Hillsboro: A Clean Sweep at Virginia
Hillsboro Walnut 2017 is Grand Champion of Show at Virginia. (L-R, front row): Huntsman John Gray, Judge Dr. Marvin Beeman, MFH (straw hat), Joan Jones, president of the Virginia Foxhound Club, Orrin Ingram, MFH, (kneeling) with Lee Ann Ingram behind, and Leilani Gray. (L-R, back row): Charlie Burke, Hunt Secretary Dana Burke, Hill McAlister, MFH, Emily McMcAlister, Nina Lindley, Michael Lindley, MFH, and Eleanor Menefee Parks, MFH. / Lauren Giannini photoAt this year’s Virginia Foxhound Show, the Hillsboro Hounds (TN) matched a bit of history made back in 2010 by the Live Oak Hounds (FL) in that most exciting final class of the day, Grand Champion of Show. The show was held at Morven Park on May 27, 2018
As usual, four hounds were qualified for the Grand Champion class—the American, Crossbred, English, and Penn-Marydel Champions. Hillsboro had two hounds in the ring, having won both the English and the Crossbred Championships. When the class ended, Hillsboro Walnut 2017 was Grand Champion of Show, and Hillsboro Starlight 2017 was Reserve Grand Champion. It only happened once before, and there have been seventy-one Virginia Foxhound Shows.
The Sporting Life: The Art of Joseph H. Sulkowski
Review by Norman Fine
The Sporting Life: The Art of Joseph H. Sulkowski, text by Brooke Chilvers, Foreword by Lorian Peralta-Ramos, Sporting Classics, 2017, hardcover, 240 pp., $60. Available from Dog and Horse Fine Art in their Charleston, South Carolina gallery, via email, or telephone (834-577-5500)
Here is a beautifully designed and magnificently produced coffee table book of sporting art: two hundred forty pages filled with high quality color reproductions of more than 180 paintings and sketches by Joseph Sulkowski. The 12-1/4 x 11-1/4 hard bound volume was meticulously printed on fine quality coated stock so substantial I was tempted to measure the thickness with a wooden ruler. The book weighs in at five pounds.
But here’s the thing. It’s not just a book of brilliant paintings; it’s a college level course in art appreciation by a writer, Brooke Chilvers, who at age seventeen moved herself to Paris to study art history. Upon completing her studies, Chilvers embarked on a year-long camping trip, after which she married Rudy Lubin, a French professional hunter who operated in the French Republic of Africa for forty years. Chilvers has been the editor of African Hunting Gazette for twelve years and the art columnist for Gray’s Sporting Journal for fifteen years. She has filled high-level offices in international hunting organizations and won journalistic awards for her writing.
Hillsboro Four-Times Champion at Southern Hound Show
Hillsboro Walnut 2017 (Hillsboro William 2013 ex their Sable 2013) is Grand Champion of the 2018 Southern Hound Show. (L-R): Hillsboro huntsman John Gray, whipper-in Leilani Gray, Orrin Ingram, MFH, and Lee Ann Ingram / Leslie Shepherd photoThe twelfth Southern Hound Show, hosted annually by the Live Oak Hounds (FL), will be remembered for the rain and the Hillsboro Hounds (TN) entries that swept four of the five Championship classes.
Hillsboro Walnut 2017 was judged Grand Champion of Show and Champion Bi*ch. Hillsboro hounds also won the Champion Unentered and Champion Two-Couple classes. Live Oak Assault was Champion Dog Hound and Reserve Champion of Show. “For Hillsboro to win all but one of the championships is a major accomplishment for Master Orrin Ingram and Huntsman Johnny Gray,” said Daphne Wood, MFH, Live Oak Hounds.
How the Experts Judge a Class of Foxhounds
Hillsboro Godfrey 2016 was last year’s Grand Champion at the Southern Hound Show, hosted by the Live Oak Hounds (FL) / Leslie Shepherd photo
With the foxhunting season closing, and a new season of hound and puppy shows approaching, I always determine to improve my eye for a hound by judging from ringside just for fun. I would encourage any foxhunter to try it. The exercise not only makes the day more interesting, but educational as well. Especially when you can collar a friendly judge after the class and ask him why he didn’t like the hound you adored, or why he picked a hound you thought was ordinary.
It can be intimidating when you watch a procession of foxhounds enter and leave the ring and wonder how in the world the judge can sort them all out. For example, how does he compare a hound he is looking at to one he saw ten minutes ago? I have asked, and it seems there are almost as many methods as there are judges.
A Red Letter Day at Live Oak
Huntsman Spencer Allen with the LIve Oak foxhounds, accompanied by whipper-in Alexandra Taber and kennel huntsman Sam Andrews. / Leslie Ballenger photo
Marty’s Weather Channel said no way but my Weather Bug gave me hope, and hope springs eternal! It looked highly likely that we might have to cancel due to heavy rain and possible thunderstorms, but, never wanting to cancel unless totally necessary, the call was made at 5:30 a.m. to go for it.
We were in the saddle at 8:30 and headed for the Dip Vat. What a shame, as it turned out, that so many were put off by the weather prediction of three inches of rain, to have only two in the field—Cameron and David Reid. “Small field, good hunt” could not have been more true!
Fifty-six Juniors Vie for JNAFH Championships at Belle Meade
Fifty-six junior finalists line up for their commemorative photo at Foxboro, home of Belle Meade Master and host Epp Wilson. / Eric Bowles photo
Junior foxhunters, their horses, parents, and friends traveled from thirteen states to Thomson, Georgia, where the Belle Meade Hunt hosted the finals of the fifteenth annual Junior North American Field Hunter Championships on November 11-13, 2017.
Throughout the course of the informal season, hunts around the country held qualifying meets from which the young finalists were chosen by mounted judges. Of the 216 juniors who qualified to compete in the finals, fifty-six young riders from eighteen North American hunts—more than twenty-five percent of those qualified—traveled to Belle Mead to hunt, compete, see old friends, and make a pile of new friends. And did they have a wonderful time! It was truly a pleasure to see.
How Charles Montgomery Shaped the Foxhound Performance Trial
Trial huntsman Charles Montgomery and competing hounds at the 2016 Belle Meade Hunt hound trials / Bella Vita Fotografie photo
The Brits must be getting used to this. Teach the Yanks something worthwhile, like foxhunting, and they go ahead and change it. They did it first with the foxhound. A braggart named Harry Worcester Smith came along at the beginning of the twentieth century with his long-eared, mouthy, hare-footed hounds, and claimed they were better than ours! He put together a Great Hound Match and tried to prove it. We spent two hundred years developing the perfect model of what a foxhound should look like, and then along came another American named Ikey Bell who started another revolution. And just twenty years ago—yesterday in the proper scheme of things—a couple of rebels named Ben Hardaway and Mason Lampton started painting numbers on foxhounds. Whatever for?
Judges Engage Spectators at 2017 Canadian Hound Show
Admiring Canadian Grand Champion Wentworth are (l-r) TNY Huntsman Roslynn Balding; Judge C. Martin Wood III, MFH, Live Oak Hounds; Apprentice Judge Mary Ewing, MFH, Arapahoe Hunt; Carl Feairs, MFH, TNY; Laurel Byrne, MFH, TNY; Judge Ian Farquhar, MFH, Duke of Beaufort’s; Mike Byrne, President, TNY; and Teresa Robinson. / Denya Massey photo
Two world-class judges of foxhounds turned a good day, June 17, 2017 at the Canadian Foxhound Show, into an exceptional and informative day for spectators. MFHs Captain Ian Farquhar and C. Martin Wood III shared their insights as to the choices they made after the results of classes were announced. The experience was an invaluable master class for both those showing hounds and those watching. Each man has judged every major hound show in the foxhunting world, including Peterborough, and each is esteemed among the very best in the breeding of foxhounds.
Grand Champion Foxhound of Show was Toronto and North York’s Blue Ridge Wentworth 2015, an English dog hound. Judge Farquhar especially demonstrated consistency in his choice, since he chose Wentworth as Grand Champion of the Bryn Mawr Hound Show last year!
Huntsmen’s Room Honors Three New Inductees
Arapahoe Joint-Master Mary Ewing introduces Marvin Beeman. / Douglas Lees photo
A countryman from Virginia, a veterinarian from Colorado, and a businessman from north Florida were honored by an appreciative crowd of well-wishers on the occasion of their induction into the Huntsmen’s Room of the Museum of Hounds and Hunting. Ceremonies were conducted at Morven Park, Leesburg, Virginia on Saturday, May 27, 2017. This was the evening before the Virginia Foxhound Show over the Memorial Day Weekend.
James Lee Atkins, Dr. G. Marvin Beeman, MFH, and C. Martin Wood III, MFH were selected by a committee of their peers for having carried the hunting horn with honor, courage, and distinction in hunting fields across North America in their lifetimes. The three men join a select club of just forty-one pre-eminent huntsmen so honored. The last inductions were made two years ago.
Spencer Allen Is the New Huntsman at Live Oak
Huntsman Spencer Allen / Douglas Lees photo
Huntsman Spencer Allen has gone through a rocky time in the past couple of years. He’s been forced to consider other options for his future, but he knows in his heart what he loves the most—working with and hunting foxhounds. And this is why he’s so happy to be in Monticello, Florida at Marty and Daphne Wood’s unparalleled establishment as huntsman for the Live Oak Hounds.
After serving six years in the Marine Corps, including a tour in Iraq, Allen began as an amateur whipper-in at the Bull Run Hunt (VA). Two seasons later he turned professional and moved to the Piedmont Fox Hounds (VA), serving four seasons as first whipper-in to huntsman Richard Roberts. Allen found himself working with a talented and attractive whipper-in, Rachel Gray, who also happened to be the daughter of the previous huntsman, Butch Gray. Spencer and Rachel were married, and in 2010 Spencer was named huntsman at Piedmont. He hunted the Piedmont hounds for five seasons, showing excellent sport, but trouble followed.