Overall high scoring foxhound, Elkridge-Harford Magnum, #37, tunes in to trial huntsman Adam Townsend before moving off. / Karen Kandra photo
Two Crossbred foxhounds from the Elkridge-Harford Hunt (MD) finished one-two in the overall top ten scores after two days of hunting at the Andrews Bridge Foxhound Performance Trials. With that strong finish, Elkridge-Harford was the high scorer of all the competing hunts as well. The trials were hosted by Andrews Bridge in Kirkwood, Pennsylvania, on September 23 and 24, 2021.
The six competing hunts were Andrews Bridge Foxhounds (PA), Elkridge-Harford Hunt (MD), Essex Fox Hounds (NJ), Last Chance Hounds, Red Oak Foxhounds (VA), and Wicomico Hunt (MD). This was the second of nine qualifying trials scheduled around the country this season.
Mission Valley 2018 Performance Trials: Fort Leavenworth Tracker 2010 (#71) was overall High Point foxhound after two days of hunting. / Allison Howell photo
The schedule of Foxhound Performance Trials for the 2021/2022 foxhunting season has been released by Trial Chairman Fred Berry, MFH, Sedgefield Hounds (NC). Nine qualifying trials will be run across the country, and the tenth and final trial will crown a Grand Champion and the top ten performance hounds in North America.
"'Pretty is as pretty does' really applies to foxhounds," says Fred. The Brits invented mounted foxhunting and hound show, but they shouldn’t have stopped there.
The foxhunter's favorite view: between the ears / Rachel Wilkoski photo
Thursday morning, September third, just past 7:00 am, the sun was rising over high corn fields, alfalfa and late season tobacco fields, much of it soon to be harvested by teams of Belgian mules in Christiana, Pennsylvania. Off of Highland Road, arriving Andrews Bridge Foxhounds members were pulling their rigs onto the edge of a tobacco field. The farm ground was greasy from the prior night of rain and it was the slightest bit humid.
The Masters of the Andrews Bridge Foxhounds—George Strawbridge Jr., Steve Harris, Betsy Harris, Cathy Huston, and Bill Kimmel—made public the following statement:
We are pleased to report that all litigation between the Cromptons, the Harrises, and the Andrews Bridge Foxhounds Inc. has been resolved. It was decided that in the best interest of our sport, the two Andrews Bridge hound packs should be reunited and again hunt as one unified pack in our territory.
Like everything else in life, the hunt has taken many detours in the past 102 years and we have not been the exception. A journey is not a single straight line, but rather a long up and down winding road.
John Wittenborn and Soccer, representing the Smithtown Hunt (NY), win 2018 Theodora Randolph Field Hunter Championship in Virginia.
John Wittenborn and his fourteen-year-old Clydesdale-Thoroughbred cross, Soccer, returned home to Long Island and the Smithtown Hunt with the Championship Trophy and ribbon from the Theodora Randolph 2018 Field Hunter Championship in Virginia. Three tries was the charm for Wittenborn and Soccer. Last year the pair made a good showing, placing third.
It was the first team from a northern hunt to have won the coveted prize in thirty-five years of competitions. And it was fitting; Mrs. Randolph was a northerner, though from Boston’s North Shore.