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Written by Daphne Wood, MFH

Category: Hounds

Date Published

The first foxhound show in North America in three years, and Hillsboro Wagtail ’20 has good reason to wag her tail...er...stern!

Grand Champion of Show is Hillsboro Wagtail 2020   /   Wendy Butler photo

The fourteenth annual Southern Hound Show was memorable for several reasons. Nigel Peel, Ex-MFH, North Cotswold Foxhounds (UK), was ill and unable to come and join Co-Judge Marion Thorne, MFH, Genesee Valley Hunt (NY) and Apprentice-Judge Steven Thomas, MFH, Fort Leavenworth Hunt (KS). Ann Hughston, MBH, Ripshin Bassets (GA), who has judged foxhounds at Carolina, Virginia, the Canadian Hound Show, and Bassets at Peterborough, was a capable stand-in.

The mood was particularly festive as this was the first hound show in three years to be held in North America thanks to the Corona Virus. Sadly, Midland Fox Hounds (GA) had kennel cough and was unable to bring hounds, but eight packs showed hounds: Belle Meade Hunt (GA), Fox River Valley Hunt (IL), Goodwin Hounds (NC), Hillsboro Hounds (TN), Iroquois Hunt (KY), Live Oak Hounds (FL), Mooreland Hunt (AL), and Palm Beach Hounds (FL). Hounds competed under blue skies, but with chilly temperatures in the forties and low fifties and relentless high wind that made the seated lunch for over 150 people look like a food fight, with fried chicken, plates, napkins, and utensils flying through the air, all as the tent was trying to collapse!

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Written by Norman Fine

Category: Remembrance

Date Published

Masters Ken and Arle Adams, Palm Beach Hounds in the 1980s

Wellington, Florida pioneer and a founder of the Palm Beach Hounds, Kenneth Adams, died after a prolonged illness on Wednesday, November 11, 2020. He was ninety.

Ken served with his late wife, Arle, as the first Masters of the Palm Beach Hounds from its inception in 1980 to 1990. He was huntsman for most of that period.

A retired U.S. Air Force Major, Ken sold his chain of True Value Hardware stores in upstate New York to settle with Arle in Palm Beach County, Florida. The couple made their home in the Little Ranches neighborhood in 1978, where they kept horses and foxhounds. Ken started the first foxhunt in Wellington with the help of fellow Wellington pioneer A.W. “Bink” Glisson in the then-undeveloped area that came to be known as Bink’s Forest.

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Written by Norman Fine

Category: Hounds

Date Published

Toronto and North York's Blue Ridge Wentworth 2015 (Mendip Farmers Wentworth 2011 ex Mendip Farmers Stylish 2011) is Grand Champion of Show -- again -- at Canadian Hound Show.  /   Denya Massey Clarke photo

The sixty-fifth annual Canadian Foxhound Show was hosted by the London Hunt (ON) on Saturday, June 8, 2019.

Giving the younger foxhounds a fighting chance for glory, Toronto and North York Hunt (ON) entered their Blue Ridge Wentworth 2015, a veteran of four seasons of hunting, only in the class for Stallion Hounds. That was enough for Wentworth, though. After winning that class, he vanquished all he met on his way to being judged Grand Champion of Show at Canada for the second time since 2017. This was his third Grand Championship since Bryn Mawr in 2016. Wentworth has an interesting history both in the field and on the flags.

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Written by Norman Fine

Category: Literature

Date Published

Book Review by Lori Brunnen

Tally Ho Palm Beach, Paul Striberry, Orange Publishing, Southern Pines, NC, 2017, 228 pages, paperback ($15.95) and Kindle ($9.95)Real Estate agent Alice Pleasance Liddell literally “runs into” the local Palm Beach Hunt at the beginning of this oddly charming romp of a book. This chance encounter plunges Alice headfirst into the social whirl of the affluent, and not so affluent hunt members.

After meeting the Master’s gentle son Clayton she realizes the Hunt is deeply in debt to...well, everyone. All as a result of...wait for it...a Seminole curse. Amid hounds, hunting, and horses, Alice is determined to save both the hunt country and restore Everglades Hall. Oh, and reverse the Indian curse. All while awash in the whirl of hunt balls, races, and polo matches.

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Written by Norman Fine

Category: Hounds

Date Published

Grand Champion Midland Striker 2015 (Midland Rocket '11 ex Staffordshire Moorland Stunning '11) with (l-r) Daphne Wood, MFH, LIve Oak; Mason Lampton, MFH, Midland; Mary Lu Lampton; and Marty Wood, MFH, Live Oak /   Leslie Shepherd photo

“I can’t take credit,” admits Midland huntsman Ken George, “because I didn’t breed him, but he’s one of a kind!”

A sober demon could be considered a contradiction in terms, but Ken describes Midland Striker 2015 as a foxhound possessing surprisingly contradictory traits. The handsome Crossbred dog hound was judged Grand Champion of Show at the tenth annual Southern Hound Show on April 9, 2016 at Live Oak Plantation in Monticello, Florida.

“The whole litter is fantastic,” continued Ken. “As an unentered hound last season, Striker was in on ten kills. He’s always right there.

Huntsmen sometimes worry about a first-year hound being too precocious. Often, by the second or third year, such hounds begin to think too much of themselves as individuals to fit in as good team members of the pack. Ken’s not worried about Striker in that way.

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