Howard Arthur “Hound Dog” Brown, an avid foxhunter and foxhound breeder, died on April 22 at Chestertown Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Chestertown, Md. He was 96.

Mr. Brown was born in Baltimore and was raised in the Maryland towns of Reisterstown and Westminster. He attended Carroll County Public Schools until dropping out in the eighth grade. He began working with horses and wanted to be a veterinarian, but he didn’t have the money to go to school. However, he had a striking ability to diagnose what was wrong with a horse and became a farrier.

Mr. Brown began his career during the 1930s, caring and training horses owned by John William Young Martin, a former businessman, at Worthington Farms. One of his early successes while being employed by Mr. Martin was Inshore, who won the Grand National (Md.) Point-to-Point timber race three times in the late 1930s.

After his relationship with Mr. Martin ended, he worked as a whipper-in and kennelman for Henry L. Straus, who invented the totalisator pari-mutuel betting machine. Mr. Brown then went on to work for renowned foxhunter Wilbur Ross Hubbard in 1951.

Mr. Brown was regarded as one of the most colorful figures in Maryland sporting history, noted Ross Peddicord, the Baltimore Sun’s former racing writer and co-publisher of Maryland Life, who described him as a “character from a different century.”

Mr. Brown hunted into his late 80s, and when he was unable to ride any longer, he would follow the hunt in his car or truck.

Mr. Brown was predeceased by his wife of 64 years, the former Mary Agnes “Peggy” Bull, who died in 1998. He is survived by his son, Richard L. Brown, Millington, Md., his daughter, Ruthann House Tidwell, of Oklahoma City, Okla., three grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren, and two great-great-granddaughters.