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Latest News

By the Way

Starting a foxhunting library?

FHL's Bookstore has a wide selection of must reads.

Latest Foxhunting Articles

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People

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 centenary year of Hogan’s birth is an appropriate time to remember him―a legend of Irish foxhunting and point-to-point racing.

 pp hogan and Thady Ryan.Frank Meade(L-R)  PP Hogan with his friend Thady Ryan, Master and huntsman, Scarteeen Black and Tans (1956)

PP (Pat) Hogan was born in Ireland into a family of horse dealers, farmers, and huntsmen, with an odd Bishop thrown in. His great uncle was the sporting bishop of Limerick, who always encouraged his clergy to ride to hounds.

The Hogans were a well-to-do farming family, with farms dotted around east Limerick, then as now an area steeped in everything to do with the horse. PP rode almost before he could walk. He rode his first race at the age of twelve. In those days before health and safety reigned supreme, it was only a matter of months before he made the first of countless visits to the winner’s enclosure.

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Literature

Book Review by Matthew Biscotti

riding to arms.caramelloRiding to Arms: A History of Horsemanship and Mounted Warfare, Charles Caramello, University Press of Kentucky, 2022, Horses in History Series, illustrated, hardcover and digital, 279 pages, $34.95 (list)

Charles Caramello’s Riding to Arms: A History of Horsemanship and Mounted Warfare is a thorough and erudite treatise on the evolution of the subject. Though the horse is no longer critical in warfare, much of this literary history describes principles of riding and instruction that laid the foundation for the theory and practice of riding today.

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Hounds

bryn mawr22.och pimple.kkandraOrange County Pimple 2019  /  Karen Kandra photo

Orange County Pimple overcame the burden of her name to be judged Grand Champion of Show at the 2022 Bryn Mawr Hound Show held at the Radnor Hunt Club on Saturday, June 4, 2022.

First held in 1914, this is the oldest and longest-running hound show in North America. Hounds are shown in six rings: English Foxhounds, American Foxhounds, Crossbred Foxhounds, Penn-Marydel Foxhounds, Beagles, and Bassets.

Judges for the final Grand Champion Class were Charlotte Buttrick, ex-MFH, Farmington Hunt (VA), and Coleman Perrin, Ex-MFH, Deep Run Hunt (VA).

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Hunting Days of Yore

Hall of Fame jockey Eddie Arcaro

eddie arcaro.citation.ky derbyCitation, Hall of  Fame jockey Eddie Arcaro up, wins the Kentucky Derby, May 1, 1948

Eddie Arcaro (1916–1997) is regarded by many as the greatest jockey in the history of American Thoroughbred racing. He tallied more wins in classic stakes races than any other jockey and is still the only jock to have won the Triple Crown twice—Whirlaway (1941) and Citation (1948). He has the most wins of any jockey in the Belmont (six) and the Preakness (six) and is tied with Bill Hartack for Kentucky Derby wins (five). He won 4,779 of his 24,092 races and earned a record-setting $30 million in purses.

On November 23, 1954 Arcaro experienced his first foxhunt when he appeared at a meet of the Piedmont Fox Hounds in Philomont, Virginia, as reported by Liz Smith in Sports Illustrated’s December 27 issue of that year:

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Hounds

hillsboro ringo wagtail and peopleGrand Champion of Show Hillsboro Ringo and Reserve Grand Champion Hillsboro Wagtail with (l-r) huntsman John Gray; Hill McAlister, MFH; Emily McAlister; Michael Lindley, MFH; Nina Lindley; Eleanor Menefee Warriner, MFH; Orrin Ingram, MFH, Tom Warriner, and Caitlin Olson.  /   Linda Volrath photo 

Hillsboro Hounds (TN) pulled off a stunt that no hunt had yet achieved in the long history of the Virginia Foxhound Show. Two Hillsboro hounds finished the day as Grand Champion of Show and Reserve Grand Champion of Show for the second time. Live Oak Hounds (FL) did it once.

After having had to cancel the show for the last two consecutive years due to Covid, the Virginia Foxhound Show was held at Morven Park in Leesburg, Virginia on Sunday, May 29, 2022. It was a grand reunion for the many hunting people from across the country who participated, and the weather was fittingly gorgeous all weekend.

Hounds from thirty-four hunts competed at Virginia, but we’re not completely whole yet. We miss our foxhunting friends in Canada and hope that next year will see us together again.

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Hunt Reports

north galway huntsman David MastermanNorth Galway huntsman David Masterman and hounds   /  Noel Mullins photo

The history of foxhunting in North Galway goes back to the Galway Blazers, who hunted the county of Galway before lending the northern portion to the Bermingham & North Galway Foxhounds. That hunt was founded by Sir Dermott and Lady Molly Cusack Smith in 1946. Lady Molly was the principal huntsman and Master. In 1985, her active participation in the field having waned, the hunt was renamed the North Galway Foxhounds. Lady Molly, who also had the distinction of being the only lady to hunt the Galway Blazers pack, continued as a Master of the North Galway until her death in 1998. Her daughter Oonagh Mary was also a Joint-Master with her, and her grand-daughter Joanna Hyland follows in her footsteps as a Joint-Master of the North Galway and, currently, the Galway Blazers.

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Hounds

central states 22 grand champion of showGrand Champion of Show, Fort Leavenworth Drop Zone 2020 and (l-r) Annette Deguchi; judge Spencer Allen; Teresa Griffith; Amanda Siegner; Mark French, MFH; judge Andrew Bozdan; Dr. Steve Thomas, MFH and huntsman  /   Kathy Wismer photography

Dr. Steven Thomas, Master and huntsman of the Leavenworth Hunt (KS) was casting back a couple of years.

“Drop Zone was my favorite puppy,” he recalled. “He was home-raised. We always take in a few of the puppies to raise in the house,” he explained.

Drop Zone had recently been judged Grand Champion of Show at the 2022 Central States Hound Show hosted by Fort Leavenworth Hunt at Master Thomas’s Blue Valley Farm.

Hounds from six hunts were shown: Brazos Valley Hounds (TX), Bridlespur Hunt (MO), Fort Leavenworth Hunt (KS), Harvard Fox Hounds (OK), Mission Valley Hunt (KS), and North Hills Hunt (NE). Hounds were judged by huntsman Spencer Allen, Long Run Woodford Hounds (KY), and huntsman Andrew Bozdan, Camargo Hunt (OH).

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Literature

The author sat in the viewing room above the arena waiting for her daughter and the instructor to appear for the weekly lesson. A groom led a horse into the empty arena and released it for a few minutes of turnout. The horse’s antics inspired Jennifer’s poem.

"Life jolts us at certain moments," she says.

turned out freefree

We are never truly free
but tell that to the horse
who on a Saturday morning
has a few minutes to himself
in the pasture
just for the purpose of
thundering
in his moment
to do whatever wild thing
he has conceived
in the early half-light.

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Our Hunting World

The author, while still a teenager in India, had always wanted to see the world. So with fifty rupees in his pocket, he left home to do just that. After working in Hong Kong and Peking for a few years, he decided, upon the outbreak of World Wat I, to volunteer for the British Army. He struck out for London from China, crossing Manchuria, Siberia (from where we have excerpted a foxhunting piece), Russia, and Scandinavia. Upon arriving in London in 1915, he registered as a private with the 24th Middlesex Regiment.

Over the next three years, Karkaria saw combat action on three major World War I fronts and was wounded only once. After being discharged, he returned home to India and wrote a book about his years of travel and adventure. His memoir was published in 1922. One century later, brilliantly translated into English, it was released in April 2022.

foxhuntung in Siberia

Manchuria
From Manchuria station, a separate line goes towards Mongolia and Inner Manchuria, but we have nothing to do with it. We are going to board the train to Siberia, which leaves at nine in the morning.

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Horses

MH P2P Race 2Maiden Flat: Bay B, Thomas Garner up, finishes strongly for the win.   /   Doug Gehlsen photo

Sunday, May 1, 2022, dawned cool and overcast at Glenwood Park, Middleburg, VA―a fine racing day as far as the horses were concerned. With sanctioned racing gearing up and attracting the more experienced performers, of the seven races carded at the Middleburg Hunt Point-to-Point, five were for Maidens and/or young riders.

Maiden Flat, the second race of the day, was a wire-to-wire win for Bay B, under jockey Thomas Garner. Trained by Niall Saville, Bay B took the lead and only widened it in the stretch to win by five lengths in the seven-horse field.

Details
People

ward union.huntsman portraitPat 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.

Details
Humor

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

james delingpole

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.

More Articles ...

  1. Blue Ridge Hunt Point-to-Point
  2. Performance Trial Champions Shine
  3. Saturday at the Museum
  4. Lord Daresbury, MFH, Co Limerick Foxhounds
  5. The Flying Change
  6. Old Dominion Point-to-Point

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