07 Dec 2022
Molliter Ossa Cubent
Fox Hunting, Obituaries, Thonrton Hill Hounds
photo: Karen L. Myers.
Hard-riding long-time Thornton Hill huntsman Billy Dodson passed away December 2nd. He showed great sport. Obituary.
Category Archive 'Fox Hunting'
05 Nov 2022
The Rebel Yell
"Rebel Yell", Civil War, Fox Hunting, History, Melvin Poe
At the First Battle of Bull Run, General Jackson turned the tide of battle by having his brigade deliver a downhill charge with fixed bayonets that shattered the Union advance. “And, When you charge,” Jackson ordered his men: “yell like Furies!”
Smithsonian has an interesting video of a Confederate Reunion at which a number of very old men perform the famous Rebel Yell.
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You might well think that the famous Rebel Yell is long extinct, but you’d be wrong.
Fox hunters traditionally signal viewing the fox with a cry of “Tally-ho!.” But in Old Virginia, the aboriginal element responds to the appearance of the fox (or the rabbit in the case of beagle or basset footpacks), not with a “Tally ho!. but with the old-time Rebel Yell.
Getting involved with the Old Dominion Hounds and fox hunting in Fauquier County, I inevitably became acquainted with the renowned 80-odd-year-old retired huntsman Melvin Poe.
Fox hunting is just another of the Field Sports and it is really a natural extension of the better known kinds of hunting and fishing. Melvin and I immediately recognized each other as the sorts of hunting and fishing keen rural rednecks that my disapproving female relatives would refer to as “woodrats.”
If I ran into Melvin at an Old Dominion meet, he and I would often car follow the hunt in my SUV. Melvin knew the Old Dominion country like the back of his hand. He’d hunted it for many decades. And Melvin had about as many inhibitions about entering and crossing posted private ground as I did when I was 17.
Following a hunt with Melvin as guide was sure to have us finding foxes before the pack ever showed up. One day, Melvin posted us along a small stream, and sure enough! a small parade of foxes began vacating the area along the far bank with no sign or sound of hounds or horn nearby. Melvin drew himself up and commenced saluting those foxes with loud Rebel Yells. I stood there admiring all this, but soon found myself fixed with Melvin’s imperative eye. I had no choice. I found myself there, in the Virginia woods, doing my best to deliver the traditional Rebel Yell like a good Confederate. Needless to say, the huntsman Gerald and the mounted field heard our commotion and after an interval arrived to pick up the scent.
Melvin Poe.
08 Sep 2021
Hector Goes…. Hunting With the Scarteen
"Hector Goes", Fox Hunting, Hector O’ hEoghagain, Ireland, Kerry Beagles, Scarteen Hunt
(click on image for video)
Hector O’ hEoghagain (“O’Hogan” to you and me), a popular Irish television presenter, went hunting with the famous Scarteen Black and Tan Kerry Beagles in November of 2012 for a program episode broadcast in February 2013.
HT: Greg Barrow.
30 Sep 2020
A Modest Proposal
.22 Rat Shot, Fox Hunting, John Harris Anderson, Presidential Debates
Foxhunting author John Harris Anderson suggests:
For the next debate (if there is one), I suggest they choose a huntsman as the moderator and fit the candidates with shock collars. When one of them babbles, skirts, dwells, runs heel, or riots on the wrong scent…ZAP!
Thomas Neese (on the wrong side) replies:
You’ll need rat shot for Trump
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Actually, though the use of shock collars for training bird dogs is routine these days, I’ve never actually seen them used on fox hounds. However, it is perfectly true that obstreperous hounds who go off on deer and don’t listen do, from time to time, get peppered (at a long distance) with .22 rat shot (what we up North call: .22 bird shot).
20 Dec 2019
The Dream of an Old Meltonian
Fox Hunting, Melton Mowbray, Sporting Poetry, William Bromley-Davenport
I am old, I am old, and my eyes are grown weaker,
My beard is as white as the foam on the sea,
Yet pass me the bottle, and fill me a beaker,
A bright brimming toast in a bumper for me.
Back, back through long vistas of years I am wafted.
But the glow at my heart’s undiminished in force.
Deep, deep in that heart has fond memory engrafted
Those quick thirty minutes from Ranksboro’ Gorse.
What is time? the effluxion of life zoophitic
In dreary pursuit of position or gain.
What is life? The absorption of vapours mephitic.
And the bursting of sunlight on senses and brain!
Such a life have I lived– though so speedily over,
Condensing the joys of a century’s course,
From the find till we eat him near Woodwellhead Cover,
In thirty bright minutes from Ranksboro’ Gorse.
Last night in St. Stephen’s so wearily sitting
(The member for Boreham sustained the debate),
Some pitying spirit that round me was flitting
Vouchsafed a sweet vision my pains to abate.
The Mace, and the Speaker, and House disappearing,
The leather-clad bench is a thorough-bred horse ;
‘Tis the whimpering cry of the foxhound I’m hearing.
And my ‘seat’ is a pig-skin at Ranksboro’ Gorse.
He’s away! I can hear the identical holloa!
I can feel my young thorough-bred strain down the ride,
I can hear the dull thunder of hundreds that follow,
I can see my old comrades in life by my side.
Do I dream? all around me I see the dead riding,
And voices long silent re-echo with glee;
I can hear the far wail of the Master’s vain chiding,
As vain as the Norseman’s reproof to the sea.
Vain indeed! for the bitches are racing before us —
Not a nose to the earth — not a stern in the air;
And we know by the notes of that modified chorus
How straight we must ride if we wish to be there
With a crash o’er the turnpike, and onward I’m sailing,
Released from the throes of the blundering mass,
“Which dispersed right and left as I topped the high railing,
And shape my own course o’er the billowy grass.
Select is the circle in which I am moving,
Yet open and free the admission to all;
Still, still more select is that company proving.
Weeded out by the funker and thinned by the fall;
Yet here all are equal — no class legislation,
No privilege hinders, no family pride:
In the ‘image of war’ show the pluck of the nation;
Ride, ancient patrician! democracy, ride!
Oh! gently, my young one; the fence we are nearing
Is leaning towards us — ’tis hairy and black.
The binders are strong, and necessitate clearing,
Or the wide ditch beyond will find room for your back.
Well saved! We are over! now far down the pastures
Of Ashwell the willows betoken the line
Of the dull-flowing stream of historic disasters;
We must face, my bold young one, the dread Whissendine!
No shallow-dug pan with a hurdle to screen it.
That cock-tail imposture the steeple chase brook;
But the steep broken banks tell us plain, if we mean it,
The less we shall like it the longer we look.
Then steady, my young one, my place I’ve selected,
Above the dwarf willow ’tis sound I’ll be bail,
With your muscular quarters beneath you collected,
Prepare for a rush like the ‘limited mail.’
Oh ! now let me know the full worth of your breeding,
Brave son of Belzoni, be true to your sires,
Sustain old traditions — remember you’re leading
The cream of the cream in the shire of the shires!
With a quick shortened stride as the distance you measure,
With a crack of the nostril and cock of the ear,
And a rocketing bound, and we ‘re over, my treasure.
Twice nine feet of water, and landed all clear!
What! four of us only? Are these the survivors
Of all that rode gaily from Ranksboro’s ridge?
I hear the faint splash of a few hardy divers,
The rest are in hopeless research of a bridge;
Vae Victis! the way of the world and the winners!
Do we ne’er ride away from a friend in distress?
Alas! we are anti- Samaritan sinners,
And streaming past Stapleford, onward we press.
Ah! don’t they mean mischief, the merciless ladies?
What fox can escape such implacable foes?
Of the sex cruel slaughter for ever the trade is,
Whether human or animal — Yonder he goes!
Never more for the woodland! his purpose has failed him,
Though to gain the old shelter he gallantly tries;
In vain the last double, for Jezebel’s nailed him!
Whoohoop! in the open the veteran dies!
Yes, four of us only! but is it a vision?
Dear lost ones, how came ye with mortals to mix?
Methought that ye hunted the pastures Elysian,
And between us there rolled the unjumpable Styx!
Stay, stay but a moment! the grass fields are fading,
And heavy obscurity palsies my brain:
Through what country, what ploughs, and what sloughs
am I wading?
Alas! ’tis the member for Boreham again!
Oh, glory of youth! consolation of age!
Sublimest of ecstasies under the sun;
Though the veteran may linger too long on the stage,
Yet he’ll drink a last toast to a fox-hunting run.
And oh! young descendants of ancient top-sawyers!
By your lives to the world their example enforce;
Whether landlords, or parsons, or statesmen, or lawyers.
Ride straight as they rode it from Ranksboro’ Gorse.
Though a rough-riding world may bespatter your breeches.
Though sorrow may cross you, or slander revile.
Though you plunge overhead in misfortune’s blind ditches.
Shun the gap of deception, the hand-gate of guile:
Oh, avoid them! for there, see the crowd is contending,
Ignoble the object — ill-mannered the throng;
Shun the miry lane, falsehood, with turns never ending.
Ride straight for truth’s timber, no matter how strong.
I’ll pound you safe over! sit steady and quiet;
Along the sound headland of honesty steer;
Beware of false holloas and juvenile riot.
Though the oxer of duty be wide, never fear!
And when the run ‘s over of earthly existence.
And you get safe to ground, you will fear no remorse.
If you ride it — no matter what line or what distance —
As straight as your fathers from Ranksboro’ Gorse.
–William Bromley-Davenport
25 Jun 2019
“Tales of an Inn”
"Tales of an Inn", Cheshire Hunt, Chester County, Fox Hunting, Nancy Nicholas, Pennsylvania, Plunkett Stewart, Sevynmor Press
Nancy Mohr, of Sevynmor Press, is generously sharing her publication company’s first book, Nancy Nicholas’s Tales of an Inn, memories of Fox Hunting and Equestrian Life in post-WWII Chester County, Pennsylvania, on-line.
Sevynmor Press popped up in 1989, by happenstance, with its first book Tales of An Inn. Twenty-six years later, it’s time to share the little book again – without any cost to the reader. Some of the characters emerge in The Lady Blows A Horn and Delicious Memories. Look at the end of this page, click the link. Start reading!
Several generations were blessed by Nancy Nicholas’s enthusiasm for Unionville, and her love of horses and foxhunting. Weekends found her deserting her New York office and hopping on the train with brother, Harry. In the mid-1980s, Nancy developed rheumatoid arthritis, no longer able to ride. Eventually she had to leave her beloved “fox-hunting lodge†on the Upland corner. She moved with Timmy, her little white dog, to Waverly on the Main Line. This wasn’t quite the life she loved, but the book helped.
John and I suggested that all those hunting stories needed preservation, and volunteered as editors. Nancy Nicholas moved her energy to the desk, notes and letters, memories … kept Unionville a little closer. A full year saw a completed manuscript, with designer Virginia Sloss and Ann Armstrong’s beguiling sketches — and the birth of Sevynmor Press and Tales of An Inn, published in 1989 with 700 copies. Nancy had a marvelous time signing books. She died in 1995 at 80.
The author.
29 Mar 2018
Another World
Better Times, Britain, Fox Hunting, Ledbury Hunt
Ledbury Hunt meeting at the Feathers Hotel on Boxing Day of 1909.
RSH forwarded this photo, and wrote:
“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.â€
14 Feb 2017
Following the Annual Hunt Ball
Amusement, Facebook, Fox Hunting, Ireland, Social Events
A certain Irish hunt held its annual Hunt Ball last weekend. Yesterday on FB occurred the following exchange:
Female member 1: “We have 2 coats from the hunt ball…if anyone is missing a Zara women’s jacket size M and a black fur shrug please pm me and we can arrange for them to be collected.”
Male member: “How many pairs of knickers?”
Female member 1: “No comment!”
Male member: “A great night then!”
Female member 1: “Top class!”
Female member 2: “Fantastic ! The Zara is mine cheers”
Male member: “And the knickers?”
Clearly a good time was had by all.
08 Jan 2017
Proposal Accepted
Fox Hunting, Galway Blazers, Photography, Siobhan English
William McMahon proposes December 22nd to Grace Maxwell Murphy while out with the Galway Blazers. Photo by Siobhán English.
This photo was deservedly promoted from Facebook to the Chronicle of the Horse Siobhán English is the best hunt photographer out there.
