The thrill of the chase
After 50 years, Henry Hooker remembers the romance and the thrill of the chase, as if it were yesterday.
"Whilst I was courting her in 1955, Alice took me (fox) hunting for the first time...The sky was luminous blue, the grass was emerald green, the horses full of run, hounds gay and keen," Hooker writes. "I viewed a fox which I still see in my fancy...The longer I hunt the more I understood Mason Houghland's advice: 'The time to be happy is now, the place to be happy is here, the way to be happy is to hunt the fox.' Good hunting and keep a tight seat."
Whether Hooker caught the fox, we don't know, but he caught the girl, Alice, and was caught up in a love - for the girl and for the sport - that would last a lifetime. "The romance endures," he says. He and his bride still ride to the hounds, twice weekly from September through March, but these days it is in pursuit of the wily coyote, not the fox.
"Coyotes have taken over the country, pushing out the foxes," he says. "They're quicker and stronger. They're easier to hunt, but they still give you a good run." A good run is at the heart of the hunt, for both man and beast. A typical ride will last for three hours, and the countryside where Hooker and his cohorts roam, in Marshall and Giles counties, is hilly and fraught with gates and jumps, so that riders must go as fast as they dare.
"It's dangerous, a real test of skill," Hooker says. "That's what makes it exhilarating."
The land there is blessed with good soil, which means there'll be a good scent, which means the hounds will be in fine fettle. The Hillsboro Hounds number 70 or 75 dogs altogether, not all of them old enough (one year) to hunt. Hillsboro Hounds, the organization, breeds and raises the dogs, sometimes swapping them with other clubs. The breeds are English, Welsh, Fell (a region of England), and American foxhounds, and the club has cross-bred the Fell and English varieties.
About 30 of the splendid specimens will be on display at the Iroquois Steeplechase, of which Hooker has been chairman of the Race Committee since 1992. The Parade of Hounds will take place between the fifth and sixth races of the day. In this, the huntsman will come out with the hounds and lead them up the track and back. The Steeplechase audience will be asked to hold its applause until the end of the spectacle, lest the hounds think they've done something wrong, Hooker says.
Hooker became the First Whip - the one that pushes the dogs up to the huntsman at the start of the hunt - in 1966. In 1977, he became Master of Foxhounds, at just about the time coyotes began migrating into the territory. He and Alice raised their children to hunt. Wednesdays and Saturdays these days, from 25 to 80 men and women meet under the luminous sky, on the emerald grass, close by the fields of memories and dreams.
Long before the first running of the Kentucky Derby, Tennessee, not Kentucky, was the center of horse breeding and racing in the U. S. In keeping with Tennessee's long and storied equine history, the Iroquois Steeplechase in Nashville remains one of the best horse races in the country, attracting top horses and the crème de la crème of Southern society.
Presented by Bank of America and benefiting Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt, the Iroquois will have its 67th running on Saturday, May 10 at Percy Warner Park.
"If not for the nefarious wrangling of politicians at the turn of the 20th century, the Iroquois would be (just) one example of a booming horse racing industry in our state," says Henry Hooker. "Because it is the last surviving, and thriving, example of what horse racing could have been here, it is all the more special."
Andrew Jackson ran a horse in Tennessee's first official race in 1804 and was the leading breeder and racer in the state before becoming president in 1829. As president, Jackson took three horses to Washington to race. By 1839, there were at least 10 racetracks in Tennessee and more than 20 organized jockey clubs. Belle Meade was a famous stud farm from the 1830s until the turn of the century.
In 1906, the Tennessee General Assembly passed an anti-betting law, bringing an end to horse racing in Tennessee for years. The void was filled in 1941 with the first running of the Iroquois Steeplechase, named for Pierre Lorillard's Iroquois, the first American-bred horse to win the English Derby. That victory was such an event that Wall Street closed to celebrate. After his racing career, Iroquois was brought to Belle Meade to stand at stud. The Iroquois has run every year since then, except for 1945.
At the Iroquois, six races are held throughout the day, including the Bright Hour Amateur Hurdle. The course, one of the best racing surfaces in the country, is maintained year-round with a computer-controlled irrigation system. Recent improvements to the site include a new tailgating area and an additional Jumbotron for live viewing.
For information on advance ticket purchases, corporate tents, and tailgating and RV spaces, visit www.iroquoissteeplechase.org or call 615-343-4231.
The Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital is a leading provider of pediatric care, ranked 23rd in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Living by the principle of "family-centered care," Children's Hospital includes the family as an essential element of a child's treatment. It is also a teaching and research facility. It features centers for the treatment of diabetes and congenital heart disorders and offers services for cancer care, organ and bone marrow transplants, neonatal intensive care, and pediatric trauma care, among others.