From a field of 66 outstanding candidates, eight exemplary foxhounds were selected as the best representatives of their breed at the Centennial Championship Hound Show, held on May 27 in Leesburg, Va.

The champion dogs and bitches in each breed category—American, Penn-Marydel, English and Crossbred—from each of the Foxhound Club of North America sanctioned hound shows across the nation came together in a memorable contest. They represented the crème de la crème of the breeding programs of recognized foxhunts on the continent.

The MFHA Centennial closing ceremony, held on the grounds of the Museum of Hunting and Hounds in Leesburg, Va., was filled with memories and laced with symbolic gestures. It capped a weekend of Centennial celebration festivities, May 25-27.

The ceremony was the official end of a year of events designed to draw foxhunters from across North America together and to raise money to protect the course of the sport in the future.

After 16 regional qualifying competitions, finalists from all over the country congregated in Leesburg, Va., on May 27 for the MFHA Centennial Field Hunter Championships Finals.

And topping them all was a junior rider from a hunt recognized in 2005. Stuart Sanders, 18, rode her Sputnik to victory, representing the Caroline Hunt (Va.).

Sputnik became the crowd favorite as he deliberately pushed the hand gate open using his nose and shut it the same way, which Sanders’ mother, Susan, said was nothing new, “as he always does that out hunting.”

Since moving to Utah from Virginia in the mid-1990s, I don’t get many opportunities to go hunting, but I can’t yet bring myself to give up entirely and post my hunting kit on e-Bay.

I was lucky enough to enjoy the first Western Hunt Challenge Tour in 1999, and have continued to support it as much as possible. Its underlying premise of raising funds for a non-hunting-related charity, to show that foxhunters care about their communities, is a terrific idea, augmented by promoting camaraderie among the far-flung packs in the western United States.

With the Arapahoe Hunt snowed in for the longest period of time (more than nine weeks) in its nearly 100 years of history, we ventured south for hunting in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico.