Everyone has a question at some time on an arcane hunting term, correct attire, a point of etiquette. The FHL Panel of Experts will answer your question on any aspect of hounds, hound breeding, hunting hounds in the field, training the field hunter, foxhunting history, sporting art, and literature. Try us!
Question:
Some hilltopping Field Masters take their field to a few high vantage points in the day's hunting country and stay there. Other hilltopping Field Masters try to keep up with hounds as best they can using the gates and not jumping the fences.
What is the proper way to lead hilltoppers? Which of these fields is more likely to turn the fox? Foil the line? Get in the huntsman's way?
Question:
On a visit to Aiken, South Carolina in February, I had a day with the Whiskey Road Foxhounds. The pack consisted of mostly un-entered puppies. I’m sure the huntsman had his good reasons, but I found it unusual. Why would he do that?
June 24, 2010
Hi Hampton, one of FHL’s contributing photographers, snapped a series of excellent shots of a fox leaving its local supermarket. We have posted them in Photo Gallery—the Rosedale Fox, so named because of the Ontario golf course it calls home.
Further, our photographer has posed an interesting question: Are there clues in the appearance, color, or other visible characteristics of this fox that reveal its sex?
"I have a question about foxhound conformation," writes Kelly Bryant who has hunted with the Mill Creek Hunt in Illinois. "I have noticed that in the hound show galleries, some winners have a level back and some have a curved back. How does the back relate to the performance of the hound, and what difference does a level or curved back make? Which is preferred?"
These are excellent questions, and, as we have noted before, there are no right and wrong answers—only opinions and cautions. A wheel back is desirable to many breeders and judges of modern foxhounds, but a roach back is—most will agree—a weakness.
"My wonderful foxhunter doesn't pull, but once in a while I need a little more braking," writes a subscriber. "I have been using the elevator bit with great results until recently, when he started tossing his head quite frantically out hunting, and snatching at the bit. Back home, I felt inside his mouth and found that he was biting the inside of his mouth.
Huntsman, Author
Veterinarian, Foxhound Breeder
Huntsman, Foxhound Breeder
Hunstman, Breeder, Judge
MFHA President 1990-1993
Huntsman, Breeder, Judge
Author/Editor of 25 books, including The Whole Horse Catalog and 1001 Best Things Ever Said About Horses
Foxhound Breeder, Judge, Writer
Bill Gamble Photo
Huntsman, Foxhound Breeder
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