Foxhunting Life with Horse and Hound

Sandy Dixon, MFH and huntsman and Brazos Valley Meadow 2006  /  Greg Germann photoWhen Sandy Dixon put her Brazos Valley Catfish 2006 to a Potomac-bred bitch that she entered as Brazos Valley Meadow 2006, it was no chance encounter. Dixon knew what she was doing. She is Master and huntsman of the Brazos Valley Hunt (TX), and her success as a breeder of hound show winners was already established.

With this breeding, Dixon was starting with good material. Catfish was Grand Champion of the Southwest Hound Show three years running: 2007, 2008, and 2009. On the distaff side, Potomac-bred Meadow brought a few credentials of her own.

Angela Royal, MFH  /  Sarah McKee photoAngela Royal of Rougemont, North Carolina has been elected Joint-Master of the Red Mountain Foxhounds.

She has been a dedicated supporter of the hunt for more than fifteen years, serving as Field Master, hosting the hunt’s annual Boxing Day Celebration, and participating in hound shows. She currently serves as whipper-in.

Penn-Marydel Champion Mount Carmel Mandolin with (l-r) kennelman Nancy Morris and handler Allen Forney  /  Karen Kandra Wenzel photoFor thirty-seven years now on the “first Sunday after the first Saturday in May,” foxhunters from the Mid-Atlantic region have gathered to display and compare the results of their breeding programs for the past year. Initiated by Dr. Roger Scullin, MFH, Howard County-Iron Bridge Hounds (MD) in an effort to better prepare young hounds for the *big* shows in Virginia and Bryn Mawr, the Maryland Foxhound Club Puppy Show has grown to now having representatives from nearly all Maryland packs, both recognized and private, several Virginia packs, and many from Pennsylvania. This year the show even attracted hounds from as far away as New York state. In all, nearly two hundred hounds were entered.

The Sublime Prance, oil on linen board, 20x24 inches, by Susan Smolensky

Okay, it’s not really a “Photo of the Week”; it’s a painting. But let’s not quibble with semantics. Foxhunting Life has featured Susan Smolensky’s art before, and when this new work of hers passed before us we felt the jolt and sympathized with the poor rider curling up into a ball of discomfort. Susan has the great talent to use her Impressionistic technique to capture a fleeting moment—the rider’s pain, the horse’s celebration of its freedom—in all their awkward, transient, and uncoordinated glory.

Susan is represented by the Chisholm Gallery and is currently displaying many of her Steeplechase Series paintings at the Palm Beach Polo and Country Club Gallery in Wellington, Florida.

Posted May 14, 2012

The Masters Ball by Anne-Marie Lacy, 2012, Indigo-Inc Publishing, 206 pages, $25.00From the elegance of the annual fete in New York to a hair-raising ride at closing meet, author Anne-Marie Lacy takes the reader on mad gallop in The Masters Ball, a light-hearted murder mystery with a charming ghost.

The author, who has hunted for seventeen years, drew upon her experiences in the field with the Mooreland Hunt (AL), the Hillsboro Hounds (TN), and the characters she met along the way for her first book. The astute reader will recognize a few larger-than-life, real-life Masters who were Lacy’s inspiration for her characters.

Author Hugh Robards is huntsman of the Saxonburg Hounds (PA).  /  Alex Farnham photoThe foxhounds of the Saxonburg Hunt in Pennsylvania now have a winter kennel in South Carolina of which full advantage is taken from January 1 to the end of March each year. Since Mr. Floyd Wine, MFH invested in property close to the small town of Salley (population about 450 and home of the annual Chitlin Strut!), the harsh Pennsylvanian winters are no longer an obstacle to continued hunting.

As the country hunted is shared with the Edisto River Hounds it was decided this year to have a Hunt Festival Week. Each pack hunted on alternate days with tailgate parties, dinner parties, and a Hunt Ball thrown in for good measure.