To whom it may concern,
The Bad Girls Tour (which at last count included 10 participants) will depart from Tennessee on Friday afternoon, February 27th. Champagne will be served from 5PM to Midnight enroute to Lexington, VA (designated drivers excepted, of course). Horses will be stabled that night at the Lexington Horse Center. The BGT will sleep in, dine on pancakes (and aspirin) and mega doses of coffee, then head north. Estimated time of arrival in Morgantown, PA is 3 PM on Saturday.
First hunt is with Doc Addis Sunday morning. The rest of the trip is still in the planning stages, though we hope to stop in with Rose Tree (if Jody will have us), Holly--can you get us into Andrew's Bridge?--- and then head to Middleburg. Mike, if you are reading this, we would love to hunt with Snickersville! And Grosvenor, could we come to Bull Run?
The entire Tour, travel time included, will last 9 days (assuming that the participants last that long!!) It is possible to end the trip Sunday, March 8th at Crossville, TN, where TVH is holding its fourth Meet on its new 13, 000 acre territiory. Though it is probable that we will not be able to tear ourselves away from Middleburg in time and will have our last hunt in VA Sunday, then limp home.....
Anyone wishing to join us enroute or for FOL LIVE AT MOSBY'S TAVERN, let me know, and I will keep you posted.
Carla, TVH
Unofficial Tour Director, BGT
P.S. We are currently accepting applications for "token male" participants. Must have current drivers license and experience uncorking champagne...
The Bad Girls (though we didn't realize how bad we were until Sami gave us this name) have toured before, but under different monikers. For example: the tour before last was known as the "Shut Up and Kiss Me Tour". Our attorney advises that we label this one "Bad Girls '98", leaving us the option of naming the fall adventure "Bad Girls, The Sequel", etc. We go on these marathon hunting adventures twice a year, usually March or April and then in October. I think this one coming up is our 5th or 6th one. (Due to the nature of the experience, memory becomes foggy...) . Anyway, we would love for you to be bad with us---and if you miss this one there will, for sure, as long as there is champagne to drink and someone to drive, be another!!!
Bad Girls:
Drink champagne for breakfast.
Drive real trucks (w/4wheel drive)......
Ride fast horses.
Jump big fences. (while consuming "jump reducer")
Wear fake fingernails, real cleavage, and something shiny to the hunt ball..
Can crack a whip.
Can muck a stall.
Can back a trailer.
Scoff at the "sport" of dressage (but practice it when no one is looking...)
Love the sweet sound of hound music...............
Our motto: "If you can't make it good, make it big, if you can't make it big, make it shiny!" :-)
Carla, TVH
Unofficial Tour Director, BGT
Greetings, all - here is the first hunt report from the BGT trip -
Hounds met at 10:00 AM at Billy Cochran's, and we moved off towards the vineyards and Bill Gross' farm. The sky was overcast, threatening rain. There were about 25 riders in the field, let by Happy Addis. Erwyn, Beth, Nina, and the intrepid Lowel were today's whips. The hounds quickly found, and we were all off in a raucous gallop across country. The hounds checked, and fortunately so, as someone's' saddle broke, and we were able to get the horse, rider, and 2 escorts separated from the field before the hounds took off again.
We rode back to Billy's farm, and just before reaching the trailers, we met up with Don Cochran, who just returned from Ireland, where he spent 3 weeks hunting - needless to say, he entertained us all the way back to the trailers with his hunting stories.
While retacking, we heard the hounds barreling down the valley, going to the 'big hill'. Resaddled just in time, and met up with the field at a full gallop.
The Pennmarydel freight train continued all morning and afternoon - there was NO shortages of fox! We ripped around the big hill, dodging branches (some successfully, others not so ...), with only 1 rider going to grief.
The temperature was slowly rising, and the sun was shinning brightly (so much for the dreary forecast!) - by 2:30 Doc decided to whip the hounds off, as our field had dwindled to ~ 5 riders.
We hacked back to the trailers, dropped our horses off, and drove to Jim and Sally Cochran's horse farm, where we were treated to a wonderful hunt breakfast, where we all relived the day's sport.
Looking forward to Sunday with Mike!
Best Regards -
Nancy Schaffner
Doc Addis Hunt
Evidently, some foxes just can't resist an audience. While the Bull Run regulars and the BGT visitors were getting the post-hunt tailgate and feeding frenzy into full swing, we were commenting to each other that it was a shame that we didn't have a view during any of the great runs today, when someone called out "Tally Ho!" Well, sandwiches, beers, and forks dripping pasta salad were pointed to the next pasture where ol' Charlie was galloping across our field of view about 150 yards away -- galloping, tripping, getting up and running on, that is. Yeeeeeeehaaa!
Doug in Culpeper
Just have a minute to say today was yet another fantastic day
hunting........Snickerville and Doc Addis combined their packs and roared
across some of the most fantastic Virginia countryside anyone can hunt
on.......we chased more than 4 foxes today......I literally lost count.
We have counted the hours in the saddle on this trip and how many foxes we
have chased........20or so hours riding and 18 foxes chased. Thats almost one
fox an hour........
I am going to give a much more detailed report when I have more time, but for
now let me say, it just cant get much better than this week has been. The
people, the hounds, the horses and comraderie have been unbelieveable.
Everywhere we went, we were welcomed with open arms and smiles.
Off now to another party........more later.
Sami Carla Diane and the BGT
It was a mob scene. What an incredible turnout. We counted 85
foxhunters---many of them FOLers---many others. Everyone had something to
talk about!!! We had members of the tried and true---Doc Addis, Mike Turner,
Claude Sutton, Grosvenor Merle-Smith---and then there was Katy Rich, going on
her first hunt tomorrow. What a blast!!!! The party cranked on and on---even
tho many had hunted today and many were hunting tomorrow.
Drop ins included two from California along with FOL regulars from Chicago,
New Jersey, Seattle, North Carolina, and many many Bad Girls from Tennessee.
We drank a toast to FOL and foxhunters everywhere. Dennis
Foster and Grosvenor switched nametags and met alot of people all over again!
Tonight we heard some really seasoned, respected huntsmen expressing true
enjoyment and joy in the sport and the opportunity to hunt with each other.
The names will remain our secret, but you all should have seen who was talking
to who......it warms the heart of Foxhunting Bad Girls everywhere.
Lurkers, come out and speak your minds.......you were represented well this
evening. We are all brain dead...mustgo now.....we hunt early with Mike
Turner and Doc Addis..............and Gretchen is keeping the Old Habit open
late for us toorrow night.................thank God for Foxes......Life is
Grand............................
YYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAWWW......
Bad Girls Everywhere
The gals were great!! I must
complement all who hunted with us on Sunday----Horses and riders were well
turned out, everyone was polite and well mannered (probably because they
were burned out Friday night by Mosby's), a joy to behold. On behalf of my
staff (Liz Williams, Laura Hayward, Jane Wiles, Chris Ambrose, Penny
Newquist, Ray Moffett and Vaughn Clatterback) I wish to thank you all for
joining us Saturday at Sunnybank Farm. Dorothy Smithwick, the owner of
Sunnybank Farm asked me to convey to you her thanks for the respect and
courtesy you showed her and her farm. And all of the Snickersville Hounds
send their best and have asked that I extend you an invitation on their
behalf for your speedy return. And I, as a slave to this pack, can do
naught but echo their invitation and live in penury (it was a great cap
day!) and abstinence until the return of THE BAD GIRLS!!!!
Mike Turner
Welll were on the road again.........
bad Girls are packing up now and still high from it all........a bit sore and
a bit weary but very happy campers.
Im afraid I am spoiled rotten now and the only way it could have been better
is if Mel Gibson was here with me and only one kilt between us.............
An official thanks to everyone........huntsmen, hounds, horses and fellow
foxhunters for making this one hell of a trip. And yes Joe........there will
be a BGT 99.......there may be a BGT II in 98.............we hear Reno is
pretty special...........
Sami
Ed. Note - Some folks who were reading about the tour, and not fortunate enough to be part of it, reached the misguided conclusion that anybody having as much fun as the Bad Girls couldn't be serious hunters. In case you were even considering a similar thought, here are two of the eloquent responses to that idea when it first surfaced.
As the unofficial director of the BGT (and, duh, surprise...a foxhunter) , I
feel it my duty to respond. It was, in fact, our goal to report
on each hunt as we journeyed from place to place. Unfortunately, my laptop
developed some sort of brain damage and the modem wouldn't work with the hotel
phone lines--go figure------AND Juliet Faust's laptop got run over in the
parking lot in front of the hotel!!!! Despite that---Nancy Schaffner did an
excellent report on the hunts with Doc Addis which you must have missed. We
commandeered the hotel computer in our jammies to encourage participation in
the Mosby's event. Holly Kirk reported to FOL on our great hunt with Andrew's
Bridge. We managed to get a blurb out about our tremendous day with Bull Run,
but were too exhausted to do much---a damn credit to Grosvenor's great
hounds----hell! It's much more fun to be wiped out from hunting than pecking
on a computer!! And ---there was a detailed description posted regarding an
exhilarating day with Snickersville and Doc Addis. The hounds sounded like a
freight train running through the heart of Middleburg and I personally viewed
three foxes---others saw 5!!! Fluff?????? (well, the foxes were sorta
fluffy......)
We succeeded, through questionably inane and thoroughly
silly means, to bring over 80 foxhunters together at Mosby's. We had 5 MFHs
there that I can think of right off the top of my head---not just your
"social" types--but exceptional huntsmen and houndsmen. We had the chief
officer of the MFHA and Claude (an episode which prompted all kinds of
"serious" posts for your entertainment....), countless whips and followers of
hounds from California , Illiniois, Washington State, Tennessee, Pennsylvania,
Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. That may be fluff to you,
but I found it to be one of the most exhilarating experiences of my short 10
year hunting career. Just because it had a silly name, didn't mean we were
not serious about our hunting (and, I must confess--partying) ...
and---honored to mingle with some who will go down in history as the great
huntsmen of our day. At the end of the day at Snickersville, there were 10
members left in a field that started out in the 50's. Seven of those left in
the field were BGT members. If that's fluff, call me Fluffy........
Sincere and Sadly Sober,
For those of you who thought the "Bad Girls Tour" was some sort of "spring
break"
party, let me enlighten you. The group that met a Mosby's on Friday night,
6 March, 1998, was a delightful group of interested and interesting
foxhunters. That they showed up at 11AM Saturday to hunt with us, turned
out as if for a parade, horses well groomed, showed impeccable manners to
the members of my hunt and the landowners over whose land we hunted, was a
tribute not only to the many foxhunts they represented but to foxhunting in
general. For your information, "Mosby's" is owned by T. Reuter, Jt MFH of
the Piedmont Hunt and is a very popular meeting place for the equine
community in and around Middleburg. I was there and can tell you all had a
great time. Foxhunting, if it is to survive as we know it, needs more of
these types of get togethers. For myself, I can't wait until they come our
way again. My hat is off to Carla and Sami and all the Bad Girls and Guys
who know how to have a good time!
Mike TurnerHunting with the bitch pack
FOL Live at Mosby's
Briefly, here is the FOL Live at Mosby's report:
Report from Snickersville
Snickersville Hounds
Heading for home
Carla
Diane..............and Bad Girls everywhere
Them Bad Girls Can HUNT! or The BGT: Not Fluff
Carla, TVH
DinoSource
Snickersville Hounds