MAKING FAST FRIENDS… HOW FOX HUNTING MADE EVERYTHING BETTER

MAKING FAST FRIENDS… HOW FOX HUNTING MADE EVERYTHING BETTER

 

Bailey and I  LOVE hunting!(Thank you Daniela Anderson for catching this great shot!)

            About 2 years ago I got involved in an amazing research study which literally fell into my lap and led me to my love of Fox Hunting. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been enamored with this sport since I was very tiny, though I didn’t realize that it was still practiced nor did I know that people in the US did it! My PhD work was on a tick-borne disease of dogs and was molecular and clinically oriented. When Matt and I went to Maryland for our postdoc’s I hoped to pick up some more solid molecular biology work in my post-doc which I was able to do in the lab I chose. I had no idea how much I would miss the animal work until this project landed in my lap. A local veterinarian who is a Master of Fox Hounds for the Howard County Iron Bridge Fox Hounds found out my specialty was tick-borne pathogens and told me his kennel had a lot of infections with the tick-borne bacteria, Anaplasma phagocytophilum. I was invited to the kennel to take a look at their hounds and help with some reproductive issues they were having. Through this endeavor I got so much more than I ever could have hoped. One I got to take home Miss Marble who has settled nicely into her role as an Ex-hunter and current Couch Queen. 

Marble the hunting hound. You can tell she's getting ready to go hunting from the helmet and the hunt whip .

Marble the happy couch potato. Don't EVER let anyone tell you that hounds are hard to housebreak. Give them a couch and they're house broken for life!

Second, I got to know a great houndsman, Dave Pickett, and he suggested I try “hunter paces” which are kind of like timed trail rides with jumps, or if you’re chicken like me you can do it all on the flat (no jumping). I also chose this way because Matt was just learning to ride and I was pretty sure I wanted to keep him in one piece still. So after doing a season of Hunter Pace which Matt thoroughly enjoyed (YEA!!!!) we found a hunt club that was doing free cubbing. 

 

Weeeeee!!!! And that look of panic on Matt's face is how he expresses joy... trust me that's as good as it's going to get unless there's tickling involved. (Another great one by Daniela! Some of the only photos I have of me riding are from her!)

Cubbing is like pre-season fox hunting, and when I say fox hunting what I mean is Fox chasing because that is what you do in the states. We chase, not hunt because the thrill is in the chase and fox are not enough of a nuisance in the US that we have to cull them. Cubbing is when you start taking the new hounds out and the new horses and everyone starts to get fit and ready for the hunt season. You wear different clothes (tweed!! Oh how I love tweed!) and it's lower key so that you can ease into the season. This usually occurs as early as mid-September but really takes off in October and was an amazing opportunity for us, we’d get to dip our toes into the waters of hunting with a bunch of new people and under the watchful eye of people who had been doing this for a while to ensure we were safe. After the first weekend we were hooked and so were our horses! 

 

Bailey and I cubbing. I'm wearing a Tweed jacket rather than the more formal black jacket that we wear during the actual hunting season.

Izzy dreaded the ride over to the fixture (location of the hunt) but once there she was like a new horse! Until Matt and I found the Goshen hounds we never felt like Maryland was much of a fit for us. They all made it so much better! Everyone was kind, helpful, and very friendly; even friendlier when I came with certain not-baked goods, aka the bourbon balls. 

 

Me hunting (Thank you to Hannah Pryor for catching this one with my camera!)

Matt and myself in 3rd field. See the young lady on the pony? We have riders as young as 7 hunting with us. It's a great sport for the family! (And this one too!Thanks Hannah!)

Most of the field wear black coats, but if you have done enough service for the club and gone above and beyond you get awarded your colors. This gives you the right to wear the red coat, and the hunt's colors on your lapels. This is how it was done with Goshen, not how it is done in Ireland.

So what does this have to do with Ireland? That’s what this blog is about, right?!?! 

Well, fox hunters are a very nice bunch, so when I found out I was moving to Ireland I posted up on a Fox hunters page on Facebook that we’re moving to Ireland and can anyone recommend a hunt in the Cork area. After a number of kind replies I found that South Union was closest to where we would be living and working and “friended” a couple of the members.  Within a month of us moving here I saw one of the members was “hound walking” in the evening and asked if I could join them. After getting an affirmative from the huntsman Matt and I began a number of Thursday evening walks with 4-7 other members and 20-40 hounds! What fun! 

Hound walking! Happy tails and happy faces!

Next thing I know we get invited to a hound show and then another, and next thing we know I feel right at home. 

Now, we haven’t been brave enough to hunt on horseback with these guys, but we do something called foot following. There are two types of foot followers. Some actually chase the horses and hounds on foot for the whole 3-4 hours+ that the hunt is out. We’re not fit enough for this so we drive around the roads and stick to the hills to get good viewings of the hounds working and the field going by. We still walk around a bit, we just let the car cover the greatest distances. Back in Maryland I was fortunate enough to have a wonderful tour guide for this sort of Hunting. Master Tom Pardoe who hunted with the Goshen hounds for many seasons would load us all up in his Suburban and keep in contact with the hunters via cell phone so we would always be one step ahead of the field. I got so much out of these excursions! He would teach me some of the intricacies of hunting while we traveled here and there across field and farrow. There were a few times I was worried the Suburban might get stuck or buck me out the back window,  but Tom always came home with the same number of passengers that he left with. 

 

Tom sharing a nip with another hill-toper

With this particular hunt if you fell off your horse during the hunt you owed the club a bottle of liquor which due to the nature of the sport meant we always had a very wells stocked bar. None the less, I was NOT going to owe the club a bottle for falling out of Tom’s Suburban! I was going to EARN my owed bottle the old fashion way, and I did… twice. My poor boy Bailey looked panicked and puzzled after each time I plopped off him. Both were pilot error, although one was husband error. Matt, dear man, got stuck on a branch and when he released it the branch swept me clean off my horse! It happens, I laughed. During this time I picked up a hobby that I’d set aside for a number of years, photography.  I’ve always loved photography and this gave me the best opportunity to work on my skills. So I began taking pictures of the hunts for myself and for friends I’d made in the hunt.  This has continued over in Ireland. It works out very well because people tag each other in the photos and it gives me a nice way to start learning names of people because that is one thing I have a really hard time with. I will recognize a face but names often allude me. This trend has continued at South Union. I am now reasonably good with names and have had a great time taking pictures. It has been so good that I’ll be going to another hunt this season to snap pictures for them as well. One can never have too many contacts and friends in a new country! 

Below are 3 of my favorite pictures from Goshen

And now a few from South Union over here in Ireland

One of my favorite things about hunting is the that the diversity of people who hunt is fantastic! In both hunts we had all range of people who enjoy the sport. Doctors, lawyers, scientists, public workers, farmers, kids, teens, all manner of ages, shapes, sizes, and colors of people and horses come out to hunt. All are equal in the field if you can ride, keep up with the hunt, and if you don’t interfere with the hounds when they’re doing their job.

In addition to hunting on foot, Matt and I chose to puppy walk this year. This means we welcomed 2 young fox hounds into our home and raised them as we would our own. When we (and when I say we I obviously mean me, no way would Matt go into something like this willingly, but it was close to my birthday so I played that card and got my way) were at a hound show I asked one of the Limerick hunters how you get to raise puppies and he directed me back to John our fantastic huntsman at South Union. This is where I made my first best friend, haha! After saying I wanted to walk a puppy, he told me they're much better in pairs. When I agreed to take two he jokingly said I was his new best friend, haha! So perhaps the quickest way to make friends is to get a couple puppies from your local club... This also means one month into living here we got TWO 10 week old puppies! Matt was delighted! And if you buy that I got a great deal on a bridge in San Francisco for you! I tried not to spoil them too much, but they often spent mornings and evenings in the kitchen with us sitting on the couch. A bit of a posh lifestyle for a future hunting hound but they really do give the best snuggles, so long as they're not sopping wet or covered in mud as puppies are apt to do.

Until LapDance could get on the couch herself, her brother made a nice soft seat

Yea! Big puppy!!!

 

Big baby LapDance

 Both grew large and round before they went back to the kennel. I’m pretty sure I was bound and determined to grow myself a pony, but before I could fulfill that desire it was time for them to start learning what they were bred to do. Back to the kennels with them, but I still get to see them whenever I want and get to watch them grow into full-fledged hunting hounds!

So the moral of this story is if you're going to move to a new country, find something you love and find others who love doing it too. That common link will make you feel more at home than anything you can bring with you. I love our adopted country, and all the wonderful people who have helped make it feel like a home.  The second moral of the story is although horse people tend to have a reputation for being bat shit crazy, fox hunters are the best kind of crazy you can get so toss your lot in with them when you can!