Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 3, 1995 TAG: 9504030007
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROBERT LITTLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MANAKIN-SABOT LENGTH: Long
You'd have thought Tommy Kneipp was a king.
Bright red riding coat. White cravat. Black knee-boots and gold buttons, polished to a blinding sheen.
From atop his horse, Kneipp commanded attention - and 41 snorting, wriggling, frenzied hounds, their snouts to the ground and tails aflutter.
``He gets all the glory,'' one onlooker said - out of respect, not indignation.
But Kneipp was no king; he was a hired hand. Working. Kneipp, who lives on the grounds of the Deep Run Hunt Club west of Richmond, is a paid huntsman. In layman's terms, a professional fox hunter.
``I tell people I'm that guy with the red coat, black hat and little bugle,'' said Kneipp, 40, after a hunt last month. His moustache, falling neatly down his chin, didn't look nearly so lordly accompanied by work boots, worn denims and plaid flannels.
``Sometimes, they still don't get it,'' he said. ``Or they don't believe it.''
Believe it.
This is Virginia - fox-hunting capital of North America. The state is home to the sport's national chieftains and to more fox-and-hounders than any other in the union.
The Old Dominion hasn't always been the huntsman's Shangri-La. Boston and its rural suburbs were the sport's American capital only years ago.
But while elsewhere the sport has withered, here it flourishes - mostly because of a select mix of local fixings: hunters, foxes and enough open land to put them together.
``Virginia is probably one of the last truly traditional fox-hunting states - where they really hunt fox,'' said Dennis Foster, executive director of the Masters of Foxhounds Association. These days, most American fox hunters hunt coyote, he said.
Foster's organization, which sanctions the sport throughout North America, left its Boston home for the cozy rurality of Leesburg four years ago.
``Development is one of the biggest threats and the reason hunting in New England has dropped off,'' Foster said.
``Virginia, now, really is the mecca of fox hunting here in America. That's why we're here.''
North America can claim 168 fox-hunting organizations, and 22 are in Virginia - more than any other state. Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania combined are home to one-fourth of all organized hunts in the United States and Canada.
And, Foster adds, they plan to stay. Regardless of what the British might have to say about it.
Fox hunting's storybook heritage is under assault in Great Britain, where Parliament passed a preliminary vote in early March to ban the sport. Few expect the measure to survive a third and final vote, but opponents and activists - who call fox hunting a cruel blood sport - have made their mark, even in America.
In fact, expecting the criticism, Foster and some other fox hunters were reluctant to discuss their avocation.
``The debate in England affects us, because it threatens the tradition - something we try to adhere to,'' said Lee Howell, a member of the Deep Run club. ``But, no, we don't have the same problems here. It won't chase the sport away.''
She's right. For all the fits about English fox hunters, Americans have faced little derision - highlighting the profound difference between the Americans and their pilloried British counterparts: In America, the fox gets away.
In fact, if American fox hunting hadn't always been called fox hunting, you'd want to call it fox chasing. Some urban parts of the country even wage ``drag hunts,'' where an artificial scent is laid so the field of riders doesn't need a fox at all. The hounds will chase the fake trail all day.
``The hounds, more than anything, want to find the scent and run it down,'' said Kneipp, a huntsman for eight years. ``The field, on the other hand, wants to chase the hounds.''
There are exceptions. The dogs sometimes catch their prey, though most agree the fox would have to be sick, lame or uncharacteristically dim to succumb to a pack of witless hounds.
``The fox lives here,'' said Frank McGee, a Deep Run hunt master surveying the hunt country.
``He knows every square inch of that cover, and he's a lot smarter than anything chasing him.
``So, he just runs back and forth and toys with us - lets us hunt as long as he wants us to hunt. When he's tired of it, he runs off.''
British hunters, on the other hand, often can't get permission to use someone's land unless they agree to dig the fox out of its hole and kill it. Many a mauled sheep has a hungry red fox in its past. And to farmers, those fox are vermin.
``Here, we emphasize the chase, not the kill,'' Foster said. ``It's just not the same.''
Most American fox hunters join hunt clubs just as golfers join country clubs. They pay dues, invite guests, hold annual parties.
The members conform to the British tradition of title and dress - a kind of hauteur for a sport that otherwise is just one cunning, bushy-tailed little beast away from being a cowboy roundup.
Members earn their red riding coats - known as scarlets - by proving proficiency. The men do, at least. Women wear black.
It's really only when members don their outfits and mount their horses that the whole affair takes on that aristocratic air. Half the members arrive in wide-body trucks lugging hay-dripping trailers; they leave wearing blue jeans and ball caps.
``People think of it as an elitist sport, but it's not,'' Foster said.
It's not the most proletarian of pastimes, either. Anyone's welcome to try it, but there is that 800-pound catch: You need a horse. A good one.
Each hunt is run by a master - in Deep Run's case, Coleman Perrin: building contractor by day, master horseman when he gets the itch.
And the pack has at least one ``whipper-in'' minding the periphery, keeping the hounds off the road and the horses away from danger.
And, of course, there's the huntsman.
Kneipp never went through that hunt club hierarchy. He just liked the dogs. After a few years singing Irish songs in clubs and bars, the Maryland native opted for a job as a whipper-in with a club near Washington, D.C.
He moved to Deep Run 14 years ago and became huntsman after about six. During the summer, he trains dogs, mends jumps, cares for the grounds and performs other chores.
But fall through spring, three times a week, his job is to run the hounds.
Each hound, Kneipp knows by name. By personality, even. After years of feeding, training and coddling every restless one of them, he knows where each dog is, sometimes from a single yip. He probably knows what's on its mind, too.
The hounds are trained to ignore deer and other mammals. When Kneipp gives the proper cry, all scour the countryside. When he sounds the proper blast on the horn, they converge noisily on the trail of whatever had the misfortune of casting its scent nearby.
Gray foxes run in circles; red ones run long. And coyote, they just run and run and run.
If the hounds don't find a fox, a hunt becomes a leisurely trail ride. If they do, it can be a frantic, three-hour pursuit over a natural obstacle course after an animal that almost always gets away.
``The fox is every bit as sly and clever as you've always heard, and he knows more tricks than the hounds could ever understand,'' Kneipp said.
``The hounds are great trackers. Put the two together, and you see why fox hunting has survived as long as it has.
``It's not about the fox. It's really not even the chase, necessarily,'' he said. ``It's the animals. The animals are the tradition.''
by CNB