The Virginia Foxhound Show: Hounds and Sunshine!
The sun blazed, but the mature trees gracing Morven Park provided shade, and the multi-colored hospitality tents above the show rings offered cooling drink and refreshment. It was a happy throng that milled back and forth all day, watching hounds and browsing the vendor stands.
In the Foxhunting Life booth, our free drawing for Lizi Ruch’s lovely set of four hound puppy plates was a big hit. By day’s end we had a bowlful of names from which to pick, and the winner is….Barbara McKee from Leesburg!
Meet Us at the Hound Show!
You’re invited to visit Foxhunting Life at our stand in the vendor area at the Virginia Foxhound Show on Sunday, May 29, for a free chance to win a beautiful set of four hand-painted china plates in a humorous hound puppy motif. These plates will go home with the winner of our drawing through the courtesy of Lizi Ruch—foxhunter, artist, and designer of the popular Artfully Equestrian line of hunt-themed tableware and gifts.
Melvin at Ninety
Douglas Lees photo
Hounds were screaming, and the huntsman was cooking. A cattle guard loomed ahead—a coop to the left and a gate to the right. The huntsman veered left.
“Melvin,” someone yelled, “the gate’s on the right!”
“Melvin just kept kicking on, right over the coop,” recalled Joe Conner, shaking his head and grinning in wonder.
Conner, who has whipped-in to Melvin for years at Bath County (VA), didn’t resurrect that story out of a distant past. It had happened only weeks before Melvin Poe’s ninetieth birthday celebration.
A month or so earlier, I had recognized the same notes of awe and wonder as I stood chatting with Brian Smith, my farrier, about Melvin’s upcoming ninetieth birthday.
Live Oak Hounds Dominate at Virginia
Two hounds from the Live Oak kennels in Monticello, Florida, took top honors at the Virginia Foxhound Show on May 30, 2010 at Morven Park near Leesburg. English Foxhound Champion Live Oak Maximus 2009 (Live Oak Daniel 2007–Their Mistress 2006) was judged Grand Champion, and Crossbred Champion Live Oak Apache 2008 (Live Oak Mascot 2005–Their Apricot 2004) was named Reserve Grand Champion.