Working My Way Home

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Our Hunting World

By Lori Brunnen

Teagan, celebrating her fourth birthday on her first hunt. Mom has the lead line, but our author took over on foot and learned a lot of hunting wisdom from her youthful charge. /   Lori Brunnen photo.

This is a foxhunting forum and I do realize that is what readers come to read about. Still I would like to share one personal thing. My husband of forty-two years died on June 10th, 2018 just four months after being diagnosed with an inoperable malignant brain tumor. His name was Rick. Four months of disbelief, struggle, suffering, and finally grief. Moving to a new place last September with the horses following in December left me missing the first half of the 2019 season as well as the last half of 2018.

Bound to the Country by Jim Graham

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Art

Book Review by Norman Fine

Bound to the Country: 30 Years of Photographing Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds, photographs and text by Jim Graham, Brilliant Graphics, 2020, hardbound, 10-1/4 x 12-1/2, color, casebound, cloth, 100lb matte fine art paper, 196 pages with a gatefold, duotone and four-color with 400 line hybrid screening, $75.00 Click here for a video preview; click here to purchase.

This long-awaited, lushly-produced, oversized book of photographic art, Bound to the Country: 30 Years of Photographing Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds by Jim Graham, is available for purchase.

This is not just a book about the Cheshire, and it is not just a book about Chester County’s pretty landscape. It is a magnificent work of the photographer’s art. It is a book inspired by a unique sporting community precariously situated between the suburbs of Wilmington and Philadelphia. For more than a hundred years this community has been zealously preserved by people of character who desired to live out their own vision of family life, a vision not left to the local Board of Commerce. You must see Jim Graham’s portraiture of these individuals. The images stun me. Character and soul are not easily captured in photographs.

Larry LeHew, ex-MFH (1937–2020)

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Remembrance

 Douglas Lees photo

Larry Leon LeHew, ex-MFH of the Rappahannock Hunt (VA) and later the Thornton Hill Hounds (VA), passed away at his home, Bel Air, in Front Royal, Virginia, on Friday, October 23, 2020. He was eighty-three.

Born February 14, 1937 in Front Royal, Larry was a direct descendant of Peter LeHew, accredited with the founding of LeHewtown, which later became Front Royal. The LeHew family at one time owned much of the land which includes modern Front Royal.

The Blue Birdseye Stock Tie: A Smashing Style from the Past

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Norm Fine's Blog

Denya Dee Leake, who made her first appearance in the hunting field on a lead line at age 6, is an amateur whipper-in to the Blue Ridge Hunt (VA) and owner/trainer of First Flight Equestrian. She models the blue birdseye stocktie in the latest fabric.   /   Tyler DeHaven photo

Five years ago we published a story about a little-known, yet colorful article of attire from foxhunting’s earliest days that deserved to be resurrected—the blue birdseye stock tie. Originated in England, it can be seen in eighteenth-century foxhunting prints if you look closely.

We enlisted two friends at the time: Judy Allen, who makes stock ties for tack shops in Virginia, and the late Karen Ewbank, a custom hunting clothier. They both loved the notion of bringing back this attractive stock tie, so we scoured the web for an appropriate fabric and offered it in our Shop.

The Vixen’s Meet: A Fund Raiser for Our Times

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Hunt Reports

By Jean P. Derrick

Orange County Hounds Field Master John Coles, MFH, leads a field of 60 visiting foxhunting ladies on the Vixen's Meet . /  Joanne Maisano photo

When the COVID pandemic and executive orders from the Governor of Virginia forced cancellation of Orange County Hounds’ primary annual fund raising event—the barn party held at Board President Jaqueline Mars’ legendary home—OCH Board leaders Jane Bishop and Emily Hannum put their heads together and scheduled instead a Vixen’s Meet. Given the strong showing October 15, 2020 at Stonehedge in The Plains, Virginia, the ladies like it.

Ladies from a dozen hunts turned out in support of Orange County: Belle Meade Hunt (GA), Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds (PA), Cloudline Hounds (TX), and De La Brooke Foxhounds (MD). From Virginia were ladies of the Blue Ridge Hunt, Casanova Hunt, Loudoun Fairfax Hunt, Middleburg Hunt, Piedmont Fox Hounds, Rappahannock Hunt, and Snickersville Hounds.

Happy 95th, Michael Dempsey!

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People

By Noel Mullins and Joan Hardiman

Michael Dempsey, Master and huntsman of the Galway Blazers parading 22-1/2 couple of hounds at the Dublin Horse Show, 1983 / Noel Mullins photo

Former Master and huntsman of the Galway Blazers for forty seasons, Michael Dempsey celebrated his ninety-fifth birthday last week. And there are still some who remember him hunting Lady Molly Cusack-Smith’s Bermingham and North Galway Hounds even before that!

In fact, your FHL editor was in the field near Bermingham House one hunting day that would have cancelled any prognostication of this man ever achieving ninety-five years topside.

Hot Weather Hunting Is Hard on Hounds

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Hounds

Joanne Maisano photo

We’ve had hot weather hunting reports from many quarters across the Mid-Atlantic and southward. The West Coast as well. Hot weather hunting can be devastating to hounds because... bless them... they will try to keep up with the pack even when overheated and failing. Some hounds will be more susceptible to heat exhaustion than others, and the result can be fatal if neglected.

Oakleigh B. Thorne (1932–2020)

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Remembrance

Oakleigh B. Thorne, sportsman, philanthropist, and businessman, known for his quick wit and irreverent personality, died on October 7, 2020 at his home in Millbrook, New York. He was 88 years old.

“Oakleigh came from the family that, more than any other, was instrumental in establishing the Millbrook Hunt as we know it today,” said Farnham F. Collins, ex-MFH.