Pat Coyle: Forty-Two Seasons, Huntsman, Ward Union Staghounds

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People

By Dickie Power

Pat Coyle, huntsman, Ward Union Staghounds (IR)    /   Catherine Power photo

Pat Coyle, born and reared in Two Mile House, Co Kildare, has been huntsman of the Ward Union Staghounds since 1980. It was as natural for young Pat to follow a hunting career as it was for a bank manager’s son to join the bank. Pat’s maternal uncle, Eamonn Dunphy, was the much-revered huntsman of the Ward Union, but age and falls had taken their toll. By the late 1970s, he was nearing the end of his tether. So when the job of yardman in the kennels fell vacant, seventeen-year-old Pat Coyle applied and was hired. By that point, he was no longer red raw.

Blue Ridge Hunt Point-to-Point

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Horses

By Norman Fine

Jump race jockey Teddy Davies, a teenager, already a record holder, and having a breakout season in sanctioned racing. Here, Davies rides Brave Deacon in the second race at Blue Ridge, Amateur/Novice Rider Hurdles.  /   Joanne Maisano photo

Trainer Joseph Davies stood at the Entry desk on Sunday, April 17, 2022. It was at Woodley Farm near Berryville, Virginia, the traditional venue for the Blue Ridge Hunt Point-to-Point Races. Davies trains racehorses for steeplechasing but was in earlier days a winning steeplechase jockey himself. And a two-time winner of the Maryland Hunt Cup, the stiffest timber race in the world. Davies was paying for his race entries and picking up the numbered saddle cloths.

A few other trainers waited their turn. “Congratulations, Joe, on your wins yesterday. And here you are again today!”

Do More Foxhunting

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Humor

By James Delingpole

One of ten resolutions by the author to help his next fifty years pass more smoothly than his first

Do more fox hunting. I know I keep banging on about this but here’s the deal: if you were suddenly to find a hobby which combined the buzz of class A drugs, the adrenaline rush of a second world war dogfight, in outfits by Beau Brummel, on an incredible leaping beast on the same trip as you, while totally pissed, at the most convivial and glamorous party since the Duchess of Richmond’s ball, in country as magnificent as God has ever devised, why on earth would you not want to do it all the time?

Re-Posted May 9, 2022 (from The Spectator)

British prize-winning journalist and novelist James Delingpole describes himself as a libertarian conservative.

Performance Trial Champions Shine

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Hounds

By Norman Fine

-Bull Run is Champion Hunt; Goodwin’s Indigo is Champion Foxhound.

-Bull Run shows pack depth with four hounds scoring in the top twenty-five percent of the pack of previously qualified hounds.

-Goodwin’s Indigo is champion foxhound, amassing the highest individual score of all fifty-four hounds in the pack.

Guest huntsman Tony Leahy, MFH, and his pack of finalists. /  Mark Jump Photography

Fifty-four foxhounds from twenty-two hunts across the country converged at the J. Robert Gordon Field Trial Grounds in Hoffman, North Carolina, to compete in the Championship Performance Trial finals this year. How does a hound qualify for the finals? It finishes among the top-ten hounds in any one of the regional qualifying trials held around the country over the season. On March 25, 2022, these proven hounds convened to be numbered and to duke it out over the next two days of hunting as a high-octane pack.

Guest huntsman for this talented pack was Tony Leahy, MFH and huntsman of the Fox River Valley Hunt (IL) for the past twenty-six years and a former president of the MFHA of North America. The venue was worthy of the caliber of the competitors: nine thousand acres of flat, sandy footing, streams and natural growth, no obstacles or jumps to slow down the mounted judges, and sand roads and fire lanes to traverse. The grounds are stocked annually with three-thousand quail, but the foxes and coyotes remain undisturbed all year.

Saturday at the Museum

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Our Hunting World

-Tommy Lee Jones, David Wendler, and John J. Carle to be honored by induction to the Huntsmen’s Room
-Exhibition and sale of artworks by Sam Savitt and Kathleen Friedenberg

The mansion at Morven Park, Leesburg, Virginia

In concert with the Virginia Foxhound Show, the Museum of Hounds and Hunting at Morven Park, Leesburg, Virginia, is preparing for its “Annual” Reception and special events over the Memorial Day Weekend on Saturday, May 28, 2022, after a two-year hiatus.

At 4:00 PM, Robert Ferrer, MFH, Chairman of the Huntsmen’s Room Committee, will step to the podium and open the formal ceremonies. Ferrer will introduce the presenters for each new inductee to the Huntsmen’s Room―Bill Fendley, ex-MFH, Casanova Hunt (VA) for Tommy Lee Jones; Scott Tepper, ex-MFH, West Hills Hunt (CA) and the Red Rock Hounds (NV) for David Wendler; and Mrs. John J. Carle for her late husband, Jake. From three disparate but all-American backgrounds, the three huntsmen followed three separate paths to this honor by their peers. Read on.

At 5:00 PM, the Huntsmen’s Room in the Morven Park mansion will open for viewing, as will the art exhibit and sale of the works of two well-known equestrian artists, the late Sam Savitt and Kathleen Friedenberg.

Lord Daresbury, MFH, Co Limerick Foxhounds

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People

By Dickie Power

"In Ireland, the early 1950s through the 1960s was an era of amateur Master/huntsmen―young men of some means―who took on a pack of hounds more as an avocation than a job," writes our correspondent, Dickie Power. He was fortunate to have hunted with many of them, such as Thady Ryan in Scarteen, Evan Williams in Tipperary, Lord Daresbury in Limerick, Capt. Harry Freeman-Jackson in Duhallow, Victor McCalmont in Kilkenny, Elsie Morgan in West Waterford, and PP Hogan in Avondhu. This is our second installment in Dickie’s series about these remarkable men and women.

Edward 'Toby' Greenall, Lord Daresbury, MFH of the County Limerick foxhounds from 1947 to 1977  /    Photo courtesy of Hugh Robards

I started my hunting career with the Co Limerick foxhounds and the late Lord Daresbury, MFH and huntsman. In the eyes of a small boy, he appeared a forbidding figure, tall and straight in his pink coat, elegantly turned out, and always beautifully mounted. It was an era of long hunts where hounds didn’t go home until they had accounted for their fox, regardless of the hour.

With the war over and the committee needing to restaff the hunt, they had wisely settled on Edward Greenall, 2^nd Baron Daresbury. He had been Master of the Belvoir Hunt in Leicestershire for thirteen seasons (1934 to 1947). While Edward was his christened name, he was known to one and all as Toby, probably because it is a brand of ale from their family brewery, Greenall’s, which was the source of almost unlimited finance. Lord Daresbury came to Limerick and took up residence in Clonshire, then as now the property of the Co. Limerick Hunt.

The Flying Change

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Literature

By Henry Taylor

The best description of the flying change―the mechanics and the moment―I have ever read. Riding instructors should give a copy of this poem to their students to study before even explaining how to achieve the maneuver.

The moment of suspension during the flying change in which the horse changes his lead on the fly from one lead to the other, left-to-right or vise versa. The horse can initiate the flying change on its own, generally as it changes direction at the canter, or the trained rider may induce the horse to change its leads at any given moment.

1

The canter has two stride patterns, one on the right
lead and one on the left, each a mirror image of the
other. The leading foreleg is the last to touch the
ground before the moment of suspension in the air.
On cantered curves, the horse tends to lead with the
inside leg. Turning at liberty, he can change leads
without effort during the moment of suspension, but
a rider’s weight makes this more difficult. The aim of
teaching a horse to move beneath you is to remind
him how he moved when he was free.

Old Dominion Point-to-Point

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Horses

By Norman Fine

Going to the Start  /   Douglas Lees photo

The Old Dominion Point-to-Point Races held on April 9, 2022, at Ben Venue drew the healthiest list of entries so far this season. No jump race went off with a field of less than five horses, and the second race, Maiden Hurdle, was split into three divisions of from seven to nine horses in each. There was fine weather and a number of close and exciting finishes, making it a good day for the spectators as well.

Southern Hound Show 2022

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Hounds

By Daphne Wood, MFH

The first foxhound show in North America in three years, and Hillsboro Wagtail ’20 has good reason to wag her tail...er...stern!

Grand Champion of Show is Hillsboro Wagtail 2020   /   Wendy Butler photo

The fourteenth annual Southern Hound Show was memorable for several reasons. Nigel Peel, Ex-MFH, North Cotswold Foxhounds (UK), was ill and unable to come and join Co-Judge Marion Thorne, MFH, Genesee Valley Hunt (NY) and Apprentice-Judge Steven Thomas, MFH, Fort Leavenworth Hunt (KS). Ann Hughston, MBH, Ripshin Bassets (GA), who has judged foxhounds at Carolina, Virginia, the Canadian Hound Show, and Bassets at Peterborough, was a capable stand-in.

The mood was particularly festive as this was the first hound show in three years to be held in North America thanks to the Corona Virus. Sadly, Midland Fox Hounds (GA) had kennel cough and was unable to bring hounds, but eight packs showed hounds: Belle Meade Hunt (GA), Fox River Valley Hunt (IL), Goodwin Hounds (NC), Hillsboro Hounds (TN), Iroquois Hunt (KY), Live Oak Hounds (FL), Mooreland Hunt (AL), and Palm Beach Hounds (FL). Hounds competed under blue skies, but with chilly temperatures in the forties and low fifties and relentless high wind that made the seated lunch for over 150 people look like a food fight, with fried chicken, plates, napkins, and utensils flying through the air, all as the tent was trying to collapse!

Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833−1870)

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Literature

By Norman Fine

Adam Lindsay Gordon, c. 1860

English-born Adam Lindsay Gordon was a maverick. At least from the standpoint of a series of boarding schools through which he passed, having been shipped off from home at the age of seven. At age nineteen, he was again shipped off, this time to Australia. His father hoped his son would find a fresh start.

Adam's life was short but active. He was an exceptional horseman. After arriving in Australia, he joined the mounted police. He trained and rode steeplechasers, never shrank from a dare, was elected to Parliament, and is considered one of Australia's finest poets. A statue of Gordon was erected in Melbourne, near Parliament, bearing these words from his poem, "Ye Wearie Wayfare."

"Life is mostly froth and bubble
Two things stand like stone,
Kindness in another's trouble
Courage in your own."

What follows is a toast by Gordon, written to be sung. The first line is especially familiar to foxhunters when raising a glass. With apologies, I must admit that this toast was pretty much written for the men’s bar.