‘Flat out from
American hound trials, where hounds are judged on their performance out hunting, rather than their looks, are ‘a huge success story’, says Frank Houghton Brown after judging the national championship in Alabama
ARIP-ROARING hollo from Rhodri Jones-Evans echoed around the Alabama grasslands. Seconds later, this was followed by a crash of music from the 25 couple of hounds gathered in this mixed pack from 24 hunts.
Rhodri, who started his hunt service with the Wynnstay, has been huntsman of the Mooreland hounds in northern Alabama for the past 14 seasons and was acting as whipper-in for the day. He had viewed a black coyote away and, for the next hour, there was no let up as we galloped full tilt to keep in touch.
There was a large and well-mounted field, mostly on thoroughbreds, and Mason Lampton Jnr was enthusiastically leading the charge over wellsituated coops in the wire fences and hell for leather across the rolling grassland, or tearing down the twisty woodland rides at breakneck speed.
This was the second consecutive day’s hunting in this finale of the Masters of Foxhounds Association of America (MFHA) “performance trials”, and the natural discord of so many different and unconnected hounds had been brilliantly harmonised by the skills of huntsman Ashley
Hubbard from the Green Spring Valley in Maryland where the famous timber race, the Maryland Hunt Cup, is run.
Coats had been discarded by most of the mounted field as the temperature was a sizzling 30°C, so any hound carrying too much condition or unused to the heat was at a severe disadvantage, especially the Penn-Marydel foxhounds, a specific breed of American foxhound prized for their heavy voice and low-scenting ability, but not as athletic as some.
Most of the competitors were cross-bred foxhounds, a mixture of all the different breeds of American hounds, mixed with some English foxhound blood in order to get the best traits of all the different breeds.
UNDER PRESSURE
THIS coyote was under too much pressure to make a point and turned short a few times, allowing the tail hounds once again to be at the front, and the booming cacophony of noise swelled every time this happened as the baritone chorus of the PennMarydels joined the orchestra.
This coyote was hard-pressed from the moment he was found and, whatever he did, the pack were locked on to him. Coyotes
have no friends in this part of the world, their name tarnished as killers of farmers’ livestock and young deer.
As our host, Mason Lampton Snr, so succinctly put it: “Our landowners understand the coyote is a predator that eats beef.”
There was no talk of “poor scent” and the coyote must have a pungent odour. This hunt was a flat-out adrenalin-fuelled race from start to finish, and the hounds accounted for their pilot after 70 minutes.
The performance trial is a natural progression from the hound show, where hounds are judged on conformation alone. The Americans pioneered this type of judging in the field. When I was master and huntsman of the Middleton, we ran similar hound trials in North Yorkshire during the late 1990s. The legendary American MFH Ben Hardaway and his son-in-law, Mason Lampton Snr, came over from the US to judge.
It was a way of seeing different types of hounds hunting together and assessing their virtues. We deliberately invited the old English hounds of the Belvoir and Wynnstay, the hill hounds of the College Valley, the pure Welsh from the David Davies, the American-cross hounds from the Cattistock and the modern foxhounds of the Duke of Beaufort’s and the Quorn, in order to be able to see their special qualities in action together.
A MAJOR FUNDRAISER
IN typical American fashion, this was a hugely turbo-charged version; the grand championship of 12 qualifying trials that have been held across the length and breadth of the country. Each qualifying round will have been held in very different terrain and conditions, each suitable to a different type of hound, yet this finale was organised by the Midland hunt, whose base is near Columbus in Georgia but who have a separate hunting country at Fitzpatrick in Alabama, with miles of space and quarry aplenty.
A tented city had been erected as a base camp, with stabling for 70 horses and a huge dry field to accommodate the long goose-neck trailers that are the horse transport of choice for most followers. Everyone was billeted locally and a large party arranged for all comers every night. This wasn’t just a hound trial, but also a major fundraising event for the American MFHA to help finance the purchase of their new offices
and museum in Middleburg, Virginia. Many of the mounted field had paid $5,000 (£3,890) for the privilege of riding in the “first flight”, which means as close to the field master as possible.
The proceedings opened with a hound show at Foxpatrick, where the Midland hounds are kennelled when hunting in Alabama. There were classes for English, American, Penn-Marydel and cross-bred hounds, with a championship for the best of all breeds. The Midland Sabre 15 was overall champion, out of a Staffordshire Moorland bitch, and all their hounds looked a picture, beautifully shown by huntsman Ken George.
But the striking thing about the hound show was that it was just a sideshow, because we were actually gathered to judge them on their working ability. There was a “Calcutta”, or auction of each pack, rather like a sweepstake where the purchaser of the winning pack would sweep the pool and a large donation was given to the local fire brigade.
A CAVALRY CHARGE
NEXT morning, every hound, marked on each flank with its allocated number, was fitted with a radio-tracking collar. Local landowner Frank Rutland’s farm was the meeting point at 8am. None of the 24 packs had any more than two couple of entries and this assortment of hounds set off to draw a wooded creek.
Much of the land was waisthigh in rough grass and, as the huntsman Ashley recalled: “I jumped the first coop away from the meet and a coyote crossed straight in front of me. I holloed them on and we were away.”
There were seven mounted judges, each with a guide to help them and a dictaphone to record what they saw, their mission to get to the front and see which hounds were doing the work. This was not as easy as it might sound, with the speed of this hunt making it tough to get near the action. There were 90 people in the “first flight” field alone, with a large contingent of less pushy riders in the alternative field. It was a cavalry charge, with Mason Jnr as field master who never took a pull.
It is a rarity in the UK that we ever have to gallop out hunting, more of a gentle canter, but this was an adrenalin-fuelled race, mostly through long grass where you had to hope for the best.
I had the most fantastic guide in Jenna Hamby, who knew the country like the back of her hand and rode like the wind. Conditioning soon took its toll and the fitter hounds got away.
Three hounds crossed in front of me hard at their coyote and a little further on, two of them held their pilot to bay in front of judge Tim Easby, director of the UK’s MFHA. The two hounds were Midland Bliss 12, a lemoncoloured home-bred bitch with a wall eye that shows her breeding back to the July hounds that were Ben Hardaway’s favourite outcross, and Hillsboro Dagwood 15, an English-bred doghound out of a Warwickshire bitch.
Another coyote was soon on the go and the noise was deafening as the pack pushed him around the woodlands and away in front of us, going hell for leather across the open ground. They had been running non-stop in extreme heat for three-and-a-half hours and the humid conditions in 30°C were starting to tell on both hounds and horses.
Jenna told me that, for the whole morning, there had only been 15 minutes when we hadn’t been galloping. Ashley decided to draw stumps and we retired to breakfast at the Rutland’s house, where the leading hounds after the first day were announced.
THE WINNERS
THE next day, the meet was at “the tented city”, and most of the hunting happened on Mason’s own land; several thousand acres specially set up for hunting.
After a successful conclusion to the second day’s hunting, we all retired to Foxpatrick for breakfast and an awards ceremony. The scoring system has been designed by Epp Wilson, master and huntsman of the Belle Meade hunt in Georgia, to mark hounds for drawing, hunting and stamina. Over the two days, the Midland, the home pack, deservedly had the best overall score, but the best hound was awarded to the Hillsboro Salty 15.
Hunted for the past 38 years by Johny Gray, who hails from the old Milvain country in Northumberland, with his wife Leilani as whipper-in, the Hillsboro have a top-class pack of cross-bred and English hounds, plus a country to die for. Orrin Ingram, nephew of the legendary Henry Hooker, master of the Hillsboro for so many years, joined the mastership eight years ago. After his first visit to America’s premier hound show in Virginia, the Hillsboro came home with a fourth place rosette.
“Like going to a gunfight with a knife”, is how he described it, so Orrin set about improving the quality of the hounds with his customary attention to detail.
Huntsman Ashley Hubbard was asked to award a prize for the hound he thought had made the best contribution and he chose Midland Bliss, the white hound who had been so noticeable to everyone in the field as she was always seen right behind the coyote and even went to ground with her quarry at the end of the final hunt.
This was a huge success story for hunting, not only in judging hounds for hunting rather than looks, but also in uniting the common hunting bond, in this case with 24 different hunts who all had something to offer. Mason Lampton is truly following in Ben Hardaway’s footsteps and his son, Mason Jnr, is only a small step behind.