Old Dominion Hounds
Better Living Through Titanium Road Trip, Part Three
In February 2024 I decided to take a road trip to hunt my way across the US and back after finally being cleared to ride again after a massive back surgery. These were my fourth and fifth hunts for the month.
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Mildred Riddell, ex-MFH, Old Dominion Hounds (1924−2021)
Douglas Lees photo
Mildred Gulick Riddell, MFH of the Old Dominion Hounds (VA) from 1982 to 1992, died on December 4, 2021, at the age of 97. Born in 1924 at the Columbia Hospital for Women in Washington D.C., she lived most of her life at Redwood in Casanova, Virginia, the farm bought for her mother as a wedding gift by her grandfather, James Strother of Carrington in Delaplane.
Old Dominion Hounds Point-to-Point 2021
Maiden Hurdle Race, second division: Gostisbehere (Graham Watters up) leads the field over the last fence and is first at the wire. / Douglas Lees photo
Old Dominion Hounds (VA) held their spring Point-to-Point races once again in springtime! What’s unusual about that?” one might ask. Last year, Old Dominion was the first of the Virginia hunts to stage their spring races in the autumn, after Covidstopped our lives in March. Warrenton’s point-to-point last year on March 14th, its usual time, was the last of two spring races (Rappahannock on March 7th) until Old Dominion gave horsemen a day of racing on September 12th followed by Blue Ridge on September 19th. Without spectators, however.
So this spring has been a welcomed return to semi-normalcy. We’re not completely there yet, but we’re close enough to consider this spring special...and to appreciate it as such. The turf was good and entries were healthy enough for the ten-race card of hurdle, timber, and flat racing.
Entries are Well-Filled at Old Dominion Point-to-Point
Maiden Hurdle, Division 1: Last fence (l-r) He'll Do (Parker Hendriks up), 2nd; You're No Better (Archie Macauley up), 1st. / Douglas Lees photo
With the 2020 events calendar at sixes and sevens for sporting events worldwide, Old Dominion Hounds’ annual Point-to-Point Races at Ben Venue came off on September 12th in the fall of the year rather than in the spring. The good news that some point-to-points are coming off at all is testament to the fact that we are trying to learn how to co-exist with a new reality. Not ideally, to be sure, but we are testing boundaries and, hopefully, learning what works and not what doesn’t.
The fact that most of the ten races on the day’s card were well-filled with entries demonstrates a heartfelt desire for a return to normalcy, but the many horses pulled up during the course of so many of the jump races also demonstrates the training difficulties encountered this year.
De La Brooke Tops Hunts in 2020 USPC Foxhunting Challenge
De La Brooke Pony Club topped seven North American Pony Clubs in the annual United States Pony Club Foxhunting Challenge Award. Marty and Daphne Wood, Joint-Masters of the Live Oak Hounds (FL), established and funded the annual Challenge Award to reward those Pony Clubs and hunts across North America that work together proactively in giving Pony Clubbers the opportunity to foxhunt.
Last season seven Pony Clubs and their local hunts accepted the Challenge, accounting for more than 420 days in the hunting fields for the young riders. In order of the Award placings, the Pony Clubs are: De La Brooke Pony Club, hunting with the De La Brooke Foxhounds (MD); St. Margaret’s, hunting with the Marlborough Hunt (MD); Ochlockonee, hunting with the Live Oak Hunt (FL); Blue Mountain, hunting with the Rose Tree-Blue Mountain Hunt (PA); Old Dominion, hunting with the Old Dominion Hounds (VA); Cedar Knob, hunting with the Cedar Knob Hounds (TN); and Portneuf Valley, hunting with the Red Rock Hounds (NV). The top participating Pony Clubs receive cash awards donated by the Woods.
Huntsmen On the Move: 2019
Huntsman Steve Farrin, parading Amwell Valley hounds at the Pennsylvania National Horse Show (2013).
It’s time for our annual report on the recent moves of huntsmen across North America. The huntsman is my hero. From the time we mount up and for the few hours that follow, it is he or she most directly responsible for the day’s sport. How the huntsman has bred, trained, deployed, and communicated with his troops—the hounds—has everything to do with the satisfaction of our day in the field.
The moves have been numerous this season, and, in a two cases, we have experienced whippers-in finally achieving their dream of a pack of their own to hunt. We’ll catch up with Alasdair Storer, Andrew Bozdan, Kathryn Butler, Stephen Farrin, Danny Kerr, Emily Melton, and Timothy Michel.
Green Spring Valley Sapphire Is Radiant at Virginia
Grand Champion Green Spring Valley Sapphire with (l-r) huntsman Ashley Hubbard; Franklin Whit Foster, MFH; J.W.Y. Martin, MFH; Virginia Foxhound Club president Joan Jones, ex-MFH; and Sheila Jackson Brown, MFH. / Karen Kandra photo
More than six hundred foxhounds from thirty-seven hunts were exhibited at the Virginia Foxhound Show at Morven Park on Sunday, May 26, 2019, over the Labor Day Weekend. Hunts from thirteen states up and down the Eastern Seaboard and from as far away as Texas brought foxhounds to stand up against the finest examples of their breeds in North America. It is the largest foxhound show in the world.
In the always exciting final class of the show, four foxhound Champions—American, English, Crossbred, and Penn-Marydel—presented themselves to be judged for this year’s Grand Championship Class. It’s always a difficult class to judge because each entry has already been winnowed down throughout the day’s classes and has been chosen as the best specimen of its type by the judges in each ring. Each hound is deserving, and the attention and hopes of all spectators, though friendly, are ratcheted to a new level.
Albert Poe, Dead at 87
Albert Poe was huntsman of the Middleburg Hunt (VA) for 15 years before retiring from an illustrious career breeding and hunting old Virgnia Bywaters type foxhounds. / Douglas Lees photo
Albert Poe died on Saturday night, May 18, 2019. He was arguably the finest American-born professional breeder of foxhounds of our time. Along with his brother, Melvin, the pair have to be considered the two most storied American-born professional huntsmen that any foxhunter living today could have followed across the country.
Melvin might have been considered the more gregarious personality, but Albert, in his quiet way, was extremely articulate. He could put into words the hunting wisdom which developed perhaps instinctively.
Jimmy Day Entries Finish Strong at Old Dominion
Photos by Douglas Lees
Maiden Hurdle race (l-r): #1, Apollo Landing (Bryan Cullinane up) finishes 1st; Leopard Cat (Paul Cawley up) places 2nd.
The trainer-rider team of Jimmy Day and Bryan Cullinane won four of the nine races carded at the Old Dominion Point-to-Point at Ben Venue Farm on Saturday, April 6, 2019. The Amateur/Novice Rider Hurdle (first race) was a walkover, and the rest of the fields were sparse, but Day and Cullinane won over hurdles, over timber, and on the flat.
In the Maiden Hurdle, Cullinane took Charlie Fenwick’s Apollo Landing right out to the front and pulled away from Leopard Cat for the easy win.
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.
