Spencer Allen Is the New Huntsman at Live Oak

Details

People

By Norman Fine

Huntsman Spencer Allen / Douglas Lees photo

Huntsman Spencer Allen has gone through a rocky time in the past couple of years. He’s been forced to consider other options for his future, but he knows in his heart what he loves the most—working with and hunting foxhounds. And this is why he’s so happy to be in Monticello, Florida at Marty and Daphne Wood’s unparalleled establishment as huntsman for the Live Oak Hounds.

After serving six years in the Marine Corps, including a tour in Iraq, Allen began as an amateur whipper-in at the Bull Run Hunt (VA). Two seasons later he turned professional and moved to the Piedmont Fox Hounds (VA), serving four seasons as first whipper-in to huntsman Richard Roberts. Allen found himself working with a talented and attractive whipper-in, Rachel Gray, who also happened to be the daughter of the previous huntsman, Butch Gray. Spencer and Rachel were married, and in 2010 Spencer was named huntsman at Piedmont. He hunted the Piedmont hounds for five seasons, showing excellent sport, but trouble followed.

Siegfried Sassoon’s Haunted Sequel

Details

Literature

By Norman Fine

Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man, Siegfried Sassoon, 1928, Penguin Classics, paper, available at Amazon and bookstoresEarly July exactly one hundred years ago, British, French, and German troops engaged in battle near the River Somme that left a million men dead or wounded on the fields in just four months of butchery. Known to history as the Battle of the Somme, it was arguably the bloodiest in all of human history. All for a gain of just six miles into enemy-occupied territory.

Author and poet Siegfried Sassoon was at the Somme. His lovingly-written classic, Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man, ends with his wartime service, his loss of dear friends, and the beginnings of his ruminations on the madness of war.

For just the foxhunting content, the book is a classic to be recommended to any literate foxhunter. But Sassoon wrote a sequel, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, which is the most moving anti-war book this reporter has ever read.

A Foxhunter Is Knighted

Details

Latest

By Norman Fine

On Hunting, Roger Scruton, Yellow Jersey Press, 1998, 161 pages, pocket size, available at Amazon and bookstores.To define Roger Scruton merely as a foxhunter is like defining Winston Churchill as a cigar smoker. True enough, but hardly a comprehensive description. Last month, Roger Scruton was created a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II in the Birthday Honours list published on the Queen's ninetieth birthday.

Scruton is one of Britain’s leading philosophers, a spokesman for conservatism, and foxhunting is one of his passions. His excellent and highly readable book, On Hunting (1998), brings the author’s philosophical best to his love for the sport and all it entails from terror to ecstasy. As expressed by one reviewer, “He begins with hunting but he ends with a moving romance with nature itself. In this regard, hunting is but a window into his soul and the limits of human nature. I have read all of his books and this one ranks among the best.”

My Hound Training Program:Well-Intentioned But Misguided

Details

Hounds

By Marjolaine Botsford

Marj Botsford would winter the hunt's puppies again, but do it differently!A few years ago, the Ottawa Valley Hunt (ON) huntsman at the time, Mr. Adrian Quick, made a request for volunteer families interested in being sponsors for hound puppies over the winter. My husband and I volunteered to take on two puppies. We are animal lovers and were between canines at the time.

In late November, the puppies arrived—Hamish and Hawkesbury. They were about six months old. Being familiar with family dogs and not hounds, we asked Adrian if there was anything in particular that we should know about foxhounds. His advice was to feed them lots of proteins. We knew that hounds are working animals and not family pets so we prepared a stall in the barn for them. Feeding proteins was not a problem as my brother has a dairy farm and a side business selling beef; therefore we had access to all the organ meat the hounds needed.

Hounds Came First for Cheshire's Ivan Dowling

Details

People

By Jim Graham

Huntsman Ivan Dowling implemented a daring -- and successful -- hound breeding experiment for Mr. Stewart's Cheshire Foxhounds. / Jim Graham photo

"I’d spent several minutes trying to describe my job as huntsman to a friend" recalled Ivan Dowling, the forty-two-year-old recently retired huntsman for Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds (PA). “The friend looked at me and said, ‘Ivan, you mean you’re the guy on the place mat?’”

Dowling cringed a bit and smiled, “Yea, that’s me.”

Purrfec’ Granary

Details

Humor

By Deirdre Hanna

Back in the late 1950s, Deirdre and her friend Sarah, both just nineteen, came to America. The pair had left Britain, where post-war ration books were still in use. Sarah was to train horses and riders for Jamie Kreuz at Bryn Mawr Farms outside Philadelphia. Deirdre was to work for the Insurance Company of North America in Philadelphia and help Sarah on weekends. What follows is Part IV of their adventures, which have included Part I: “How to Bridle a Green Field Hunter,” Part II: “The Witch With Warts,” and Part III: Pink Gin: The Beer Swilling Timber Horse.

Illustration by Rosemary Coates

Sarah and I clearly remember Billy telling us about Purrfec’ Granary. Billy mucked out for us but he also had a way with words. This is how he described her infuriating ability to demolish stone walls and gallop off toward the rising sun.

“She lie down against a wall of stone—it's a trick she learned—and she do gently poosh that darned wall clean over. Then off she go wid ’er tail over herself!”