Blue Ridge Hunt

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Blue Ridge Hunt

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The Blue Ridge Hunt was organized in 1888, but this gently rolling grassland in the Valley of the Shenandoah echoed to the music of hounds, the huntsman’s horn, and the rhythm of galloping horses long before that time. A youthful George Washington regularly followed the hounds of his friend and employer Thomas, sixth Lord Fairfax nearly three hundred years ago over the very same hills and fields and along the same twists and turns of the Shenandoah River as do the Blue Ridge hounds today.

Website: www.blueridgehunt.org

Article Information: Written by Norman Fine; Category: Horses; Date Published

brhptp20.maide hurdle1 Maiden Hurdle, Div 1: (l-r) Noble Weed (Sean McDermott up), 3rd; All Out Of Aces (Graham Watters up), 1st / Douglas Lees photo

Saturday, September 19, 2020 was a bluebird day indeed for horses, horsemen, and spectators to be racing, riding, and cheering at Blue Ridge Hunt’s postponed spring point-to-point. Except the latter—the spectators— were sadly absent.

The ground was hard, but the ancient thatch of grass on the Woodley racecourse provides a thick natural cushion for horses. Nine races were run: hurdles, flat, then timber. Of the nine races, trainer Neil Morris entries won three—Maiden Hurdle, Open Hurdle, and Novice Rider Flat.

Article Information: Written by Linda Jenkins Armbrust, ex-MFH; Category: People; Date Published

One day some years ago while recuperating from whatever had me grounded at the moment, I decided to follow my home pack, the Blue Ridge foxhounds, by vehicle. Fortunately, Chris Howells had an open seat, so I climbed into his blue pickup truck.

I knew that whatever would be seen of the action that day from any vehicle would be seen from Chris’s truck first. Every road follower wants to ride with Chris. If there’s no room, they do their best to follow him. Chris knows the country and how the foxes run.

Chris hunted the Blue Ridge foxhounds from 1973 to 2001 during the Mastership of Judy Greenhalgh. Since his retirement from the saddle, Chris has been following hounds on the roads for another almost twenty years. He serves as the principal road whip and remains a valued and knowledgeable member of the staff.

The following article was first published in the November 1983 edition of "Horseplay" magazine. –Ed.

chris howells.horse

The early morning light shows a solitary figure on his way to the kennels, a terrier at his heels and a can of Pepsi in his hand. Christopher P. Howells, huntsman for the Blue Ridge Hunt in Boyce, Virginia, is about to start another busy day. Hounds greet him with an enthusiastic din, but turn quiet as he speaks to them in his soft English accent and sees to the feeding.

Article Information: Written by Linda Jenkins Armbrust; Category: People; Date Published

Linda Armbrust, MFH, High Peak Harriers (UK), leads her field. / Jim Meads photo

Years have passed since I was resident and MFH of two hunts in England. Now, as a married and ex-MFH in Virginia, I reflect on my fourteen years of English hunting. All the dark moments—rain, rain, and more rain, difficult farmers, and monumental mistakes—have faded now, leaving me with thoughts of good friends, outstanding hunts, great hedges and walls, and lovely hounds.

Article Information: Written by Norman Fine; Category: Picture of the Week; Date Published

jenny Irwin on Jan 7 20 Selfie by hard riding Jenny Irwin, who rarely misses a day’s sport.

A winter storm blanketed the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia on a hunting day for the Blue Ridge Hunt. The gently falling snow quietly covered the drabness of the frost-killed rolling fields and bare trees. It also produced rosy cheeks and a soft, white covering upon those hardy souls who embraced the temporary beauty of a wintry day in the woods and fields.

Posted January 26, 2020

Article Information: Written by Marcia Brody; Category: Horses; Date Published

cb19 Twelve of the seventeen Cleveland Bay purebreds and crosses pose at the annual Cleveland Bay reunion before Farnley house in White Post, Virginia. / Karen Kandra photo

Cleveland Bay owners, breeders, and fanciers were privileged to travel back in time to recreate the heyday of this handsome, versatile, yet endangered breed of equine on November 16, 2019. The reunion combined with a meeting of the Blue Ridge Hunt is so appropriate at Farnley Farm in White Post, Virginia.

In the 1930s and 1940s the late Alexander Mackay-Smith bred both pure Cleveland Bay horses and partbreds at Farnley for use as field hunters. He remains the only North American breeder to have exported a stallion back to the UK from whence the breed originated. His stallion, Farnley Exchange, still appears in the pedigrees of most Cleveland Bays living in the world today.

Mackay-Smith’s daughter, Hetty Mackay-Smith Abeles, and her family welcomed the Blue Ridge Hunt subscribers, guests, and seventeen purebred and partbred Cleveland Bays to Farnley for the annual event. Mackay-Smith was a Master of Blue Ridge in the mid-twentieth century. Mrs Abeles and her family continue to breed their well-known Farnley Ponies there, based on bloodlines started and proven as early as the 1930s.