Field Master Val O’Connell: A Rum One to Follow
Meet Val O’Connell, Field Master, Scarteen Black and Tans. / Catherine Power photo
Val O’Connell’s is possibly one of the best known faces in organised Irish racing through his role in the Turf Club (now the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board). Val serves as chief inspector of courses and clerk of the course for half a dozen southern meetings. Perhaps what is less well known is that Val is one the keenest hunting men in these islands.
He has been Field Master of the famed Scarteen Hounds in Co Limerick for almost twenty seasons. I am among those who have attempted to follow him across the country on his grey, and know what a formidable horseman he is. As Field Master, Val is following in the footsteps of the legendary PP Hogan who held the role for many years when Thady Ryan carried the horn. Longtime Scarteen whipper-in Tommy O’Dwyer became young Val’s mentor. “Give the hounds a chance, and never jump into a field until hounds have left it,” was Tommy’s advice, and Val follows it to the letter in his role as Field Master.
The Reluctant Foxhunter
Author-editor Steve Price was so smitten with Dickie Power’s Scarteen hunt report in our last issue, that he offers this slice of his own experience at Scarteen. Steve is in the process of writing his equestrian memoir, “The Outside of a Horse,” and has allowed us to publish this advanced peek at his work-in-progress in which he recalls a day with the Scarteen while on a 1973 equestrian journalists’ junket to Ireland.
Steve Price (right-center) and Carol Clark (left-center) hunting with the Scarteen in 1973
Carol Clark, then editor of the Practical Horseman, had done her homework. During our Friday-morning drive to the village of Knocklong on the Limerick-Tipperary county line, she told me about our host, Thady Ryan. The Ryans had owned the Scarteen pack, named after their ancestral manor house, since 1798. Thady (né Thaddeus) was the most recent in the chain of Ryan men to serve as Master and huntsman. In addition to breeding, training, and caring for his hounds, and breeding and hunting his horses, Thady was a Dublin Horse show official and chef d’équipe of the Irish Olympic three-day team at the Tokyo and Mexico Olympics.
The Scarteen at Lattin and Knockcarron
John Halligan stretches for a big double at Lattin. / Catherine Power photo
Spoiled for choice with three top-class Scarteen meets back-to-back, it appeared only logical to cover all three. With Christmas comes a choice of great hunting, and with scent (that essential but illusive ingredient) improving daily, the omens were good. And so it proved.
The little village of Lattin is so called because it was a seat of learning in the middle ages. The story goes that a weary traveller asked the way to Emly Cathedral of three roadside workers. The first answered in Gaelic while the second disagreed in Lattin, but the definitive directions were given in Greek. Gone are the classics, and the little village on the Tipperary/Limerick border would hardly warrant a backward glance from motorists today, but on a Scarteen hunting day it becomes a mecca. Keen enthusiasts arrange days off, marriages are postponed, and births delayed so that they might be there because it is a special place. Horses had been rested or galloped with the point-to-pointers in preparation for the day.
The North Tipperary at Loughton House
Visitor Tony Holdsworth, retired huntsman for the Duke of Beafort’s (UK) wears the green livery of his former hunt. Center is Denis Gilmartin, Master and huntsman of the North Tipperary. To the right on the gray is Rose Scanlon, mounted side-saddle. To the right again, on the gray and bay horses, are Loughton House hosts, Dr. Michael Lyons and Dr. Andrew Vance, MFH. / Catherine Power photo
It’s been a couple of seasons since we were with the North Tipperary Foxhounds (IRE). A visit was overdue, so when we heard through Arabella Scanlon whom we met last year in East Clare that a very special lawn meet was upcoming at Loughton House, we jumped at the opportunity. Set in more than a hundred acres of fabulous park and farmland in the small village of Moneygall, the eighteen-bedroom estate straddles the Tipperary-Offaly border and, likewise, the border between the North Tipperary and Ormond hunting countries.
Loughton is just a stone’s throw from Barak Obama Plaza. The U.S. President, traveling in the footsteps of his mother’s family, visited Moneygall in 2011.
The Westmeath Foxhounds at Streamstown
Westmeath Foxhounds (IR) and staff: huntsman Mark Ollard (rt) and whipper-in Adam Douabbse. John Smith and Frano Derwin follow / Noel Mullins photo
The Westmeath Foxhounds, located in the Midlands of Ireland, was founded in 1854. It has had many illustrious Masters over the years such as Sam Reynell (1835-91), the Earls of Longford (1890s), Hon. Kieran Guinness (1973-76), Sir Dermot and Lady Molly Cusack Smith (1949-50), and Harry Worcester Smith (1912-13) from the USA (no relation to Sir Dermot).
Smith wanted to prove that American hounds and Thoroughbred horses could handle the Irish hunting country as well as the native horses and hounds. He was disappointed on both counts. First, the Westmeath hunt committee insisted he hunt the local pack, and second, though he was a brave and competent rider, he notched over fifty falls off his Thoroughbred horses in the course of the season!
Memoirs of a Foxhunting Photographer
Book Review by Norman Fine
Memoirs of a Foxhunting Photographer by Catherine Power, hardbound, large format (8-1/2 x 11 inches), color, 202 pages, 55.00 euros shipped outside Ireland, order direct from the photographer or on the website.Inside this colorful book, Memoirs of a Foxhunting Photographer, is a collection of the best of Catherine Power’s foxhunting photographs. Accompanying the images are historical and descriptive pieces written by her husband and fellow hunting correspondent, Dickie Power. This large format volume showcases the mad-keen Irish hunting people, the hounds, the Irish hunters, the fox, and the glorious Irish landscape that makes foxhunting in Ireland so adventurous.
Having hung up her boots after forty-seven seasons hunting with the Scarteen, County Limerick, and the “Gallant” Tipps, Catherine Power decided to follow her other passion for photography. Many of the photos have been previously published The Irish Field, Foxhunting Life, Horse and Hound, The Field, Hounds Magazine, and other sporting journals. Her work takes center stage in The Irish Field where she is hunting correspondent, a role she shares with Dickie. The pair makes a complete package for any sporting publisher: exciting images and compelling text.
Bear Creek to Hold Saint Patrick’s Day Puppy Show
Chris Ryan, MFH, Scarteen Hunt (IR) will judge the St. Patrick’s day Puppy Show at the Bear Creek Hounds (GA). / Catherine Power photo
On Saturday, March 17, 2018, the Bear Creek Hounds will host a Puppy Show at Bear Creek Farm in Moreland, Georgia. The Saint Patrick’s Day theme will be legitimized by the presence of Judge Chris Ryan, MFH of the Scarteen Hunt, Knocklong, Ireland. Also judging the puppies will be Marion Thorne, MFH and huntsman, Genesee Valley Hunt (NY).
The puppy show is open to all, and will commence at 1:30 pm following a brunch and hat contest at noon ($20.00 per person). A St. Patrick’s Day party follows at the Bear Creek Pavilion with awards, dinner, live music, and dancing ($60.00 per person). Spectators are welcome. A block of motel rooms convenient to Bear Creek Farm has been reserved.
The Bear Creek Puppy Show is part of the MFHA Hark Forward initiative this season. Participants will be asked to contribute to the renovation of the new MFHA National Headquarters in Middleburg, Virginia.
Opening Meet at Scarteen: A Centuries-Old Tradition
Moving off to Opening Meet in the village are Chris Ryan, MFH (at left) and huntsman Raymond O’Halloran, leading staff, hounds, and a select few. Joanna Turvey (center) wears the colors of the South Notts Foxhounds (UK). / Catherine Power photo
Recorded Scarteen history only goes back to the early seventeen hundreds, so we don’t know exactly how long the opening meet has been held in Knocklong, Ireland. But through those centuries that have been recorded, the venue has remained an unbroken tradition.
Part and parcel of that tradition is to have hounds and followers (both foot and mounted) blessed for the coming season. This ecclesiastical duty falls to the local padre who came to the kennels with bell, book and candle to invoke Divine support. No doubt our young huntsman welcomed this as any huntsman would. However, a huntsman in his first season particularly needs a bit luck and a tail wind to see him through.
Any Reasonable Horse
This is the first story (and the shortest) of thirty-two short stories from Foxhunting Adventures: Chasing the Story by Norman Fine, The Derrydale Press.
Master and huntsman Thady Ryan, whipper-in Tommy O’Dwyer, and the Scarteen hounds at Knocktoran Bog (1982) from a print of the oil painting by Peter Curling
When the nights turn crisp and the dinner talk turns to tales of foxhunting, I like to share a bit of philosophy imparted to me by that special animal—part horse, part cat, and all heart—the Irish hunter. That remarkable creature understands something of the flavor of life. He never allows natural caution, reticence, or conservatism to limit his perception of what’s possible.
The Scarteen hounds were hunting a most unusual piece of country in Kilcommon, County Limerick this day. A wild and forbidding landscape, far from the well-traveled roads, high into the hills, it was unknown country even to Master Thady Ryan. To complete the scene, a dense fog obliterated every feature of the landscape.
Foxhunting in the “Garden of Ireland”
West Wicklow Senior Master and huntsman Rupert Macauley takes hounds to covert. / Noel Mullins photo
Well-known hunting author Willie Poole once said, “There is no landscape in the world that can’t be enhanced by a pack of hounds.” County Wicklow, known colloquially as the Garden of Ireland, has a reputation for beauty quite on its own. Add the foxhounds to a landscape of blue skies, sheep grazing in green fields, extensive plantations, and snow-capped hills, and the image describes perfectly my day with hounds from Pat Kavanagh’s Hampton Lodge Equestrian Centre at Brittas.