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William Almy III Dead at Eighty-five
William Almy III died on February 28, 2014 at age eighty-five. A native of Massachusetts, he loved riding and foxhunting in his younger days with the old Quansett Hunt of which hi father, William Almy, Jr. was Master. (His father also served, from 1960 to 1970, as the tenth president of the Masters of Foxhounds Association.) Mr. Almy was raised on a horse farm on the southern shore of Massachusetts, a farm owned and lived upon by the family since before the Revolutionary War. He graduated Harvard College with the Class of 1950, then played semi-professional hockey with the Rhode Island Reds until his father “strongly suggested” he choose another occupation. He made his career in newspaper advertising. He participated in many varsity sports during his school days, played tennis and squash into his eighties, and remained a fan of football, baseball, and hockey for the rest of his life. Click for more details in his obituary published in South Coast Today. Posted March 28, 2014
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NSLM Announces Inaugural Exhibition
Catalog Cover: William Tylee Ranney, On the Wing, 1850, private collectionThe National Sporting Library and Museum in Middleburg, Virginia has announced details of the inaugural exhibition to be hung in its new museum building. The structure has been built around the nucleus of the 1804 brick mansion, Vine Hill, that housed both The Chronicle of the Horse and the National Sporting Library for so many years. The exhibition, Afield in America: 400 Years of Animal and Sporting Art 1585–1985, is curated by F. Turner Reuter, Jr. and will run from October 11, 2011 through January 14, 2012. The exhibition is based on Reuter’s book Animal and Sporting Artists in America, published in 2008 by the National Sporting Library. Designed to appeal to a wide audience, Afield in America presents works by iconic American artists such as Albert Bierstadt, Alfred Jacob Miller, and Frederic Remington, as well as those by recognized masters of the animal and sporting art genre, including John James Audubon, Edward Troye, Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait, and William Tylee Ranney. “The works of other fine American sporting artists, which have long been esteemed by enthusiasts of the genre but, until recently, were often overlooked by art historians, are an important focus of the exhibition,” says Mr. Reuter. This group includes: William Herbert Dunton, Herbert Haseltine, Thomas Hewes Hinckley, Anna Hyatt Huntington, Alexander Pope, Ogden Pleissner, Percival Rosseau, and John Martin Tracy. Click for more details. The National Sporting Library was founded in 1954 by George L. Ohrstrom, Sr. and Alexander Mackay-Smith. It is a library, research facility, and art museum now containing more than seventeen thousand books and works of art in the collections. One week before the exhibition opens—from October 7–9, 2011—a historic coaching drive and gala will take place to commemorate the opening of the museum. Posted July 2, 2011
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Piedmont Fox Hounds Point-to-Point
Trainer Richard Valentine continued his winning ways by saddling winners in the first two timber races at the Piedmont Fox Hounds Point-to-Point on Saturday, March 26, 2011 near Upperville, Virginia. Valentine-trained horses won two races at Warrenton the previous week.
Gus Brown was first at the wire with Beech Cay in the Maiden Timber for Augustin Stables, and George Hundt, Jr., pictured here, won the Owner-Rider Timber on Westbound Road. This was the second win in two weeks for Hundt, who won the Owner-Rider Timber at Warrenton on Justpourit.
National Sporting Library Expands Mission, Changes Name
June 9, 2010
MIDDLEBURG, VA – The Board of Directors of the National Sporting Library has announced a name change for the institution. It is now known as the National Sporting Library and Fine Art Museum.
