Performance Trial Championships a Huge Success at Midland
Trial Huntsman Ashley Hubbard / Kgp PhotographyTwo days of hard hunting on November 6 and 7, 2018 behind a pack of fifty-four foxhounds—each of which qualified for this championship event by placing among the top ten of one or more of the performance trials over the past year—concluded the MFHA Hark Forward! Performance Trial Season. The season of performance trials, field hunter trials, and joint meets which began last year were conceived by MFHA president Tony Leahy and Master Epp Wilson, Belle Meade Hunt (GA), to reprise, during Leahy’s tenure as president, the spirit of the MFHA Centennial celebrations ten years earlier.
The Performance Trial Championship event was matured, expanded, organized, and staged to perfection by the Masters of the Midland Fox Hounds (GA) in their Fitzpatrick, Alabama hunting country. More than two hundred people representing more than forty hunts participated. Foxhounds from twenty-four hunts competed. Ashley Hubbard, professional huntsman at the Green Spring Valley Hounds (MD), served as trial huntsman for this all-star pack.
A Level Pack or a Team of Specialists?
The sheer beauty of a level pack of foxhounds is indisputable. There is a uniformity of appearance and traits, and such a pack tends to run well together. But isn’t there another option?
Why not a pack consisting of foxhounds of various types, welcoming the unique attributes of each hound type? Breeders know that no single type offers all the best attributes we want in a pack; hence the English-American Crossbred. But within those two categories there are still more individual types with more concentrated attributes that could allow each type to contribute at the appropriate stage of any hunt just when needed.
Lampton’s Alternate Sporting Life
Mason Lampton, MFHMason Lampton, a long-serving leader of the sport of foxhunting in North America and MFH of the Midland Fox Hounds (GA), has another sporting life. His alternate Field of Dreams to the hunting field is a polo field. The phrase, “If you build it they will come,” must have rattled around in his head for a while before he decided to transform a fallow potato field in Northern Michigan into a first-rate polo field.
This year, having completed its eighth season, Bliss Polo is bringing players and spectators to matches all the way to the northernmost shores of Lake Michigan. Near the Straits of Mackinac. Who would have thought?
OCH Kermit Is Grand Champion at Bryn Mawr
Grand Champion Foxhound Orange County Kermit 2015 poses with the Midland Foxhounds Trophy at the conclusion of the Bryn Mawr Hound Show. Huntsman Reg Spreadborough is the handler. Standing are (l-r) Show Chairman Lance Taylor, Radnor Hunt; Catherine “Bundles” Murdock, Hon. Sec., Orange County Hounds; and Judge C. Martin Wood III, MFH, Live Oak Hounds. / Liz Callar photo
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.
Deep Run Warrior Is Grand Champion at Carolinas
Deep Run Warrior 2015 stands proudly for his award photograph. Judge Mary Ewing, MFH, presents the trophy for Grand Champion of Show to huntsman John Harrison. Stud groom and second whipper-in Chelsea Ray Kellerhouse is at left.
Huntsman John Harrison loves Warrior’s entire litter. “It’s the best litter in the kennels,” he says, “and Warrior is the best-looking hound in the litter.”
Apparently the judges thought so, too. Deep Run Warrior 2015 was judged Grand Champion of Show at the Carolinas Hound Show hosted by the Moore County Hounds on Saturday, May 12, 2018 at the grounds of the Walthour Moss Foundation in Southern Pines, NC.
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.
Huntsmen On the Move: 2018
Neil Amatt will hunt hounds at Loudoun Fairfax.Having been a member of many fields in many hunting countries, the huntsman has always been my hero. From the time we mount up and for the few hours that follow, it is the huntsman who is most directly responsible for our day’s sport.
One might well argue that the hounds have something to do with it, and this I grant. But the pack is the product of the huntsman, and, since the level of sport depends on how hounds perform in the field as a pack, it all comes back to the huntsman.
Here’s our annual report on the recent moves of huntsmen Neil Amatt, Martyn Blackmore, Tony Gammell, and Sam Clifton.
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.
The County Limerick Foxhounds at Kilmallock
The well-bred Old English foxhounds of the County Limerick continue to show exciting sport. The Limerick breeding program has been closely associated with that of the Belvoir (UK) since the Mastership of Lord Daresbury beginning in the mid-twentieth century. / Catherine Power photo
Reports on hunting with The Counties, as the County Limerick Foxhounds are locally referred to, have been glowing with stories of one red letter day following hard on the heels of another. So it was with some sense of anticipation we joined last Saturday’s meet at the mart yard in Kilmallock.
There were over sixty mounted, including several U.S. visitors. From the Midland Fox Hounds in Georgia came Mason Lampton, Jr, MFH, with his two sons Whitney and younger brother Henry—great-grandchildren of the famous foxhunter, Ben Hardaway, who at age ninety-eight passed away only recently. Organizers of the American expedition were Richard and Lilith Boucher, steeplechase jockey and trainer from Camden, South Carolina, and their daughter Mell.
Team Leahy Hosts Performance Trial; Kicks Off Hark Forward!
MFHA President Tony Leahy and the Massbach Hounds kick off this season’s Foxhound Performance Trial tour.MFHA President Tony Leahy and the Fox River Valley/Massbach Hounds hosted the kick-off Performance Trial on the Hark Forward Tour in their western Illinois hunting country on September 16 and 17, 2017.
By the time it was over, everyone took home a renewed appreciation for the hard work and knowhow it takes to make and maintain a good hunting pack of foxhounds. Certainly the fact that littermates brought up by different hunts and trained by different staffs, rose like cream to the top of the scoring is convincing proof that breeding matters! Next stop on the tour is Millbrook, New York.