New Market Hounds

For two weeks the four foxhunting clubs in central Maryland (Howard County-Iron Bridge, Potomac, Goshen and New Market-Middletown) have been engaged in celebrating a 100 years of something -- I'm not quite sure what. It's not hunting in Maryland because that goes back to pre-revolutionary day, but anyway, 100 years of something very good.

This means we've had four hunts where all four club are hunting together which makes for a merry mob scene and lots of socializing but also means we've been traveling around to each other's fixtures. The territory in each of the four clubs is rather different, interestingly, so it's been very educational.

Yesterday we hunted on New Market-Middletown territory up in Frederick County west of Sugarloaf Mountain. It was the grounds of the Maryland Horse Trials training facility. Dale had told me the day before it was a flat fixture but I began to doubt her as we drove along beside the Mountain. Then we got to the turnoff and we had to go down into a deep ravine with the trailers and back up a switchback road at 2 miles an hour up to the top where we found a mighty plateau stretching away to the West. I said to my traveling companion, "flat? In fact, it is RATHER HILLY." Then once we parked, all we could see were these enormous Olympic size cross country jumps set about this huge field high on the mighty plateau. We became nervous. Burton eyed the obstacles with interest. Then it started to rain. Boo.

Because there are four hunts, that means four masters and four hunstmen and four sets of whips and four fields (only one pack of hounds, though). Huge numbers of people and horses. We milled about the mighty plateau in the drizzle as if were Washington's army massing for a charge. The other hunts have more men than we do so there were many red coats. Then we set off galloping madly across the plateau towards the woods down in the bottom. We were so many of us that we fanned out across the fields in a wide swath, maybe 10 riders wide, and we all thundered along for many minutes because the field is so large. The drizzle smacked us, the mud flew up at us. All one could see was the rumps of the horses ahead of and the sea of red coats up front (I was pretty close to the front) and the flashing of boron shoes in the dim light. It was wonderful! It was like a cavalry -- a cavalcade! The horses were exhilarated! We looked behind and saw the field covered with hundreds of horses and riders swarming after us, followed by pickup trucks with hangers on and photographers. We raced and raced and raced down. We were in a flat out gallop. We all started to giggle as we cruised along at high speed, I sang out, jokingly, "I forgot my girth!" People chuckled. My friend George who rides a giant dappled Clydesdale thing named Charlie who is really not very fast and fairly shakes the earth has he travel is trying to get him to move on by telling him "whoa lightning!" This makes everyone collapse in laughter which is dangerous when galloping. We gallop madly on in this manner, getting dirtier and warmer and wetter, for about 15 minutes at which point we jump a small obstacle into the woods and stop. Steam rises from the horses. The people all look at each other brightly and say some variation of "awake now?!"

And that is basically what the next 3 hours was. Madcap galloping around 2,000 acres of privately held land in the shadow of Sugarloaf Mountain in the drizzle. There were maybe half a dozen of these huge enormous fields -- some were plateaus, some were shallow basins, some were pitched down towards a body of water, some were pitched off toward the mountain. The fields were separated by little streams with silver maples all around. One of the fields had cows in it -- the cows lumbered after us in their creepy cow way but couldn't keep up. Burton looked down his horsie nose at them.

The fields were so big that we had an unobstructed view of the entire hunt at work, which we can never see in our own territory because we are very hilly and wooded. Burton and I were running down one hill at one point and saw before us the pack, the huntsman, the first whipper-in, the whips that park at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock, and the master with us the field, all spread out below. It was like an 18th Century English hunting print. At another point were at the top of a field and the hounds were working at the bottom of the field just at the edge of the woods, and the woods spread up all the way to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain in an uninterrupted sea of red oaks and sugar maples and silver maples. No human habitation in sight.

The most humorous moment of the day was when our friend Rob Long fell off at the halt while we were checked. He was trying to retrieve a flask from our other friend Robbie, we believe, and something went horribly awry. His fall at the halt was preceded by comical "whoa! whoa! whoa! noises like a Looney Tunes cartoon. We all clapped. The second most humorous moment was when a man on a wound up rocking horse looking steed went cavorting by and I said, "demonstrating the capriole?" and he said, "oh, is that was this is called?" The capriole is one of those foolish movements the Lipizzaner horses perform. When non-Lipizzaner perform it, it is usually an accident.

Another funny moment was when we came up around the back of one of the fields and had to scale a mountain covered in cedar trees after running speedily through what seemed to be a bog. As we were scaling the mountain (tiny stony trail with sheer cliff to the right) my friend Susan and I say to each other, "yes, a flat fixture, Dale." Tee hee. She later claimed she thinking of some other place.

Afterwards we had a fabulous brunch of fresh oysters and fried oysters and apple pie and scalloped potatoes and some succulent meat dish and green beans and cheese. Then we drove back down the ravine and the switch back road and went around the Mountain and back to Howard County where the horses got bubble baths and then dinner and then were tucked off into their now dark fields in their pajamas

The clubs had so much fun hunting together that we decided to do it again next year, even without the celebration of 100 years of whatever it was we were celebrating..