.
Mark McManus: Huntsman and Mentor
Mark McManus is the new huntsman at the Chagrin Valley Hunt (OH).
When a huntsman retires after a long and successful career hunting hounds for a respected hunting establishment, that vacuum creates a ripple effect throughout the hunting community. So it was when Larry Pitts retired after thirty-five seasons hunting hounds at the Potomac Hunt (MD). Pitts’s vacancy was filled by huntsman Brian Kiely from the Myopia Hunt (MA); the void at Myopia was filled by huntsman Philip Headdon from the Chagrin Valley Hunt (OH); and the Chagrin Valley opening will be filled this season by huntsman Mark McManus from the Ottawa Valley Hunt (ON).
During his time at Ottawa Valley, McManus definitely left his mark (pun intended). OVH Master Anne McKibbin lets sixteen-year-old whipper-in Carmen Powell-Sadik tell us how.
Mark is an enjoyable person to be around, with many a good story to tell depicting various scenes of humor and horror taken from an exciting and sometimes perilous life of foxhunting in his native Ireland. He remembers times of his childhood riding with his baby brother “sat in me lap” as he (much to his father’s chagrin) jumped the hedges!
Radnor Huntsman John Dean Breaks Leg
Radnor huntsman Johnny Dean / Daria Killinger photoTuesday, March 17, 2015, Radnor huntsman John “Johnny” Dean III slipped at the mounting block just prior to moving off with hounds from the kennel, and suffered a broken leg. Stevie Hayes, former huntsman of the Bellwood Hunt and occasional whipper-in at Radnor, saved the day’s hunting by […]
Hunt-to-Huntsman Relations: A Matter of Concern?
Sidney Bailey retired in 2005 after serving as professional huntsman for the Vale of the White Horse (UK) for forty-three seasons.Foxhunting Life readers demonstrate enormous interest in our articles covering the migration of huntsmen each year at about this time. (See “Huntsmen on the Move,” published last month.) Nancy Mitchell, who has hunted hounds at the Bijou Springs Hunt (CO) over a period of sixteen years, wants to know the why of it.
“I’m curious to know what motivates this ‘spring dance of the huntsmen,’” Nancy wrote. “What circumstances create this phenomenon? Money? Prestige? Politics? Age?”
We thought it was an interesting subject for our Panel of Experts, so we asked Jerry Miller, MFH, C. Martin Scott, ex-MFH, and Hugh Robards, ex-MFH, to weigh in on Nancy’s question.
In the Footsteps of a Huntsman
From London’s streets to Virginia’s hunt country
Huntsman Andy Bozdan and the Loudoun Fairfax hounds / Laura Riley photo
The job: huntsman. The man: Andrew Bozdan—leader of fifty couple of Old English foxhounds. One hundred canines. How is this possible? In all my life as a dog owner, I’ve only had a handful who actually came when I called. How is it that we mortals have such difficulty in getting our dogs to sit and come and not potty in the house, while this man steers his entire pack in an apparently seamless manner.
The answer is, as always, nothing is ever as easy as it looks. Before the man appears in public, seated atop his skewbald gelding, wearing his scarlet coat, and blowing his copper horn to speak to the mass of hounds seething below, one heck of a lot of work happens and many miles are traveled.
Blue Ridge Huntsman Guy Allman Returns to England
Once again the time of year has arrived when hunts and huntsmen contemplating change make their decisions known—one to the other. Foxhunting Life will feature at least some of these huntsmen’s personal transitions through the coming months.
Nancy Kleck photo
Guy Allman, popular huntsman for the Blue Ridge Hunt (VA) for the past three seasons, received an offer he couldn’t refuse. He’ll return to England—home for him and his wife, Fran—to carry the horn for the Bicester with Waddon Chase Foxhounds. Guy will succeed huntsman Patrick Martin, who is retiring after twenty-two seasons hunting the pack.
The condition, fitness, and biddability of the Blue Ridge hounds testify to Allman’s work ethic. He spends a great deal of time training puppies early on, so by the time the season starts they are ready to enter, off the couples, all at once. On the first day of the season, every hound to be entered is out with the pack. And it’s a big pack, typically twenty-five to thirty couple, virtually every hound in kennels capable of walking on four legs.
Also on the first day of hunting, every hound is fit not only for the chase but for the late-summer weather as well. Allman wants hounds as oblivious to the heat as he appears to be. There are to be no excuses.
Peter Hitchen MFH (1938–2015)
Vicky Moon photo, circa 1980s
Peter Hitchen, MFH, died January 12, 2015 from complications stemming from injuries sustained in a fall in the hunting field a month earlier. He was seventy-six. At the time of his passing, Peter was serving in his twenty-seventh season as Joint-Master of the Potomac Hunt (MD).
Peter was born in England but didn’t start foxhunting until he emigrated to the U.S. in 1962. After settling in the Washington, D.C. area, Peter was introduced to the sport by a friend. He also met his bride-to-be, Nancy Tilton Orme of Leesburg, Virginia, who also encouraged his involvement with hunting to hounds at The Loudoun Hunt.
From that time on, Peter never let anything interfere with his maturing love of and passion for foxhunting. After many seasons of whipping-in at the New Market/Middletown Valley Hounds (MD) and later at The Potomac Hunt, Peter joined Irvin L. (Skip) Crawford as Joint-Master of Potomac in 1987. With huntsman, Larry Pitts, they oversaw the development of what is unquestionably one of the premier packs of American foxhounds in the United States, giving good sport to their members and garnering championships and grand championships at the hound shows year after year.
A New Hunting Experience in the Lowcountry
South Carolina’s Lowcountry / Caroline Leake photo
I have been hunting for fourteen years now—since age six—and recently experienced a completely different way of hunting! I visited the Lowcountry Hunt in South Carolina to visit old friends—Lowcountry huntsman Martyn Blackmore and his lovely wife Sue. My mom Caroline and I drove down on Friday, December 12, to be ready to go hunting on Saturday. My first observation was everything is flat! Absolutely no hills. And the footing is sand—much different than what I am used to here in the Blue Ridge of Virginia.
Martyn was up by 4:30 in the morning and getting hounds ready since we had a two-hour drive ahead of us. The pack is mostly Crossbred, but when Martyn came to the Lowcountry he brought with him some puppies bred from his favorite Old English lines.
Sue was up getting the horses ready to go. The meet was at a place called Palmetto Bluff. I thought we had arrived because we pulled off the road into a smaller driveway. Wow, was I wrong! The driveway started as pavement and then went to gravel and then to sand and then we were not particularly on a road at all, just more of a path in the woods. We kept driving and driving, and fourteen miles later we ended up at the meet.