Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 10 · column 5 of 7 · from the scan, no model involved
By Betsy Parker
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
The hosting Bull Run Hunt club just missed winning the Masters of Foxhounds Association Virginia foxhound performance trials last week, losing out to Maryland’s ElkridgeHarford by less than 100 points over two days.
Held at Bull Rim’s premiere Culpeper County fixture, The Preserve, the two-day hound trial had been postponed from March due to an outbreak an an infectious horse disease this spring. The subsequent quarantine all but shut down horse sports in Virginia for nearly a month.
“We finally pulled it off” said Rappahannock Hunt master Oliver Brown. Rappahannock and Bull Run co-hosted the event, which attracted hounds from four mid-Atlantic packs.
Dry weather and high temperatures conspired for difficult scenting conditions, Brown said, but Bull Run master Joe Kincheloe said that The Preserve — several thousand acres of undeveloped farmland with vast forested sections — is a superb fixture, “full of foxes.”
Day one held full promise for a Bull Run sweep as Bull Run Rascal earned top marks from all five judges for “full cry” and “endurance.”
Hounds are also judged for hunting, trailing and marking. A guest huntsman, Tony Leahy, handled the horn for the pack that combined entrants from each of the clubs participating.
Rascal’s kennelmate Bull Run Baldric was judged tops for “marking” — first in at the earth when the fox went to ground, giving Bull Run the nod on day one.
Day two dawned even warmer than the first hunt, with hounds working hard under Leahy’s guidance but having a difficult time under the arid conditions.
They found readily in a small covert just north of the main farm road in The Preserve, with hounds working the line to the farm’s feedlot near Cedar Mountain, but they lost again in the open, and
87.5%