Rose Tree Foxhunting Club
A First-Year Huntsman, Her Hounds, Her Sport
After the close of last season, professional whipper-in Erin McKenney was tapped to take over the horn at the Millbrook Hunt (NY). What’s it like to be a first-year huntsman following in the boot prints of a retiring, respected, experienced huntsman and long-time hound breeder like Donald Philhower? Butterflies, sure, but what goes through the mind of a huntsman responsible for giving sport every hunting day? Erin gives us a taste.
Lindsay Baldwin photo
November 5, 2020, 9-1/2 couple
It was a warm, bluebird sort of day with a dry wind which didn’t bode too well for scenting conditions. I took a smaller pack since it is a tight fixture.
I went with idea of taking older, slower hounds, with some younger ones for an educational day. I’m not convinced when young hounds are flying on a coyote that they’re learning a ton, except to keep up. The seasoned hounds may not be so quick under this day’s conditions, and the younger ones should have a chance to really get their noses down and learn.
Hunt Mergers Bring Stability, Benefits
Sean Cully, MFH and huntsman (center), with hounds of the Rose Tree-Blue Mountain Hunt (PA). To the left is Brady Cully, whipper-in; to the right is Dr. Edward Franco, Joint-MFH and whipper-in.
When hunts merge, the resulting whole can often become greater than the sum of its parts. Take the case of a once-small hunt in Pennsylvania—the Blue Mountain Hunt. It was established by Sean Cully, MFH, in 1999 as a farmer’s foot pack. It became a mounted pack in 2009, was Registered with the MFHA in 2011, and became a Recognized pack in 2014.
Through unanticipated but judicious mergers, Cully’s little foot pack has stabilized a historic foxhunting country in Pennsylvania, rejuvenated the oldest subscription pack of foxhounds in the United States, and become a national influence and model for the sport.
A Thanksgiving Day Hunt with the Brandywine
Stuart Rose: foxhunter, race rider, publisher, author
This tale of a Thanksgiving hunt in Pennsylvania around the middle of the twentieth century is from Stuart Rose’s excellent book, There’s a Fox in the Spinney: Memories of Fox-hunting, Racing and Publishing (Doubleday, 1967).
Rose’s father intended to send his son to Harvard, but upon completing secondary school the young man joined the U.S. Calvary instead, by lying about his age. He wanted to ride horses.
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.
Marion Scullin: Doyenne of the Howard County–Iron Bridge Hounds
Marion Lee Crosson Scullin with one of her many favorite hounds, Howard County-Iron Bridge Opal.Marion Lee Crosson Scullin passed away peacefully at her Damascus, Maryland home after a brief struggle with brain cancer on March 5, 2017.
Born March 3, 1943 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, to a family of huntsmen (father, grandfather, uncles, and cousins), Marion’s future could be said to have been predetermined. At the time she was born, Marion’s father, Albert “Pud” Crosson, was the huntsman for Rose Tree Foxhunting Club, moving to Huntingdon Valley Hounds, then Whitelands Hunt, and concluding his career with Pickering Hunt where, in 1976, he “died in the hunting field of a heart attack after his hounds completed a splendid run, marking their fox to ground.” Inducted into the Huntsman’s Room of the Museum of Hounds and Hunting, Marion’s father was known for breeding a hard-running pack of deep-throated Penn-Marydels.
Newsmakers at Virginia
C. Martin Wood, III, MFH / Nancy Kleck photoFoxhounds weren’t the only newsmakers at the Virginia Foxhound Show. A few people were worth noting as well!
Huntsmen’s Room
Three individuals were introduced for induction into the Huntsmen’s Room of the Museum of Hounds and Hunting in ceremonies on Saturday evening. Before dinner under the tent, Jake Carle, ex-MFH, spoke eloquently, reverently, and at the right times humorously about the three men who have hunted hounds with distinction for many years: C. Martin Wood, III, MFH, Live Oak Hounds (FL), G. Marvin Beeman, MFH, Arapaho Hunt (CO), and the late Jim Atkins who hunted hounds for the Piedmont Fox Hounds, Old Dominion Hounds, and the Warrenton Hunt, all in Virginia.
G. Marvin Beeman, MFH Huntsman Jim Atkins
Codie Hayes and Her Hounds: A Love Story
At age 12, Codie Hayes showed Rose Tree Needy to the Grand Championship at the 2004 Virginia Foxhound Show, the first time ever for a Penn-Marydel. / Lauren Giannini photoFrom the moment Codie Jane Hayes became aware of the world around her, she took to hounds. She progressed from crawling to toddling among the pack of Penn-Marydel foxhounds bred and hunted by her grandfather Jody Murtagh, Jr., ex-MFH. She was a wunderkind, totally at home with hounds and crazy about them. From the way hounds take to her, she was born with a gift—that coveted invisible thread connecting her to hounds wherever she goes.
In August 2014, Codie, twenty-two, became the professional huntsman for the Golden’s Bridge Hounds in North Salem, New York. This position at any hunt entails huge responsibilities, but after a glimpse into how she spent her childhood and teen years, there’s no doubt that she has been training to be huntsman since she came into the world.
Mooreland Wary Is Grand Champion Foxhound at Virginia
Virginia Grand Champion Mooreland Wary 2012 shows herself before (l-r) huntsman Rhodri Jones-Evans; judge Jack Van Nagle, MFH; Mooreland MFH Jon Moody; Virginia Foxhound Club President Joan Jones; and Mooreland MFH Liz Saint John. / Lauren Giannini photo
“This is going to be an excellent Grand Championship class,” said Daphne Wood, MFH of the Live Oak Hounds (FL), as we all waited for the class to begin. “The English and Crossbred Champions are both beautiful hounds, and I’m told that the American hound is excellent as well. Jack’s going to have a tough time picking one.”
Daphne was referring to Jack Van Nagle, MFH of the Iroquois Hunt (KY), who was scheduled to judge the class and who would soon be—if he wasn’t already—feeling the pressure!
Cornwall Woodman Is Grand Champion at Canadian Hound Show
Canadian Hound Show Grand Champion Cornwall Woodman 2010 / Paul Wilson photoCornwall Woodman 2010 (Fox River Valley Keystone 2005 ex Mooreland Wedlock 2008) was judged Grand Champion at the Canadian Hound Show held this year at the kennels of the Hamilton Hunt (ON) on June 9, 2012.
Woodman is a Crossbred dog hound entered by Tony Leahy, MFH and huntsman of the Cornwall Hounds and the Fox River Valley Hunt, both in Illinois. Woodman was entered into the MFHA registry as a Cornwall hound, but the Cornwall and Fox River Valley packs are basically one in the same. Woodman is primarily the result of Fox River Valley breeding, but the tail female line—one of Leahy’s best—took a short detour through the Mooreland and the Whiskey Road kennels!
Juniors Meet in Pennsylvania for 2010 Junior North American Field Hunter Championships
Gathering of First Flight juniors before their mock hunt moved off.
Lauren Giannini photo
Lauren Giannini photo
For their first seven years, the Junior North American Field Hunter Championships took place in Virginia, mostly at Old Whitewood, part of Orange County's country in The Plains. However, after Alex Matz won the First Flight (12-and-Under) championship in 2009, the notion of staging the next finals in Mr. Stewart's Cheshire country came to fruition. Blue Ridge Hunt's David Pawlak partnered with the indubitable Paris to ace the individual test in the First Flight and claim their second consecutive 13-18 championship. Makayla Benjamin (Loudoun West) and Butterfly Painting went home with the reserve tri-color.
