Be sure to turn the phone to vibrate while hunting! Your Field Master won’t be amused if you forget!
Harold Vincent “Hal” Barry, MFH of the Bear Creek Hounds (GA), passed away at age eighty-two on May 31, 2022, at Piedmont Hospital in Newnan, Georgia.
His passing came on the day after the Virginia Foxhound Show, which had resumed after two years of cancellations due to the Covid pandemic. Hal was able to catch up with many of his foxhunting friends after the long separation, but sadly for the last time.
How to pass the horn: Fred Berry, MFH, Sedgefield, after 35 years as huntsman passes the horn to whipper-in Randall Wiseman Carty.
When the hunting season starts this fall, the Sedgefield Hunt (NC) will field a new huntsman. After thirty-five years carrying the horn, Fred Berry, MFH, has passed it on to a first-year professional huntsman, Randall Wiseman Carty. First-year notwithstanding, Ms. Carty will hardly be new to hounds or hunting.
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.
(L-R) PP Hogan with his close 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.
Orange 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).
Hall of Fame jockey Eddie Arcaro
Citation, 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:
Book Review by Matthew Biscotti
Riding 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.
Grand 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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