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Hunt club: baying and blessing

howard m. snyder Herald-leader social columnist

Dahlings, there isn't an older local ceremony that I know of than the Iroquois Hunt Club's Blessing of the Hounds. Since 1928, members of the club have celebrated the start of the hunting season with this solemn event.

This year's was Nov. 1, All Saints Day. It couldn't have been a more beautiful morning — warm and bright — as hunters, their mounts and spectators gathered for in front of the old clubhouse on beautiful Boone Creek.

The Iroquois Hunt Club has been around almost forever. This year, it is celebrating its 128th anniversary as an organization. In 1928, the group bought Grimes Mill, an old stone grist mill that was built about 1803, for its permanent home. The Blessing of the Hounds has been there ever since.

At 11:30 a.m., the Right Rev. Robert Estill stepped onto a millstone in front of the clubhouse to bless the beasts and to bestow medals of St. Hubert, the patron saint of hunting, on the hunters.

If Estill's name rings any bells, there's good reason.

"I live in North Carolina now, but I was born and raised in Lexington and baptized at Christ Church," where he also once was rector.

He is now the retired bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina.

"This is about my fifth time that I've blessed the hounds," he said.

In the old days, foxes were plentiful and most farmers considered them a nuisance. Now, after Disney humanized animals by giving them voices, hunting foxes is frowned upon. They're so cute and adorable, but they still steal chickens. In recent years, though, there's been a bigger threat than foxes to livestock and household pets: coyotes. Most of the hunts today chase or hunt coyotes exclusively.

One person I had to talk to at the hunt was someone I hadn't seen in at least 30 years: Joan Pursley Mayer.

She has been the master of the Iroquois Hunt, as was her late father, Fauntleroy Pursley. Earlier this year, Mayer's mother, Charlotte Pursley, died just shy of her 100th birthday.

"I put on her coat today," Mayer said gleefully. "This is the first blessing she would have missed had I not worn the coat.

"It's rare now to have something that has been going on since 1928 without a breakup. And this blessing is part of that," she said. "It's an old English tradition that ... actually started in France when they were hunting stag. And, so, now to think that here on Boone Creek in front of this old mill ... to have this going now. ... Tradition is a big thing here."

Right after the ceremony, most of the hunters mounted and were off into the wilds of Clark County before I could grab any to talk to. But I had easy access to Mayer and a few others.

"Since I've had both knees replaced, I'm not hunting," she said, "but it's a joy in my heart."

Trudy Tibbs wasn't hunting either, she said, "because I have pneumonia."

That's a good excuse.

Tibbs and her husband, Phillip Tibbs, bought the Athens School not too long ago and have converted it into an antiques mall.

"My background is English, and in England they are doing the Blessing of the Hounds the same time we are doing it," she said, "five hours ahead of us."

Butch Ellingsen, who has been a member of the club for seven years and is a dedicated hunter (that's an official designation), said, "I just hold on and ride like mad." That's the spirit.

A secret to be revealed

Now for a little teaser.

Meg Jewett had an open house at L.V. Harkness on Thursday night and, yes, Santa Claus was there.

Ho ho ho.

I'll tell you more about it next week, but she did have a tidbit: She, Kentucky first lady Jane Beshear and former Kentucky first lady Phyllis George will have a news conference later this week about a project they will be tackling for the 2010 World Equestrian Games.

Jewett was being coy about it all, but it involves Frankfort and history, dahling!