Los Altos’ Peddler, an un-entered English dog hound, could be best described as tall, dark and handsome. And that’s a combination that earned him the grand championship trophy at the Western StatesHounds Show, May 22 at Kick On Ranch, home of the Santa Ynez Valley Hunt, in Los Alamos, Calif.
Peddler’s dam, Western Penny ’01, was imported to the United States by Hugh Robards, the MFH and huntsman at Rolling Rock (Pa.). Robards then gave Penny to Brian Kiely, huntsman of the Los Altos Hounds (Calif.), to establish new bloodlines. Peddler’s sire is Los Altos Patrick ’00, who’s by Tipperary Parker ’95 out of Los Altos Lilac ’98.
In the grand championship ring, Los Altos’ Peddler was up against a lovely white English bitch, Toronto and North York Letter ’00, and Red Rock Gayle ’02, the obvious champion of the thinly supported Crossbred division.
Toronto and North York Letter, shown by the Santa Ynez Valley Hunt, became the queen of spectators’ hearts as she bounded gracefully across the ring. Letter is not only good looking, but as the 2004 Western States Performance Trials champion, she’s also proven herself as an excep-tional specimen of the English breed. Huntsman Martyn Blackmore has high hopes that Letter’s offspring will be as lovely and able.
This years’ judge was Clive Rose, retired huntsman of the Moore County Hounds in North Carolina. His wife, Elizabeth, who whipped-in to her husband for 26 seasons, assisted him. And they made a perfect team in the show ring. Giny Hunter, ex-MFH of the Los Altos Hounds, acted as show steward.
The festivities began Saturday afternoon with a brief hound-showing seminar given by the judges. Shortly after dinner, the entertainment commenced with the horn-blowing contest. Once the five contestants had blown, Kiely and Terrel E. Paine, huntsman and MFH of the Santa Fe Hunt, went head to head in a blow-off. The judges asked to hear “Going Home,” and after the two had finished, Kiely was declared the winner for the third year in a row.
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The hound judging began promptly at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday with the single English unentered dog hounds. There, Los Altos’ Peddler defeated his brother Santa Ynez Valley’s Pembroke. The judges considered Peddler a little more compact.
Santa Ynez Valley won best couple of dog hounds with a handsome pair, Garfield ’04 and Gardner ’04. Coming in second place was the Red Rock couple Gayle ’02 and Ginny ’02. This class was combined to be an all-breed couple of dogs, entered or unentered, because of the lack of Crossbred hounds.
Los Altos’ Petal and Peaceful, a lovely duo of lemon-and-white bitches, excelled in the couple class for their sex. The two unentered hounds were very hard to tell apart and were just as eager as they were beautiful. Not far behind were Santa Ynez Valley Bounty ’03 and Bangle ’04.
As the weather grew warmer into the afternoon, Letter didn’t show any fatigue as she swept the English brood bitch class away. Letter was just getting warmed up for her next victory as the champion English bitch.
The last event was the pack class, where Santa Ynez Valley deservingly earned the title with their extremely uniform five couple of dog hounds. Huntsman Blackmore was accompanied by his new professional whipper-in, Emma Downing. The Red Rock Hounds, last years’ champion, took the reserve.
The participating hunts were: Santa Fe Hunt (Temecula, Calif.), Santa Ynez Valley Hunt (Los Alamos, Calif.), Los Altos Hounds (Hollister, Calif.) and Red Rock Hounds (Reno, Nev.).
