Hunt Night at the Pennsylvania National Horse Show is when the working horses come to strut their stuff. For many horses it is the first time they have been ridden indoors. They are familiar with the field, the stray birds flying up, branches waving in the wind, water in streams, slippery footing and big fences. Artificial flowers and lighting, those are scary.
To soften the edge of unfamiliarity, the hunters bring along their horses co-workers. This year it was the New Market-Middletown Valley Hunt’s pack of hounds that came to help build the scene. Professional Huntsman George Harne along with Amy Saydof, a professional Whip and M.F.H. Leo Rocca demonstrated how hounds move with the horses and sometimes, just act like hounds.
Ten hunt clubs from Pennsylvania and neighboring Maryland and Virginia came to compete over fences and on the flat. The ring may not have looked much like a hunt field to the horses, but the audience sure could get a feel.
Between classes, Jack Russell terriers raced, providing the canine musical accompaniment one would hear out on a hunt – though at a fraction of the volume and timbre.
The North American Fox Hunting Horn Blowing Championship gave those unfamiliar offered another auditory understanding of the hunt experience. Seven were qualified but two competed. Both have won twice: John Tabachka of Green Spring Valley Hounds, MD and Brian Kiely from Santa Ynex Valley Hounds, CA. Kiely won this time filling the stadium with wistful tones urging horsemen and hounds to chase, pause and retire.
The evening ended with the always exciting hunt team competition in which three riders jump the course, closing ranks to cross the final fence three abreast.
Elkridge-Harford Hunt won for the first time in 15 years, beating Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds of Unionville. Third honors went to the Radnor Hunt Club finished third.
Elkridge-Harford also won the Championship with Radnor taking reserve. Fun was shared by all, even the unlucky 13th team. Having driven better than 90 minutes trucking horses and hounds, the New Market-Middletown Team was the last to show.
The start was rocky when Christine Rocca’s Fresh Paint decided to skip the first fence. Rocca rode anchor for the balance of the course.
“It was all me. I didn’t ride to the middle of the fence. My horse is great,” she said. “This was the first time he’s been inside and the first specified course he’s ever jumped.”
The final fence, meant to showcase synchronicity of horses and riders, didn’t work out too well either. Marilyn Webster, under whose guidance the Russell races were run, held and held, waiting for her teammates to join her over that last jump. “I would have asked for the jump, if I’d had a stride, but,” she said, “by the time the team was assembled, I was too close.” She and her 5-year-old home-bred mare Idle Hour Nairobi just slipped past the standards, leaving the ring with the last fence unjumped.
Cheerful in their efforts, Rocca pointed out that their team was ancient, defined as well over 60. This was a first indoor effort for all of their field hunters and she was certain they would be back. Hunt Night is just traditional equine fun.
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