Lampton’s Alternate Sporting Life

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People

Mason Lampton, MFHMason Lampton, a long-serving leader of the sport of foxhunting in North America and MFH of the Midland Fox Hounds (GA), has another sporting life. His alternate Field of Dreams to the hunting field is a polo field. The phrase, “If you build it they will come,” must have rattled around in his head for a while before he decided to transform a fallow potato field in Northern Michigan into a first-rate polo field.

This year, having completed its eighth season, Bliss Polo is bringing players and spectators to matches all the way to the northernmost shores of Lake Michigan. Near the Straits of Mackinac. Who would have thought?

Equine Art Exhibit to Benefit Connecticut Cancer Foundation

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Art

Sculpture by Marcela Ganly

The Connecticut Cancer Foundation (CCF) of Old Saybrook, Connecticut will celebrate their Inaugural Gallery Exhibition, Horses: In Harmony, with a Reception and Gallery Discussion open to the public. The exhibit will be curated by Marsha Malinowski of Malinowski & Associates, Fine Art Advisory. The celebration will take place on Friday, September 28, 2018 from six to eight pm.

The exhibition will remain on display from Friday, September 28 until October 26, 2018. It is the first such exhibit to be presented in the new CCF Gallery in Old Saybrook, and it will introduce three acclaimed Argentinian artists to the American art world—sculptor Marcela Ganly, artist Esteban Diaz Mathé, and photographer Aldo Sessa.

Riot

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Literature

By Edric C. Roberts

Cubhunting season has arrived, and hunt staffs across North America are taking to the field tasked with imposing new rules upon young hounds just discovering new freedoms! Edric C. Roberts addresses the conflict in this timely and light-hearted poem from his collection, Hunters’ Moon (Richard R. Smith Inc., New York, 1930, 70 pp, illustrated).

Douglas Lees photo

Riot
Somehow, I honestly never knew why,
Rarity, Chorister, Landlord and I
Found ourselves happily hunting alone,
Running like smoke on a line of our own;

The Goodwin Hounds: New Hunt, Familiar Figure

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People

By Norman Fine

"Tot" Goodwin and his Midland Crossbreds / Mary Kalergis photo

Jefferson “Tot” Goodwin and his wife Colleen have established a new hunt, the Goodwin Hounds, to hunt country in Inman, Statesville, and Union, North Carolina. The country was previously hunted by the Stonebroke Hounds which disbanded in the late 1990s. Landowners seem to be prepared to welcome the return of foxhunting to the area.

Not long ago there were there were four hunts in the Foothills area in the northwestern part of the state: Green Creek Hounds, Tryon Hounds, Greenville County Hounds hunting the Gowensville area, and Stonebroke Hounds hunting in Inman. The Greenville country has been assigned to Tryon by the MFHA, and Goodwin has permission to hunt from landowners in the old Stonebroke country. He plans to start small and has applied to the MFHA for Registration.

Letting Hounds Run in a New Season

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Our Hunting World

By Noel Mullins

Huntsman Tom Dempsey and the County Galway foxhounds head to the first draw at Riona and John Naughton's farm in Newcastle. / Noel Mullins photo

Everything that happens in the hunt kennels and hound shows during the spring and summer seasons are just activities and events that lead up to the first morning of the autumn hunting season. It can be August for some packs and September for others when hounds are allowed to run for the first time.

The huntsman will have planned and implemented the breeding of his new entry probably two years beforehand by selecting a stallion hound that he thinks would match a bi*ch in his kennels, and indeed raise the profile of the rest of his pack. He may want to breed more drive into his pack by selecting an Old English cross, or more voice by selecting an American cross.

Statistics Suggest England’s Hunting Act “Lies In Tatters”

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Norm Fine's Blog

Falconers and huntsmen at British hunts attempt to hew to an unsatisfactory act of Parliament. /  Nico Morgan photo

Statistics show that the Hunting Act of 2004 “lies in tatters” and should be re-examined by Government for being “too complex,” according to hunting advocates.

Less than half the cases prosecuted under the Hunting Act resulted in convictions in 2017, while the overall national conviction rate for all other matters in both magistrate’s court and Crown Court averaged between eighty and eighty-five percent. For prosecutions in 2018, the average conviction rate under the Hunting Act so far stands at forty percent. These conviction rates are the lowest since the Act came into force in 2005, falling from a high of just fifty-four percent in 2016.

Can My Foxhound's Aggression Be Curbed?

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Ask the Experts

Cathy's seven-year-old pet "mostly-foxhound"

Five-and-a-half years ago, Cathy Eising asked our experts how she could steady her two-year-old pet “mostly-foxhound” on deer and other riot, so she could walk him in the woods off lead. She evidently achieved some success, since she has contacted us with another challenging question. The foxhound is now a seven-year-old.

Cathy asks, “How can I prevent his aggression towards other dogs who are invited into our house by me with their owners? I would like to be able to have friends bring their dogs when visiting and not have fights.”

Looking at the Huntsman

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Norm Fine's Blog

No hunting all summer. The huntsman must be having himself a nice vacation, right? Wrong. There’s an old saying that “foxes are killed in kennel,” meaning that all the good work you see in the field during the hunting season is established during the off-season in the training of the young entry and in the making of the pack. Feed, care, routine, discipline, and exercise through the hot summer months all add up to performance in the field. Then there’s the whelping and care of the puppies who will be entered not this season, but the next. All told, summer is an exceedingly busy time for any huntsman who plans to field a high mettle pack of hounds and show good sport.

As the summer weeks slide by and the start of the informal season approaches, Foxhunting Life will have a look at the huntsman in the next few issues, including some of the legendary huntsmen of the past to see what they had to teach us about the handling of hounds in the field. Chances are, when the season comes alive, you will see your own huntsman employing similar techniques in the handling of his or her hounds in pursuit of the quarry.