Sedgefield Hunt
First-Year Huntsman; A Lifetime in Training
How to pass the horn: Fred Berry, MFH, Sedgefield, after 35 years as huntsman passes the horn to whipper-in Randall Wiseman Carty.
When the hunting season starts this fall, the Sedgefield Hunt (NC) will field a new huntsman. After thirty-five years carrying the horn, Fred Berry, MFH, has passed it on to a first-year professional huntsman, Randall Wiseman Carty. First-year notwithstanding, Ms. Carty will hardly be new to hounds or hunting.
Performance Trial Champions Shine
-Bull Run is Champion Hunt; Goodwin’s Indigo is Champion Foxhound.
-Bull Run shows pack depth with four hounds scoring in the top twenty-five percent of the pack of previously qualified hounds.
-Goodwin’s Indigo is champion foxhound, amassing the highest individual score of all fifty-four hounds in the pack.
Guest huntsman Tony Leahy, MFH, and his pack of finalists. / Mark Jump Photography
Fifty-four foxhounds from twenty-two hunts across the country converged at the J. Robert Gordon Field Trial Grounds in Hoffman, North Carolina, to compete in the Championship Performance Trial finals this year. How does a hound qualify for the finals? It finishes among the top-ten hounds in any one of the regional qualifying trials held around the country over the season. On March 25, 2022, these proven hounds convened to be numbered and to duke it out over the next two days of hunting as a high-octane pack.
Guest huntsman for this talented pack was Tony Leahy, MFH and huntsman of the Fox River Valley Hunt (IL) for the past twenty-six years and a former president of the MFHA of North America. The venue was worthy of the caliber of the competitors: nine thousand acres of flat, sandy footing, streams and natural growth, no obstacles or jumps to slow down the mounted judges, and sand roads and fire lanes to traverse. The grounds are stocked annually with three-thousand quail, but the foxes and coyotes remain undisturbed all year.
Performance Trial Hounds to Vie for National Championship
Mission Valley 2018 Performance Trials: Fort Leavenworth Tracker 2010 (#71) was overall High Point foxhound after two days of hunting. / Allison Howell photo
The schedule of Foxhound Performance Trials for the 2021/2022 foxhunting season has been released by Trial Chairman Fred Berry, MFH, Sedgefield Hounds (NC). Nine qualifying trials will be run across the country, and the tenth and final trial will crown a Grand Champion and the top ten performance hounds in North America.
"'Pretty is as pretty does' really applies to foxhounds," says Fred. The Brits invented mounted foxhunting and hound show, but they shouldn’t have stopped there.
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.
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.
Camden Hunt Hosts Joint-Meet With Sedgefield
Author Susan Provenzano provides a hunt report rich with sport at Camden Hunt, South Carolina, recently hosting a joint meet with the Sedgefield Hunt from North Carolina. Susan whips-in on Gulliver, her accomplished Thoroughbred, the pair well able to lead the field as well. / Holly Swartz photo
As foxhunters, we all look forward to Hunt Ball Weekend. For many hunts, it’s a time when the season is winding down, and we try to truly savor the invigorating mornings remaining of another season spent with our horses, hounds, and friends.
Hunt Ball Weekend in Camden, South Carolina, is no different. This year, however, we spread the enjoyment more than a little by inviting Fred Berry, MFH and huntsman, Sedgefield Hunt (NC), his hounds, and the Sedgefield members to join us. We spread the fun with three days of things to do and places to go—two hunts, one for each pack, and a hunt ball.
Huntsman Donald Philhower Is Recipient of the Ian Milne Award
Ian Milne Award winner Donald Philhower, huntsman, Millbrook Hunt (NY) with his pack of attentive and adoring hounds / Capturing Moments Photography
The MFHA’s Ian Milne Award is a serious tribute to accomplished huntsmen across North America. It is awarded periodically to a huntsman of sound character who has made outstanding contributions to the sport of foxhunting. Recipients of the Ian Milne Award have learned the hard lessons of the field and the kennels as well as in life, and they have learned to do it right.
This year, that honoree is Donald Philhower, huntsman for the Millbrook Hounds in New York State. Consider the namesake whom the award personifies.
Ian Milne was respected and liked by all. His hunt service began in England and continued until his last breath here in North America. He was a genuine friend and a generous mentor to aspiring and established huntsmen. He was a gentleman, honest as the day is long, and he lived for hounds and hunting.
Moore County Hound Trials: Report From the Field
“He’s hunted twice; let’s take him to the Field Trial.” Author Lori Brunnen in the foreground, riding Sunny. Saved from the abattoir, he took to the hunting field like a veteran. Karen Miller accompanies Lori. / Amy Gesell photo
Since last year I have been trying to hunt with George Harne’s private Maryland pack, the Last Chance Hounds. This season I finally managed one day out with them and had a great morning, despite having Frankie’s bridle slip off, falling flat rectifying it, and finally being dragged a ways on my stomach. At least I did not let go. It was kindly described at breakfast as being “seventy-five percent elegant.” This is a small, close-knit group, and I felt lucky to have been able to join them.
Shortly after this outing I learned that friend Karen Miller was accompanying them to the Moore County Hound Performance Trial, an MFHA Hark Forward event in North Carolina the second weekend in October. We agreed to drive down together. The six hounds entered were traveling with huntsman Lisa Reid and whipper-in Marie LaBaw. Master George Harne was driving down with his friend, Roy Good, leaving at 1:30 Friday morning because George said he would be “too excited to sleep” anyway. Lisa and Marie were leaving at 4:30 Friday morning. Despite the fact that the first trial event was not until 4:00 pm Friday, Karen and I simultaneously agreed we were leaving at “10 o’clock Thursday morning.” No getting up in the dark unless absolutely necessary. This is an annual trip for the group but the first Performance Trial for Karen and me. We were stoked.
Why Worry’s Heythrop Rachel Is Grand Champion at Carolinas
Why Worry Hounds' Heythrop Rachel 2011 is Grand Champion of the 2016 Carolinas Hound Show.
Why Worry’s Heythrop Rachel 2011 was judged Grand Champion at the fortieth annual Carolinas Hound Show held at the Springdale Racecourse in Camden, South Carolina on May 7, 2016. It’s one thing for a visiting MFH to pick up a nice draft to bring back to the home kennels; it’s another thing entirely to know what to do with it. Here’s where George and Jeannie Thomas, MFHs, Why Worry Hounds (SC), showed their breeding acumen.
While visiting friends in England and judging a puppy show at the Heythrop kennels, George mentioned that he needed a bi*ch* to introduce new bloodlines into his breeding program. We have just the hound for you, he was told. So he brought home a nicely-bred entered bi*ch, Heythrop Rachel 2011.
Sedgefield Hunt—Members and Hounds—Go Visiting
Sedgefield Master and huntsman Fred Berry (left) visits with his pack of Penn-Marydels. Blue Ridge huntsman Graham Buston (right) was his guide for the day. / Nancy Kleck photo
The Sedgefield Hunt, founded in 1927, hunt a pack of Penn-Marydel foxhounds in the Piedmont region of North Carolina and Southern Virginia. We are a small hunt, but we have big fun, and we love our hounds. Last November we took a road trip to Northern Virginia to hunt with Blue Ridge and Thornton Hill. Six members, ten couple of hounds, eight horses and Ellie Mae, my mule, hit the road.
Fred Berry, MFH and huntsman, and his wife Elaine went up first and had a great day with Blue Ridge and their magnificent pack of Modern English and Crossbred hounds. On our day with Thornton Hill, which also hunts Penn-Marydels, the packs were put together. In our final outing with Blue Ridge, Fred was invited to hunt our Penn-Marydels. I'm told that for 275 years—from the time George Washington hunted with Lord Fairfax over that same country—the local foxes had never before heard a pack of Penn-Marydels in full cry!
