Horse and Hound
One of my favorite traditions in Kentucky is the annual “Blessing of the Hounds”, the Saturday after Thanksgiving. This takes place at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill and opens the formal hunting season of the Woodford Hounds, a local fox hunting club. The event provides many great photo opportunities and the riders are always very gracious. Today was especially nice as it wasn’t too cold and we had sunny skies (if I remember correctly the last two years were much colder and cloudy).
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They are lovely pictures and rural Kentucky is so beautiful, too. I attended many years ago a blessing of the hounds at Keswick (near Charlottesville), Virginia. I can’t now recall the name of the hunt (it may have been the Keswick Hunt), but the sight and sounds were certainly splendid. The reservations I had then, however, are the same that I have now, namely, why is it necessary to have a fox torn to pieces in order to enjoy one’s self? Why cannot hunting people dress in all of their old-English finery and follow a scent laid by a human being – or, indeed, follow an actual human being. I am opposed to fox hunting (and hare coursing) because I dislike intensely the idea of people deriving pleasure from the cruel destruction of animals. There is no point to it and we, God’s ‘higher’ creation, should know and do better. And, now that hunting and hare coursing are banned by law here in England, that is all the more reason to do battle with those who would ‘un-ban’ these so-called ‘sports.’
Geoffrey Woollard said this on November 29, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Gorgeous images, Robert. Thank you for sharing. It is a beautiful sport.
V. Howard said this on December 1, 2009 at 8:03 pm
nice photograp
thanks 4 your sharing
trinurhani said this on March 17, 2010 at 11:40 am