Whipping-In Is a Rush
Whipping-in on Fearnought, the author’s favorite.Cold and wet from rain on my thirty-six-inch pony Toy Mouse, with my fearless two-legged leader…mom Caroline…at the other end of the lead-line: that’s how I became addicted to a sport known as foxhunting. When we got in from hunting, my wool hunt coat weighed more than I did.
Since then, every autumn, from age four until now (not going to disclose that, but I’ve finished college!), there is a sense of anticipation and adrenaline that rushes through my veins. Foxhunters know how the goose bumps rise on your skin the moment those hunting hounds open up on a fresh scent of a fox or coyote, and away they go! This adrenaline rush only multiples, if you can believe it, when a person is allowed to have the honor of being a whipper-in.
Ron Black: A Foxhunting Purist
Author/historian Ron Black, a fourth-generation foot hunter who strove to preserve the foxhunting history of his beloved Cumbria.I never met Ron Black in person, but I knew him so well. We’d been carrying on an email friendship for years. Ron died of cancer on September 5, 2017.
Over the years our correspondence covered all sorts of subjects—foxhunting, politics, world affairs. (He was for Hillary, all the way.) He scoffed at us mounted foxhunters for our preoccupation with horses and fancy clothing, and he would start most notes with, “How are things in the Colonies?” His sense of history was a huge part of who he was. And it was to preserve the history of foxhunting in his beloved Cumbria, after the despised Hunting Act became law, that possessed him to start a website and begin collecting that history.
That’s how John Harrison became friends with Ron Black. Harrison is currently hunting the Deep Run Hunt (VA) foxhounds, but twenty years ago Harrison was huntsman for one of the storied foot packs in the Lake District, the Ullswater Foxhounds. Ron was writing a book about the Ullswater. It was the hunt of Harrison’s boyhood, and he had returned to England from Toronto and North York (ON) to take up the horn there. It is a hard and dangerous place: climbing borrans (stone piles), crags (cliffs), and crossing the scree beds (fallen stone from the crags). It’s country that would ruin a horse the first time out. Harrison hunted the Ullswater hounds on foot there for eighteen seasons before returning to North America three years ago.
Judges Engage Spectators at 2017 Canadian Hound Show
Admiring Canadian Grand Champion Wentworth are (l-r) TNY Huntsman Roslynn Balding; Judge C. Martin Wood III, MFH, Live Oak Hounds; Apprentice Judge Mary Ewing, MFH, Arapahoe Hunt; Carl Feairs, MFH, TNY; Laurel Byrne, MFH, TNY; Judge Ian Farquhar, MFH, Duke of Beaufort’s; Mike Byrne, President, TNY; and Teresa Robinson. / Denya Massey photo
Two world-class judges of foxhounds turned a good day, June 17, 2017 at the Canadian Foxhound Show, into an exceptional and informative day for spectators. MFHs Captain Ian Farquhar and C. Martin Wood III shared their insights as to the choices they made after the results of classes were announced. The experience was an invaluable master class for both those showing hounds and those watching. Each man has judged every major hound show in the foxhunting world, including Peterborough, and each is esteemed among the very best in the breeding of foxhounds.
Grand Champion Foxhound of Show was Toronto and North York’s Blue Ridge Wentworth 2015, an English dog hound. Judge Farquhar especially demonstrated consistency in his choice, since he chose Wentworth as Grand Champion of the Bryn Mawr Hound Show last year!
Toronto and North York Hunt: From Fort York to Creemore
Fort York on Toronto Harbor, early nineteenth century
The Toronto and North York Hunt is proud of the long history of its pack of English foxhounds. Early in the nineteenth century, British military men, fond of sport, shipped hounds across the Atlantic to Fort York, which guarded Toronto Harbour on Lake Ontario. Not long after the City of Toronto was incorporated in 1834, we find mention of the Toronto Hunt. Between 1843 and 1869, eight of the hunt’s nine Masters were army officers.
Toronto and North York Farquhar Is Grand Champion at Canada
Canadian Grand Champion Farquhar with (l–r) Apprentice Judge Katherine Selby, huntsman, Green Mountain Hounds (VT); Judge Dr. Jon Moody, MFH, Mooreland Hunt (AL); Toronto and North York huntsman John Harrison; Mrs. Alice Tyacke; and Judge Richard Tyacke, MFH and huntsman, Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn’s (UK). / Denya Massey photo
Toronto and North York Farquhar 2014 was judged Grand Champion of Show at the Canadian Foxhound Show on Saturday, June 18, 2016. This was the third Grand Championship for the hunt in the last three years.
It has to be exceptionally gratifying to John Harrison, who returned as huntsman just two years ago, as all three grand champions go back to bloodlines he introduced to the pack during his earlier term as huntsman twenty years ago. Common to the pedigrees of all three, going back three generations, is Toronto and North York Crafty 1995 by their Freedom 1992.
In 1995, while Harrison was hunting the Toronto and North York pack in his first stint (1991 to 1996), he received a draft from the Berkeley (UK). One was Ballad 1987, who arrived in whelp to Berkeley Freshman 1984. Freshman was by Captain Ronnie Wallace’s Exmoor Freestone 1981. “Freestone is the key,” Harrison said.
T&NY Littermates Dominate Grand Champion Class at Canadian
Canadian Grand Champion of Show is Toronto and North York Cleopatra 2012 / Mary Raphael photo
Two Toronto and North York littermates have dominated the Grand Champion and Reserve awards at the Canadian Foxhound Show for two years running. The only difference this year was that the dog hound graciously swapped places with his litter sister. On June 6, 2015, in a reversal of fortune, Toronto and North York Cleopatra 2012, last year’s Reserve Grand Champion, was crowned Grand Champion of Show, while her litter brother Clarence, last year’s Grand Champion, settled for Reserve.
The show judges were Major Tim Easby, Director, Masters of Foxhounds Association (UK) and ex-MFH and huntsman of the Middleton and West Yore Foxhounds and Lt. Col. Robert Ferrer, USMC-Retired and MFH, Caroline Hunt (VA).
Cleopatra’s sire is Blue Ridge Barnfield 2010 by Duke of Beaufort’s Bailey 2003. If Bailey sounds familiar, have a look at the article about this year’s Bryn Mawr Grand Champion, New Market-Middleton Valley Widget, crowned just one week earlier. Widget’s sire was Green Spring Valley Bailey by Duke of Beaufort’s Bailey. That makes two Grand Champions in two weeks whose grand sire is Duke of Beaufort’s Bailey!
Canadian Grand Champion Has a Royal Family Tree
Toronto and North York huntsman John Harrison gets his hounds moving for the judges. / Mary Raphael photo
Toronto and North York Clarence 2012 was judged Grand Champion of the Canadian Foxhound Show at the Ottawa Valley Hunt Farm on June 14, 2014. Judges were Messrs. C. Martin Scott, ex-MFH, Vale of the White Horse (UK) and Mason Lampton, MFH, Midland Foxhounds (GA).
It wasn’t too long ago that the Canadian hunts showed mainly English foxhounds, but the Canadian show now offers classes for both English and Crossbred Champions. With this in mind, it’s interesting to note that this year’s Grand Champion, while considered English based on the high percentage of English bloodlines in his pedigree, goes back in tail female to Midland Crossbred lines and on his sire’s side to a strong Blue Ridge female line of Crossbreds.
Clarence’s dam, Toronto and North York Clinic 2006, was a Crossbred hound out of a Midland female.* His sire, Blue Ridge Barnfield 2010, goes back in tail male to strong English lines of which Judge Martin Scott makes note:
How They Do It at Belle Meade
Epp Wilson, MFH and huntsman of the Belle Meade Hunt brings hounds to the first draw to kick off “Gone Away with the Wind” Hunt Week. Whippers-in Lucy Bell (left) and Natalie Gilmore flank the pack. / Lauren R. Giannini photo
“We have arranged to have ten coyotes on standby for your hunting pleasure today,” announced Joint-MFH Charlie Lewis as he welcomed guests to the opening meet of Belle Meade’s “Gone Away with the Wind” Hunt Week. It was Monday, January 27, 2014 in Thomson, Georgia. The footing was perfect and the sun was shining.
The following day it snowed, closing schools, paralyzing the Atlanta area, and prompting the governor to declare a state of emergency. The Belle Meade hosts were resilient, however, improvising substitute activities for members and guests for the very few events that had to be modified.
Hunt Week guests had come from the Blue Ridge Hunt (VA), Bull Run Hunt (VA), Golden’s Bridge Hounds (NY), Marlborough Hunt (MD), Millbrook Hunt (NY), Montreal Hunt (PQ), Moore County Hounds (NC), the Potomac Hunt (MD), Toronto and North York Hunt (ON), and the Whiskey Road Hounds (SC).
The Meet
The Belle Meade hounds typically meet at three o’clock in the afternoon. In the warmish environs of north Georgia, Senior Master and huntsman Epp Wilson likes to hunt as temperatures are dropping and scent is improving. Of course it often results in riders hacking back in the dark, and even jumping fences after sunset—an adventure in its own right for many followers!
Huntsman John Harrrison Returns to Toronto and North York
Former Toronto and North York huntsman John Harrison has been hunting the Ullswater Foxhounds in the Cumbrian fells for the past eighteen years.
John Harrison will return next season to the Toronto and North York Hunt (ON) to carry the horn once again—a post he had previously filled from 1991 to 1996. During those years, Harrison bred a number of outstanding hounds and won many championships at the Virginia Foxhound Shows.
Harrison was born and raised in the Cumbrian Lake District of England, where hunting is in the genes and the country is so rough, horses cannot be used. The literature of foxhunting is replete with accounts of grueling days with the famous foot packs of the area, climbing and descending the scree-strewn crags and struggling to snow-filled borrans.
Puppy Show Exclusive!
With privacy now a quaint relic of the recent past, we paparazzi can tune into intimate conversation wherever we wish. Recently our hidden camera and super-sensitive parabolic microphone caught Toronto and North York huntsman Antony Gaylard and his favorite hound Barter in an unguarded moment. Couldn’t you have given the judge just one little smile? […]