FOXHOUNDS PAST AND PRESENT
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Rosemack
Super Moderators
Registered: 04/15/09
Posts: 29
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Reply with quote | #1 |
A True Winner Never Quits and a Quitter Never Wins
The Hunter's Horn
April, 1954
Page Twenty-eight
I just got back from the kennels feeding and shutting up these few Walker hounds that I have, that just came in from last night's race. I am going to answer some of these articles about why trials don't foster better fox hounds.
There have been lots of field trials run since the Brunswick held its first field trial in 1889. There have been a lot of changes made since that time, but it looks like many of ht changes were made against what we all strive so hard to get. That is endurance with a level head and ability to drive the game. I will have to disagree with Mr. Wayne Sudderth about field trials culling out your hounds. There is no possible chance of telling if he has the ability to drive his game when he has got 150 to 200 hounds backing him up when he makes a runover or a loss. Some other hound will pick it up and then he will step back up in front again.
Any time you hear a man say that he has a hound that you won't hear unless he is in front, you can check this hound and you won't hear too much out of him. Nine chances out of ten that same other level headed hound in the pack will get all the pickups and this hound will only give tongue when he is on a straight drive. If this same hound was taken out by himself and let him strike a fox and put him to running, chances are he wouldn't run this fox for two hours until he would have him lost and wouldn't know which way to turn to find him. That is one kind of hound our field trials are turning out, and expect us to breed to them and produce better foxhounds.
You hear so many people say, "why is it that our field champions won't breed on?" Why is it that they won't produce field champions?" Now we will look on the other side of the picture and see what is over there. Over here on this side and you will hear one say if Mr. So and So's hound had had a little more luck he would have carried home the field trial trophies. Boys, there is one of our biggest troubles in field trials, luck, too many hounds win their championship by luck and there is no way for him to breed this good luck on to his offspring. You can check the records and you will find very few field champions that produce field champions and the ones that you do find will be true winners. A true winner never quits and a quitter never truly wins.
I'm not knocking the judges of our field trials. I think they do their very best and give justice to what they see at the field trial. It is the rules they have to go by. Too many hounds cast at one time for them to actually pick a winner.
Also I'm not knocking any hound that ever won the championship at a field trial. I am calling attention to the rules he had to run under. He had to compete against too many hounds to give him and the others justice, to truly show what it takes to produce fox hounds.
I think our present day hounds have held up extremely well for the rules and the conditions they have been bred under. There is a great difference between a popular bred hound and a good bred hound. Some of the fox hound breeds have realized that fact and bred to the hound that would run the fox.
If the dairy cattlemen would have bred their cows under the same condition that we try to breed our fox hounds you wouldn't have milk enough to put in your coffee for breakfast, and if the poultry men would have bred their chickens under the same conditions your wife wouldn't have enough eggs to bake a cake.
I would like to hear from all you fox hunters, let it be criticism or praise. I'm still your fox hunting friend and love a good fox hound; let him give out, but never give up.
J. R. Henderson, Matthews, NC
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