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10/27/2015 HERE’S A FREE SAMPLE OF WHAT YOU WILL GET WITH A PDF OR COMBINATION ELECTRONIC/PDF SUBSCRIPTION Hunters' Moon With this issue of FHL WEEK appearing the morning after the annual Hunters’ Moon,* we consider this poem especially appropriate! Illustration by Gilbert Holliday By Edric G. Roberts The horizon, sapphire and amethyst, Pales in the East and soon, Like a copper shield through the evening mist, Rises the Hunters’ Moon. On the turnpike road every hoof­beat sounds Clear in the frosty air, As the Whip jogs home with the straggler­hounds Jostling his weary mare. They were bustling cubs in the woods until Late in the afternoon, When the pack divided and ran to kill, Advertise here Under the rising moon. Now the shadows deepen as daylight dies; Brighter the moonbeams grow; And the branches gleam where the hoar­frost lies Whiter than winter snow. 1/13 10/27/2015 From the distant woods, looming soft and dark, There where the mists are strewn, Comes the high­pitched note of a fox’s bark Baying the Hunters’ Moon. Posted October 25, 2015 * The hunters’ moon is the next full moon (usually in October or November) to follow the full moon known as the harvest moon, which occurs nearest to the fall equinox (September 22 or 23). The Great Hound Match of 1905: Alexander Henry Higginson, Harry Worcester Smith, and the Rise of Virginia Hunt Country This book will be launched at the National Sporting Library, Middleburg, Virginia, on Sunday, November 8 at 2:00 pm. Author Martha Wolfe will speak and sign books. Review by Martha A. Woodham Before Virginia became the epicenter of foxhunting in the United States, two men staged a contest to determine which was hound was better suited for hunting in America —the heavy, biddable English hound or the ill­mannered American hound that ran like a screaming banshee. In The Great Hound Match of 1905: Alexander Henry Higginson, Harry Worcester Smith, and the Rise of Virginia Hunt Country, author Martha Wolfe sets a fictionalized version of this competition against the history of foxhunting in Virginia. She has written a wonderful account of the battle between two wealthy men— Higginson and Smith—with egos to match their fortunes, each adamant that his hounds were the best. Set in an optimistic America just recovering from the 1893 depression, the match was very much a stuffy Old World versus the brash New. Against this background, Wolfe The Great Hound Match of 1905: gives us a portrait of the vastly different men—Higginson, Alexander Henry Higginson, Harry the gentlemanly foxhunter, and Smith, who liked his Worcester Smith, and the Rise of hounds intuitive, impulsive, independent, and to show Virginia Hunt Country by Martha “initiative...like any full­blooded American.” According to Wolfe, Lyons Press, 2015, the author, “Smith and his [Grafton] hounds were Hardcover, 224 pages, $22.95 mongrels—bold, forward, and independent to a fault. Higginson and his [Middlesex] hounds were the refined, reserved elite—passively aggressive, methodical, accustomed to queuing, happy in a crowd of equals.”Nowhere were their differences more apparent than in their hunting styles. “The Great Hound Match was, if anything, a fight between two men who came down on opposites sides of a formula each had written in his own mind for the most successful method of hunting a fox,” writes Wolfe. Should the huntsman guide his hounds, as was the English method, or should the huntsman let his hounds guide him? With the match as the setting, Wolfe uses every other chapter to explore the how and why of fox hunting. Twice a John H. Daniels Fellow at the National Sporting Library and a published author, she applied her research skills to uncover fascinating details about the Great Hound Match of 1905 and about our sport. She compares hound types and how they were bred to hunt their home territories efficiently. She delves into the intricacies of scent; of the fox in literature and the reasons for his many nicknames; and of how Northern industrialists discovered Virginia hunt country, arriving with boxcars full of horses, tack and hounds. The most important thing Smith ever did for the sport, she writes, was to found the Masters of Foxhounds Association, removing the governance of foxhunting from the auspices of the National Steeplechase and Hunt Association. The famous match took place in the days when daring women rode sidesaddle as they negotiated fearsome fences. Wolfe quotes foxhunter Alice Hayes, who wrote in 1903 that the difference between men and women in the field wasn’t the horse or their nerve—it was the tack, what Hayes called the “tyranny of the sidesaddle.” While men rode the horse, 2/13 10/27/2015 women—labeled Amazones—rode the saddle, having to balance perfectly. “Think of it as the Ginger Rogers school of equitation,” writes Wolfe, reminding us that Rogers danced as well as Fred Astaire, only backwards and in high heels. The hound match was big news in 1905, covered by all the newspapers of the day. Twenty­six hunts were represented on the first outing. The Richmond Times­Dispatch had a reporter on horseback, official Clerk of the Match Allen Potts, whose accounts give us an intimate view of the spectacle—the hard miles covered, the rider falls and injuries, the cleverness of the prey, the kills (only one, an illegally bagged fox). As Wolfe points out, this was war: “Seek, find, blood and death.” Smith, wily like his hounds, graciously offered A. Henry Higginson, MFH Higginson the first day of hunting. Not only had he been roading his hounds as he scouted the Middleburg territory in the days before Higginson and his hounds arrived, he know the first day would be dry and windy. After about three hours of drawing blank coverts, Higginson gathered his hounds and called it a day. But the field had enjoyed a nice trail ride with lots of jumping. Day Two was not much better. Smith’s hounds, which had to be coupled so they would not run off, ran off as soon as they were uncoupled. Smith had no sign of them for two hours, finally catching up with the rogues when he heard them howling as if they had taken a fox. But since no one had seen the hounds put a fox to ground, the judges could not award them the day. Another blank. And so it went for two weeks of hunting, the frustrated hunters spending hours in the saddle, galloping many miles across the countryside. Both packs found and chased foxes, but there were no kills, the ultimate proof of the best pack. After twelve days of challenging hunting, the judges declared a winner (but you will have to read it for yourself. I’m not giving it away.). In the end, the foxes were the true winners, outsmarting the hounds and the men who hunted them. “If one [fox], just one had let himself be legitimately killed by either the Middlesex or the Grafton hounds, so much of history would have been changed,” writes Wolfe. “That martyred fox would have either crowned the English hound as the foxhound of the universe or would have made it clear once and for all, that there is an Harry Worcester Smith American foxhound and that it rules America. Since no civic­minded fox stepped forward and since the decision of the judges was somewhat subjective, the question—which is better for America, the American or the English foxhound?—has never really been answered.” Indeed, the debate has continued among hound men to this day. In the years since the Great Hound Match, foxhunters have tried to settle the issue by reenacting the competition in Virginia. The first, in 1989, was snowed out. But in 1991, the match had a clear winner: the legendary Ben Hardaway and his pack of biddable American/English Crossbred hounds. Posted October 25, 2015 3/13 10/27/2015 Advertise here 2006 Masters Seminar Featured Distinguished Panelists The New Masters Seminar, organized by the MFHA and held in Chantilly, Virginia on April 8, 2006 was designed to provide guidance for new Masters. In testimony to the strength of the panel, however, the Seminar attracted over forty Masters, many of whom could hardly be considered ‘new.’ While five of the Masters who attended had less than ten years hunting experience, seven had been hunting for more than forty years, and fully half of the group had more than twenty years hunting experience each. The panel was composed of five former MFHA presidents: Benjamin H. Hardaway, III; J.W.Y. ‘Duck’ Martin, Jr.; Dr. John W.D. McDonald; C. Martin Wood, III; and James L. Young. This august group came to the party offering a total of 270 years of foxhunting experience! Among the topics discussed were: Managing the Breeding Program; Managing Professional Staff; Tony Leahy, MFH moderated a Private, Subscription, or Membership Packs; Land distinguished panel. Conservation; Breeding Hounds for Coyote or Fox; Sportsmanship; and Tradition. The Panel Moderator was Tony Leahy, MFH. Managing the Breeding Program The first issue discussed stressed the importance of a Master being involved in the hunt’s breeding program and not leaving that most critical responsibility solely in the hands of professional staff. Jimmy Young pointed out that the Master and his or her successors have the constancy with the hunt and the relationship with the MFHA, while a huntsman may leave at any time. However, said Marty Wood, “You, as Masters, must be committed to long terms in office before mucking about with the breeding.

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