People usually find Taylor through word of mouth. How often are they taking lessons? I find that people taking fairly regular or recent riding lessons plenty of skill to be supervised in the hunt field.” “I have found the quickest way to determine someone’s skill level is to ask them about their lessons. “People give themselves away if they’re not ready by what they say,” she said. Her first step is a phone call to ascertain the rider’s ability. Parker offers hirelings for a day or a season but doesn’t offer blind hires to strangers. She and her husband, Scott Van Pelt, moved their farm to the center of hunt country and are now a fixture with the Piedmont Fox Hounds. I had a 30% increase in my business,” she said. “I saw an influx of people who had hunted when they were a kid. Heider, who has been offering hirelings for 12 years, said interest has surged since the start of the pandemic. Randolph Field Hunter Championships and is now used by owner Heather Heider to introduce new riders to foxhunting. Victoria Yeager enjoys a day out hunting aboard Everdene, who was fourth in the 2018 Theodora A. In Virginia hunt country, Parker, Jennifer Taylor of Zulla Farm in Marshall, and Heather Heider, of Van Vixen Farm in Bluemont, regularly take first timers hunting on experienced horses. They’re all just friendly and welcoming and want you to participate in their sport.”īorrowing or leasing a hunt horse, known as a hireling, is common in Europe but not as widespread in the United States. She would try to explain things as we were going along-like what you say if a hound is coming, what you say when the masters come by, how you always greet the landowners,” Lumsden said. You can really study it for a long time before you understand everything that’s going on. “There’s a lot more to it than you think. Lumsden credits Parker with introducing her to the sport and its etiquette in a welcoming fashion that enabled her to learn as she went along. “It was just a fabulous experience that I’m still having to this day.” “I felt like a teenager again,” she said. I still do just talking about it.”īy the next season, she was jumping. “It was just thrilling and so exciting to see all the hounds running across the field and the whole field just running after them,” she said. She was hooked and began leasing a horse to hunt regularly. Her first year, Lumsden started in the third field. She’s there with you, guiding you and helping you along.” “She doesn’t just stick you on a horse and leave you. “I was kind of timid because I hadn’t been on in a while,” said Lumsden, 63, of Marshall, Virginia. Then Parker put her on Point Blanc, a 20-year-old homebred Thoroughbred, for her first outing with the Old Dominion Hounds in Northern Virginia. When she saw that Betsy Burke Parker, of Hunter’s Rest in Flint Hill, Virginia, offered the opportunity to lease a hunt horse for a day, Lumsden, who hadn’t been on a horse in eight years, began by going on a few trail rides. Donna Lumsden has been riding for much of her life, but there was one equestrian activity that was still on her bucket list when she turned 60: foxhunting.

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