Moore County Hounds
Foxhunter Sweeps National Thoroughbred Makeover Competition
Laura Sloan, a well-known foxhunter and trainer of field hunters, won the Field Hunter Division of the 2021 National Thoroughbred Makeover competition on Donna Verrilli’s off-the-track-Thoroughbred (OTTB), Forthegreatergood. But the story doesn’t end there.
On the final evening of competition, October 17, 2021, in the arena, Sloan and Forthegreatergood won a final recognition at the Kentucky Horse Park: Overall 2021 Thoroughbred Makeover Champion of all competing horses in all ten divisions. This was the first overall championship for a horse from the Field Hunter division.
Millbrook Celebrates its 113th Opening Meet
Millbrook's new huntsman, Erin McKenney, parades hounds to the Stirrup Cup before moving off from Wethersfield. / Carol Pedesen photo
The Millbrook Hunt (NY) held its 113th Opening Meet at Wethersfield, the former home of Mr. Chauncey Stillman, on Saturday, October 3, 2020. Mr. Stillman first hunted with Millbrook in 1937 as a guest. Soon after, he assembled the land and began construction of this elegant property. He continued to hunt with the Millbrook as a member.
Friendships Through Foxhunting
Huntsman Johnny and whipper-in Lelani Gray with the Hillsboro Hounds / Kevin Keesee photo
Two weeks, 3,700 miles, eight hunting days, six different hunts, too many friends to count, one hellova good time....
What do you do when you are stuck in the cold winter weather of Northern Illinois and have not been hunting for two months? A road trip! Lucky for me, and all of us, foxhunting is a small but welcoming world. While there are a variety of ways to hunt, we all welcome fellow fox hunters to join us, and, as Jorrocks said, "Tell me a man's a fox-hunter, and I loves him at once."
Blue Ridge Rambler Is Grand Champion at Bryn Mawr
Grand Champion of Show Blue Ridge Rambler 2018 with (l-r) Graham Buston, huntsman; L. Stockton Illoway, MB, President, Bryn Mawr Hound Show Association; Judge Dr. G. Marvin Beeman, MFH; and Sheri Buston, whipper-in / Karen Kandra photo
Dr. G. Marvin Beeman, MFH, judging the Grand Champion of Show class at Bryn Mawr, awarded the trophy and ribbon to Blue Ridge Rambler 2018. Dr. Beeman is the senior Master and former huntsman of the Arapahoe Hunt (CO) and a past president of the MFHA. The Bryn Mawr Hound Show was held in Malvern, PA, on Saturday, June 1, 2019.
Green Spring Valley Sapphire 2018, judged Grand Champion at Virginia the previous week, was Reserve Grand Champion.
Rambler (Green Spring Valley Fanshaw 2014 ex Heythrop Rattle 2011) is a modern English dog hound bred by Blue Ridge huntsman Graham Buston. Irish-born, Buston grew up in the County Limerick hunting country, whipped-in, then carried the horn for both the Co. Waterford and the Co. Limerick Foxhounds. He moved to the U.S. in 2013 with his Canadian-born wife, Sheri, who whips-in to him.
Bedford County Detroit Is Grand Champion at Carolinas
Grand Champion of Show, Bedford County Detroit 2017 with handler Laura Pitts.The 2019 Carolinas Hound Show was hosted by the Moore County Hounds on May 11th at Lyell’s Meadow in the Walthour Moss Foundation, a paradise for horsemen and naturalists in the sand hills of Southern Pines, NC. The Foundation was formed in 1974 by Pappy and Ginny Moss, MFHs of the Moore County Hounds (NC), as a charitable trust of 1,700 acres preserved in perpetuity. With additional gifts through the succeeding years from Ginny Moss and others, the Foundation now totals more than 4,000 acres and represents Moore County’s principal hunting country.
Hounds competed in three rings, Crossbred in Ring 1, Penn-Marydel in Ring 2, and English, American, and Foot packs in Ring 3. That one ring is dedicated entirely to Penn-Marydel hounds, and English and American foxhounds are combined in one ring with foot hounds, strikes this reporter as a noteworthy indication of the growing affinity for Penn-Marydel foxhounds amongst North American hunts well outside of the breed’s native region of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware. Concomitantly, the consequence must be a reduction in the numbers of Pure English and American types now being hunted in these southern Atlantic states.
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.
Three Tries, the Charm, for Field Hunter Champion
John Wittenborn and Soccer, representing the Smithtown Hunt (NY), win 2018 Theodora Randolph Field Hunter Championship in Virginia.
John Wittenborn and his fourteen-year-old Clydesdale-Thoroughbred cross, Soccer, returned home to Long Island and the Smithtown Hunt with the Championship Trophy and ribbon from the Theodora Randolph 2018 Field Hunter Championship in Virginia. Three tries was the charm for Wittenborn and Soccer. Last year the pair made a good showing, placing third.
It was the first team from a northern hunt to have won the coveted prize in thirty-five years of competitions. And it was fitting; Mrs. Randolph was a northerner, though from Boston’s North Shore.
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.
Moore County Hounds Work Hard, Play Hard
Lincoln Sadler, 20 years whipping-in, now huntsman of the Moore County Hounds (NC) Mary Kate Murphy, staff writer for the The Pilot in Pinehurst, North Carolina, interviewed Lincoln Sadler, huntsman of the Moore County Hounds (NC), and wrote the best newspaper article about foxhunting that I have seen in many years. And on so many levels. Murphy and Sadler explain the primal importance of hounds to the sport of foxhunting; the training process and bond between huntsman and hound; how Sadler selects his pack for a day’s hunting depending on the country; how he comes to know his hunting country so well; Sadler’s eschewing of double-speak about hunting in North America (i.e., the truth for a change by a hunt official in a newspaper!); how hound shows help mitigate a huntsman’s “kennel-blindness”; and the foxhound’s life from whelping to puppy training to being entered to retirement. Murphy’s is an article of foxhunting substance and the writer’s art, the likes of which I have never seen published by a hometown newspaper. (I have to wonder if Murphy, besides being an excellent writer, is also an experienced foxhunter!) Examples: Author’s Lead:Whether emerging stately from the mist for a Thanksgiving blessing or crashing headlong through the pines on a weekday hunt, an assembly of horses, riders and hounds makes for a spectacle that’s lost on its most important characters. The hounds of Moore County Hounds are too busy following their noses. The huntsman knows his country:He makes his choice on any given day based on whether the hunt will cover the Walthour-Moss Foundation’s 5,000 acres or the 64,000-acre Sandhills Game Lands. A Moore County native and lifelong foxhunter, Sadler knows both fixtures well. He took an early retirement from working on the Game Lands as a state wildlife biologist before taking over as huntsman last year. How a candid Sadler selects his hounds for a day’s hunting:“If I know I’m going somewhere I need a wide-ranging hound or hounds that draw differently, I can select different hounds and accomplish that,” he said. “I do give myself a little grief by taking more hounds than I should, because I have to put up with a little more fooling around from the young entry … on the days when you can’t seem to find a varmint anywhere, they can be a little bit wearisome. But what a gracious noise, what a beautiful music they make when everybody opens on the right thing and you’re off.” The hunting bond between huntsman and hound:“When we are riding home, I always look right at my left heel for Hoplight, look at my back right for Ensign and so on and so forth,” Sadler said. “They seem to have a place in the pack that they like.” A huntsman’s self evaluation:“I was lucky enough to inherit a good pack of hounds when I became huntsman. By my estimation, I really have nowhere to go but down with these hounds.” A succinct evaluation of his Penn-Marydels:“If the scenting conditions are where they can’t fly on the scent, then they may be described as slow … but on those days when the scenting conditions are not good, other packs wouldn’t be able to hunt a line at all.” Telling the truth. No syrup-speak, no fanciful fibs:Hunts in the United States and Canada are all about the thrill of the chase. Most days end with the fox going to ground when it tires of being pursued and living to be hunted another day. I would very much like to offer more from this substantive and gracefully-expressed article, but I don’t want to commit plagiarism! Click on the link for the complete text and photos. I recommend it as an excellent read about the Moore County Hounds (I wish I had written it!), and also as a model newspaper article about foxhunting. Ted Fitzgerald’s photographs are first-rate as well. Posted January 16, 2018
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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.
