john harrison
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!
Huntsman John Harrrison Returns to Toronto and North York
Former Toronto and North York huntsman John Harrison has been hunting the Ullswater Foxhounds in the Cumbrian fells for the past eighteen years.
John Harrison will return next season to the Toronto and North York Hunt (ON) to carry the horn once again—a post he had previously filled from 1991 to 1996. During those years, Harrison bred a number of outstanding hounds and won many championships at the Virginia Foxhound Shows.
Harrison was born and raised in the Cumbrian Lake District of England, where hunting is in the genes and the country is so rough, horses cannot be used. The literature of foxhunting is replete with accounts of grueling days with the famous foot packs of the area, climbing and descending the scree-strewn crags and struggling to snow-filled borrans.
