Warrenton hunt
Warrenton Point-to-Point Attracts Strong Entries to Airlie
First Race, Open Hurdle, (l-r) Decisive Triumph (#4), (Jamie Bargary up) is the winner. Gerard Galligan on Bet The Pot finishes third. / Douglas Lees photo
Spectators and horses enjoyed a comfortable day of racing over the Airlie racecourse at the Warrenton Hunt Point-to-Point on Saturday, March 19, 2022. Entries were strong, especially in the hurdle races. There were just two, Open and Maiden, but the latter was broken into three divisions of seven to eight entries in each, making the eight-race card more like a ten-race day.
Warrenton Point-to-Point Races II
Last fence in the Open Hurdle Race (l-r): Noah And The Ark (Gerard Galligan up) is 1st; Compass Zone (Sean McDermott up) is 2nd; #1, Mr. Sarinana (Bernie Dalton up) finishes 3rd. / Douglas Lees photo
Two weeks after kicking off the spring point-to-point season in Virginia, the Warrenton Hunt ran a second day of Point-to-Point Racing at the Airlie racecourse. Eight races were on the card this day, Sunday, March 28, 2021, compared to just five for the opener. Four hurdle races were added, three of which were well-filled and one was split into two divisions.
Warrenton Kicks Off Virginia Point-to-Point Season
Photos by Douglas Lees
Open Hurdle race, Second Division: (l-r) Orchestra Leader, 15, (Keri Brion up) wins in the fastest time of both divisions. Storm Team is 4th and Special Skills finishes 3rd.
Hunt racing in Virginia opened on a beautiful spring day with the Warrenton Hunt Point-to-Point at Airlie on Saturday, March 16, 2019. Ten races were carded with the Open Hurdle and Maiden Hurdle races split into two well-filled divisions each.
Three Tries, the Charm, for Field Hunter Champion
John Wittenborn and Soccer, representing the Smithtown Hunt (NY), win 2018 Theodora Randolph Field Hunter Championship in Virginia.
John Wittenborn and his fourteen-year-old Clydesdale-Thoroughbred cross, Soccer, returned home to Long Island and the Smithtown Hunt with the Championship Trophy and ribbon from the Theodora Randolph 2018 Field Hunter Championship in Virginia. Three tries was the charm for Wittenborn and Soccer. Last year the pair made a good showing, placing third.
It was the first team from a northern hunt to have won the coveted prize in thirty-five years of competitions. And it was fitting; Mrs. Randolph was a northerner, though from Boston’s North Shore.
To Finish the Season
Blowing Home at Warrenton / Douglas Lees photo
‘Saddleford Crossroads at half-past eleven,’
Only last month, it would seem, we were there,
Rising so early to get there by seven,
Rubbing our hands in the chill morning air.
Time must have flown by, for that was September.
Horses half fit, and the country quite blind,
Details of every run since, we remember,
Sorrows and joys of each day call to mind.
Legacy of William Almy
Nina McKee and daughter Lily McKee at the Warrenton Hunt Junior Meet in December, 2017. Lily is the great-great-granddaughter of William Almy. / Douglas Lees photo
Ninety-nine years ago, William Almy, twenty-two, was Master of the Quansett Hounds in South Westport, Massachusetts. Almy and his hounds hunted the fox from Quansett Farm, in the possession of the Almy family since 1700. The farm was situated on the northern shore of Buzzards Bay where the bay meets Rhode Island Sound. At the time of his death in 1979, he’d been a member of the Masters of Foxhounds Association for nearly fifty-six years.
In his time, Almy was recognized as the leading amateur huntsman in North America. He hunted English, American, and Crossbred hounds through his career as Master and huntsman of Quansett and Groton Hunts in Massachusetts, and Culpeper and Warrenton Hunts in Virginia. Almy was constantly in demand as a judge at horse shows and hound shows.
Mo Baptiste and Fifty Grand Win Virginia 2017 Field Hunter Championship
Moe Baptiste and Fifty Grand representing the Piedmont Fox Hounds negotiate a seven-board coop during the individual test on their way to winning the Virginia Fied Hunter Championship. / Catherine Summers photo
Mo Baptiste’s handsome bay Thoroughbred, Fifty Grand, has played the role of bridesmaid for years. He was Reserve Champion to Virginia Field Hunter Champions in 2012 and again in 2015. This year he was, finally, the bride. And the Champion.
Reserve Champion honors go to Marilyn Ware, Deep Run Hunt. The annual Virginia Field Hunter Championship is noted for the quality of the competing horses. The Masters of every Virginia hunt receive an annual invitation to nominate up to two horse and rider combinations which have been hunting regularly with that hunt. Chosen by the Masters, twenty-one riders from eleven hunts competed. They were:
Foxhunter, Hall of Fame Horseman Bucky Reynolds Dies
(Front) "Bucky" Reynolds and Kimbrough Nash, MFH, out with the Warrenton foxhounds / Douglas Lees photo
Famed horseman J. Arthur “Bucky” Reynolds died Monday, July 24, 2017, after a long illness. He was seventy-eight.
Bucky grew up in Tryon, North Carolina. His father J. Arthur Reynolds, Sr., a native of Orange, Virginia, was huntsman of the Tryon Hounds at the time. Both Bucky and his sister Betty Reynolds Oare grew up foxhunting and showing. Reynolds, Sr., a professional horseman, ran his own boarding and training facility. Bucky and his sister learned to ride under their father’s instruction, and both siblings helped break and train the sale horses as children. Each of the three—father, son, and daughter—have been inducted into the National Show Hunter Hall of Fame.
Huntsmen’s Room Honors Three New Inductees
Arapahoe Joint-Master Mary Ewing introduces Marvin Beeman. / Douglas Lees photo
A countryman from Virginia, a veterinarian from Colorado, and a businessman from north Florida were honored by an appreciative crowd of well-wishers on the occasion of their induction into the Huntsmen’s Room of the Museum of Hounds and Hunting. Ceremonies were conducted at Morven Park, Leesburg, Virginia on Saturday, May 27, 2017. This was the evening before the Virginia Foxhound Show over the Memorial Day Weekend.
James Lee Atkins, Dr. G. Marvin Beeman, MFH, and C. Martin Wood III, MFH were selected by a committee of their peers for having carried the hunting horn with honor, courage, and distinction in hunting fields across North America in their lifetimes. The three men join a select club of just forty-one pre-eminent huntsmen so honored. The last inductions were made two years ago.
Warrenton Hunt Kicks Off Virginia’s Race Season
Featuring the photos of Douglas Lees
Fall Colors (Amber Hodyka up) and Slaney Rock (Erin Swope up) neck and neck in the Amateur/Novice Rider Hurdle Race.
Point-to-Point Racing in Virginia finally got its start on Saturday, March 18, 2017 at Airlie Racecourse with the Warrenton Hunt Point-to-Point. (The Blue Ridge Races, scheduled for the previous Saturday, were postponed because of weather until Sunday, April 23.)
Of the ten races carded, nine went into the books, entries being on the light side. The trainer/rider team of Neil Morris and Kieran Norris—last season’s leading trainer and rider respectively in Virginia—were certainly consistent. No appearances in the winners circle, but placing second three times: Open Hurdle, Maiden Hurdle, and Virginia Bred/Sired Flat Race.
