woodbrook hunt club
Fifty-six Juniors Vie for JNAFH Championships at Belle Meade
Fifty-six junior finalists line up for their commemorative photo at Foxboro, home of Belle Meade Master and host Epp Wilson. / Eric Bowles photo
Junior foxhunters, their horses, parents, and friends traveled from thirteen states to Thomson, Georgia, where the Belle Meade Hunt hosted the finals of the fifteenth annual Junior North American Field Hunter Championships on November 11-13, 2017.
Throughout the course of the informal season, hunts around the country held qualifying meets from which the young finalists were chosen by mounted judges. Of the 216 juniors who qualified to compete in the finals, fifty-six young riders from eighteen North American hunts—more than twenty-five percent of those qualified—traveled to Belle Mead to hunt, compete, see old friends, and make a pile of new friends. And did they have a wonderful time! It was truly a pleasure to see.
Persistence Pays Off for Midland Striker at Bryn Mawr
Bryn Mawr Grand Champion Midland Striker 2015 (Midland Rocket 2011 ex Staffordshire-Mooreland Stunning 2011) / Karen Kandra Wenzel photo
Midland Striker 2015 was judged Grand Champion Foxhound at the 2017 Bryn Mawr Hound Show on Saturday, June 3, 2017.
Bryn Mawr is the one that got away from Striker last year. In 2016, this graceful moving, handsome Crossbred dog hound had a big year in the ring. He was judged Grand Champion at the Virginia Foxhound Show and at the Southern Hound Show. But the hat trick at Bryn Mawr wasn’t to be his. Now, Striker can add the Bryn Mawr notch to his collar.
Woodbrook Kent Is Grand Champion at Western States
Huntsman Jennifer Hansen and Western States Grand Champion of Show Woodbrook Kent 2014. Judges are huntsman Larry Pitts and Mary Ewing, MFH. / Nancy Stevens-Brown photo
Honorary huntsman Jennifer Hansen credits the Woodbrook Masters who encouraged her to take hounds on a one-thousand-mile trip (each way!) from Washington State to Southern California to participate in the Western States Hound Show. It was the first time that Woodbrook had shown hounds in many years, and it was the first time Hansen ever showed hounds. And she took home the Grand Champion Foxhound of Show, Woodbrook Kent 2014.
“I was as nervous as I could be,” said Hansen, but “I was so proud of Kent who held his stern high all day. [Judge] Mr. Pitts said, ‘That hound just can’t stand bad!’”
Country Closed? Woodbrook Takes ’em to the Beach!
Woodbrook Hunt (WA) takes hounds for a new adventure -- a day at the beach. / Emily Rang photo
The temperature was seventeen degrees when we rose at 5:30 to begin our day with horses and hounds. The promise of the day’s adventure outweighed the desire to stay warm in bed. The pack could feel it even in the dark. They bugled excitedly as horses were fed, stalls cleaned, and ice chipped away in the buckets.
The pack always knows when they are going somewhere. Even when the routine is the same in the morning, their hive mind senses the excitement of something different. On this inky black, frozen winter morning typical of the Pacific Northwest, they felt an adventure coming on and sang out a beautiful song to the entire neighborhood: rise up, gather your hunting kit and your best horse, and join us for some fun! Not all appreciate the early, noisy invitation, but the jongleurs, undiscouraged, serenade the neighborhood anyway, hoping to be loaded and on their way as soon as possible.
The Woodbrook Hunt Club (WA) is fortunate to have our hunting country located literally out of our kennel door. The kennels are on a military installation, part of Joint Base Lewis Mcord (JBLM). We have a lot of access, but we must acquire a permit, or the area must be open to recreation. This weekend we had neither permits for the area, as it was Thanksgiving weekend, and the ground was so frozen and slick, it would be galling on our steeds. Our clever huntsman, Jennifer Hansen, who never misses an opportunity for hound action, planned a trip to the ocean with our pack where the weather could be cold, windy, and rainy, but surely not frozen. And we were permitted to ride to our hearts content.
