This weekend is one that the Essex Foxhounds usually devote to appreciating the country way of life, highlighted by its Masters Chase of fun races at Natirar, a Somerset County park that once was part of a great estate.
The Covid situation meant the chase and its afternoon of tailgating couldn’t be held in 2020, but Essex recouped–and in the process made up for having to cancel its puppy show earlier in the year for the same reason.
Instead, it offered a hound clinic at its Peapack base, with members and guests gathering to hear an appreciation of hound breeding by Tony Leahy, president of the Masters of Foxhounds Association. He is the master of both the Fox River Valley Hunt in Illinois and the Massbach Hounds in Georgia, enabling him to hunt from August to mid-April.
Tony Leahy explains a fine point about hound breeding.( Photo © 2020 by Nancy Jaffer)
The gathering benefited the Countryside Alliance of the Somerset Hills. It’s a non-profit “formed to educate the public about breeding horses and hounds and the sporting life,” said Jazz Merton, who is the joint master of Essex with Karen Murphy.
According to Tony, the Essex Foxhounds “is one of the foundation genetic schools of American foxhounds in the U.S., and for American foxhounds in the world.”
Jazz noted that huntsman Bart Poole has been working to breed hounds concentrating on three family lines. It was informative to see three generations of hounds and how they were related.
Buster Chadwell was the huntsman for Essex from 1940 to 1977, with one year off for serving in World War II. His son, Roddy, followed him in the position. Their hound acuity made the Essex pack famous.
“The Chadwell family was renowned for breeding and training deer-broke hounds,” said Jazz, referring to canines that won’t get distracted by running on deer. With the prevalence of deer in the area, that’s a gift.
“Once the older hounds are smart about that, the younger ones are easy to train. They get the picture pretty quickly. It’s like a team; they all really want to work together. That’s what the breeding program is about, having a group or a family of good hunting hounds,” Jazz continued.
“It’s better to have a family of good hounds than to have one superstar who’s always outrunning the pack.”
To the average person, the hounds may look pretty much alike, aside from different coloration or the way their spots are arranged. But Bart knows them all by name, and it’s impressive to see him address them and watch the way they respond.
Huntsman Bart Poole shows off the Essex hounds and Tony Leahy offers observations for guests in Peapack. (Photo © 2020 by Nancy Jaffer)
He and Tony cited the attributes of each hound, but Bart was practically poetic talking about Rhubarb “She has all the qualities,” enthused Bart.
“We call her the Swiss army knife.”
Her “multidimensional strengths and road nose” were paired with the pluses of Bristol, who has a “brilliant fox sense and thoughtfulness” in a mating designed to produce a family that was bred to embody those traits. The offspring were Raisin, Radish, Reaper, Roddy and Rubbish (which Tony cited with a smile as another “great name.”)
There is a real knack in “how to create families and keep things going in a sustainable way,” said Tony. It’s both an art and a science.
“You can’t necessarily breed the best to the best and expect to get the best,” he explained.
One goal is to produce hounds that have longevity yet can “still run with as much power as possible. Any pack of hounds should try to maintain at least four, possibly five, dominant female lines.”
When discussing various qualities of the hounds, “bidability” is a word he prefers to use rather than trainability. The communal dynamic among hounds, huntsman and staff can offer a type of built-in consensus, the teamwork to which Jazz referred, and that requires hounds who are open to it.
“For a group of hounds to be a mile away from you and want to get back to you,” Tony said, “that’s special.”
Asked about the state of foxhunting in America, Tony noted that with Covid, “a lot of people are coming back to the sport. It’s safe, it’s family- and community-based.”
While there are restrictions on many other sports during the pandemic, being socially distant aboard a horse in the fresh air means hunting can continue.
“From kids to 90-year-olds, there’s a place in most any of the hunts for anybody. What we’re seeing is that hunts are re-energized,” Tony observed.
“People come back to something familiar and that has some honesty and integrity and purity to it. It’s a shared bond when you’re out there in the field.
During the afternoon, Valerie Gimbel was honored for being part of the Essex field for 50 years, while former hunt secretary Constance Silverman was recognized for her contributions.
Huntsman Bart Poole plays a tribute to the late James C. Brady. (Photo © 2020 by Nancy Jaffer)
Before the clinic began, Karen asked for a moment of silence for longtime Essex benefactor James Brady, who died last week. In Mr. Brady’s memory, Bart played “Gone Away” on his horn. (See Mr. Brady’s obituary in the On the Rail section of this website.)
Karen characterized Mr. Brady as “a strong supporter of Essex; he had an interest in what we did and how Essex stepped into this next century. He kept an eye on things.”
