Peter Walsh—Everything Changed; Nothing Changed
Peter Walsh (number 7) in the Swan Lakes Stakes, 1993 Virginia Gold Cup Races. Lonesome Glory (white blaze, Blythe Miller up) went on to win the race and capture his second Eclipse award that year. / Douglas Lees photo
In 2014, Peter Walsh, ex-steeplechase jock, served as Field Master and hunted with both the Piedmont Fox Hounds and the Orange County Hounds, neighboring packs in Virginia. He was hunting five days a week and working as Farm Manager for Milton Sender, a field member of both packs. In the off-season, he played golf avidly.
Today, Peter Walsh is still hunting with both packs, still managing the farm, and still playing golf avidly. It would almost seem as if nothing had changed…except that between then and now, Peter lost his right arm.
2017 Unveiled!
Here’s our 2017 Foxhunting Life Calendar, ready to ship on September 1 and featuring all new photos. We’ve been publishing our appointments calendar since 1998, and our annual collection of foxhunting images continues to represent the finest examples of the sporting photographer’s art. Douglas Lees shot the cover photograph of huntsman Reg Spreadborough flying a […]
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.
Bill Backer (1926–2016): “The Real Thing”
Bill Backer, singing one of his foxhunting ditties while accompanying himself at the keyboard, at the National Sporting Library & Museum. / Douglas Lees photoWilliam M. Backer, a foxhunting man who put phrases and tunes on the lips of people in every corner of the globe, died in Warrenton, Virginia on Friday, May 13, 2016, after a short illness.
A member of the Advertising Hall of Fame, Bill Backer created iconic advertising campaigns such as the 1971 Coca Cola commercial featuring his jingle, “I’d like to Teach the World to Sing.” Click for a televised clip of Bill being interviewed for and playing what is arguably the most famous commercial of all time.
Bill added “Miller Time” to the language of those who needed a substitute for “cocktail hour” and created the long-running television argument for Miller Lite: “Tastes Great; Less Filling,” one of the best-liked campaigns in the history of advertising. For Campbell Soup, he persuaded customers that “Soup is good food.”
Bill was a longtime member of the Orange County Hunt (VA) and served on the Board of Stewards for fifty years, part of that time as President. At his Smitten Farm in The Plains, Virginia he bred and raised racehorses and was an active member of the Jockey Club and the Virginia Thoroughbred Association.
Trainer Neil Morris Goes Three for Five at Orange County
Novice Timber (l-r): Zanclus (Kieran Norris) first, Le Chevalier (Mark Beecher) second / Douglas Lees photo
Trainer Neil Morris made the best of his home turf advantage by saddling three winners on the five-race card at the Orange County Point-to-Point on Sunday, April 3, 2016.
In Novice Timber, the only race over fences, Morris-trained Zanclus won his second timber race in just two Virginia starts this season, both under Kieran Norris. His earlier win was at Blue Ridge. Le Chevalier, ridden by Mark Beecher, winner of the Novice Timber at Warrenton two weeks earlier, mounted a strong challenge in the stretch, but Zanclus prevailed at the wire by a neck.
Everyone Knows Bundles Murdock, But She Knows Everyone Else!
Catherine “Bundles” Murdock is the lady to seek out when paying your cap at Orange County. Be sure to observe proper protocol by enclosing your check in an envelope with your name and address. Ms. Murdock is one field secretary who knows her protocol! / Douglas Lees photoIn a recent article in the Loudoun Times-Mirror, Billie Van Pay wrote, “Almost everyone in horse country knows Catherine ‘Bundles’ C. Murdock, a fourth-generation member of a family well-known for its community leadership and for helping make the area known for its foxhunting.”
Indeed, Murdock is a long-time member of the Middleburg, Virginia community and the Orange County Hounds, serving as honorary secretary, field secretary, and road whip. And “almost everyone in horse country” does know her. But Murdock knows everyone else. Like Barbara and George Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Queen Elizabeth to name a few.
Murdock was born in New York, but Middleburg has always been home. Her grandfather William Philander “Pappy” Hulbert came to Middleburg more than one hundred years ago, and her mother grew up on the family farm, Stonehedge, before her.
Foxhunter Seeks Seat in U.S. House of Representatives
Joe Whited (right) and the author in the Old Dominion field / Michelle OHanlon Arnold photo
A foxhunter and conservationist with an impressive background in foreign affairs is seeking the Republican nomination for Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Joe Whited, thirty-six, has mounted a campaign for the Republican nomination, one of four vying for the seat being vacated by Representative Robert Hurt (R). Whited wears the colors of the Old Dominion Hounds (VA) and helps run the club’s annual point-to-point. His first race, however, will be purely political—the Republican primary in April.
Virginia’s Fifth District is the Commonwealth’s largest. The pie-shaped wedge includes much of Virginia hunt country, including territory of Piedmont, Orange County, Warrenton, Casanova, Old Dominion, Rappahannock, Thornton Hill-Fort Valley, Bull Run, Keswick, Farmington, Deep Run, Oak Ridge, Stonewall, Bedford, and Red Oak in Virginia, just north of Sedgefield and Red Mountain in North Carolina.
The Irish Hunter: An Exceptional Horse Across Any Country
The Irish Hunter by Noel Mullins, 2015, Forewords by Professor Patrick Wall, Chairman of Horse Sport Ireland and Hugh Leonard, Chairman of The Traditional Irish Horse Association, color, 208 pages, CaseboundThe Irish Hunter: An Exceptional Horse Across Any Country includes a portfolio of some five hundred photographic images taken at more than sixty hunts by photo/journalist Noel Mullins in his travels in Ireland and abroad over the last twenty years. More than two hundred of the images illustrate the exceptional jumping ability of this marvellous horse tackling a wide variety of natural cross country obstacles such as stone walls, ditches, hedges, streams, and double banks as well as man-made obstacles such as gates, concrete railings, metal barriers, wire, pallets, and even the bed post and church pew that one might occasionally come across hunting in the Irish countryside!
In hunting fields in North America, Mullins has photographed the Irish Hunter out with the Green Spring Valley, Genesee Valley, Orange County, Mr Stewart’s Cheshire, Lowcountry, and Palm Beach Hounds.
In his Introduction the author looks at how horses originated in Ireland from wild horses 28,000 years ago to domesticated horses circa 2,400 BC, and some of the various breeds that graced the Irish countryside since, such as the Irish Hobby, the Garraun, Donegal, Cushendall, Rathlin, and the Kerry Bog Pony. Then there’s the Irish Draught Horse, the Connemara Pony and the Thoroughbred, whose offspring give rise to what we know today as the Irish Hunter, also known as the Irish Draught Cross and the Irish Sport Horse.
Sally Young (1942-2015)
Douglas Lees photoSally Fendall Harrison Young of Marshall, Virginia, died peacefully on October 1, 2015 at age seventy-two. Her beloved husband of fifty-two years, James L. Young, MFH, Orange County Hounds (VA), predeceased her in 2012. Back in their day, when Melvin was still hunting the Orange County hounds, my phone would ring. “When are […]
Dedicated to Janet Hitchen
Orange County foxounds at the old kennels / Janet Hitchen photo Each year I look forward to the task of choosing the cover photo for our Foxhunting Life calendar. This year that task was taken in a more serious vein than usual. Having lost Janet Hitchen, one of the country’s foremost sporting photographers and a […]