Virginia Is For Horse Lovers

It is, first and foremost, genteel, this Hunt Country of Virginia, this leaf-lit and rolling land that’s a nostalgic autumn painting of horses and hounds and scarlet-coated riders sailing across heavy timbered jumps in full-on pursuit of the fox.

It is the fox--or more precisely, the fate of the fox--that suggests just how genteel. I’d long suspected that being part of a fox hunt would be an entree into the inner sanctum of this beautiful countryside in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, but as an ardent horsewoman and animal lover, I had one reservation.

“They don’t hurt the foxes, do they?” I asked, needing to know but fearing the answer.

The reply, in that Virginia-ham-and-freshly-cleaned-saddle-leather voice, reassured me.

“We love the foxes,” said Jan Ruetz, a fox-hunting stable owner near Purcellville, Va. “We even put chicken carcasses out with mange medicine and de-wormer in them to make sure the foxes are healthy. They pretty much know their territory. They have a good time teasing us, and when they are tired of it, they go to ground, and we go home.” Fox hunters also repeatedly reassured me that foxes are rarely caught.

Home is Leesburg or Warrenton or Upperville or Middleburg, about an hour west of Washington, D.C., and largely isolated from the capital’s chaos. The ubiquitous beige townhouses and faux-colonial developments sometimes threaten to swallow the stone and brick villages and the graceful farms where ancient trees arch over narrow, winding roads. But some of these burgs and villages are fighting back. Signs in shop windows here proclaim, “Middleburg Says No to Sprawl.”

So for now, Virginia’s Hunt Country is still the South--well-mannered, well-meaning and well-moneyed.

I discovered it only a year or two ago. An avid gardener and student of history, I felt at home here in the Shenandoah Valley among the flower beds brimming with roses, lavender and sage; the canopied four-poster beds; the harness brasses gleaming in the half-gloom of ancient hearths; dogs and horses invited, discussed and depicted everywhere. When the waitress who served me ham and mashed potatoes at the Coach Stop Restaurant in Middleburg talked about her 3-year-old, we were discussing her thoroughbred, not a toddler.

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LOUDOUN AND FAUQUIER COUNTIES, THE HEART OF HUNT COUNTRY, HAVE BEEN THE EPICENTER OF AMERICAN FOX hunting since the sport came to the colonies from Europe in pre-Revolutionary times.

Today, according to the Masters of Foxhounds Assn. in Leesburg, the governing body of U.S. fox hunting, there are 168 official hunts in America and Canada, 25 of them in Virginia alone, plus a few private packs not under MFHA jurisdiction. Virginia has more than twice as many as the next closest state, Pennsylvania, which has 12.

My friend Lucy Rogers and I, veteran riders with our own horses at home in Minnesota, were headed for a long weekend in the Shenandoah Valley last fall that included our first Virginia hunt (I’d been on one in Minnesota), and we were in a state of thrilled anxiety. We arrived at the Ashby Inn in Paris, Va., population 65, the dawn coming up over the antique-style quilts on our beds, with the tang of boxwood in the rising valley mist.

In hunt season--September through March--Jan Ruetz rents fox-hunting horses, known as field hunters. Blond, petite, upbeat and as tough as the stone walls she jumps, Ruetz rides out with her clients on some of her two dozen hunters six or seven days a week.

We had reserved horses for Sunday, but first, we wanted to sample the countryside’s antiques and other treasures, scout out the proper attire and see a Virginia hunt field go off. And there was a chance to watch our first steeplechase, the International Gold Cup.

We had come in on a Thursday to the inn along the Ashby Gap road (now U.S. 50), leading an impatient 15-car cavalcade of commuters displeased that we were enjoying the rolling hills and swan ponds, the stone walls, the pillared and porched antebellum and colonial homes.

The Ashby Inn, which I had found on an earlier foray, is my favorite of the many inns in this area because of its food and the views of the Blue Ridge Mountains out the back door. John and Roma Sherman are the owners and innkeepers of the six-room hostelry, built in 1829. They have refitted the nearby schoolhouse with the same cheery, classic taste of the inn: Oriental carpets, quilts, stenciled floors, antique dressers and four-poster beds.

It’s worth getting up to see a hunt off--they start between 8 and 10--so we followed Roma’s directions to the Hunting Box, a farm near Boyce, about eight miles away. We trailed after the horses, hiking up lanes and perching on fences to watch the field of perhaps 50 riders and 20 couple of hounds (the dogs are counted in pairs) bash around in the woods while the fox, in our full view, walked nonchalantly home in the other direction.

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WHEN WE’D HAD OUR FILL, WE DROVE INTO MIDDLEBURG, A TOWN OF about 800 that’s rich with distractions, even for the non-horse person. Held to almost colonial scale, which makes it easy to navigate, Middleburg boasts 160 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places and on the Virginia Landmarks Register, many of them now shops.

Lucy led us into Tully Rector, a clothing shop stuffed with stacks of cashmere sweaters and linen, silk and wool suits and dresses. We zigzagged down Washington Street, popping into Les Jardins de Bagatelle for face creams and lilac soaps, then across to the Piedmont Gourmet for Belgian chocolate bars.

Back across the street to Dominion Saddlery, we ran headlong into tradition, which dictates that riders wear a rat-catcher (collarless shirt), tweed jacket and brown boots for cubbing season, so called for the fox cubs that are old enough to be chased from late August to early November. For formal season, it’s black jacket, buff or yellow breeches and black boots. We needed tweeds.

Laura, a local rider who was shopping, offered commentary as we tried on jackets from the tightly packed racks of red, black, navy and tweed in the back room of the narrow shop: “This one’s too big, nope, that’s too tight, the frock style looks good, but it’s for hunt members only, oh, that looks good on you.” Scarlet is reserved for Masters of Fox Hounds (who are in charge of hunt operations), for staff called “whippers-in” and for members of the club.

From there, we trailed into the Red Fox Inn, built in 1728. George Washington visited the inn in 1748 as a young surveyor covering western Virginia. During the Civil War, when Gen. J.E.B. Stuart met here with Col. John Mosby, the inn was a Confederate headquarters, and the pine bar served as an operating table. Later, President John F. Kennedy held a news conference here, and Elizabeth Taylor and Jackie Kennedy were guests.

Farther down Washington Street, a tiny photographer’s studio displays 1962 black-and-white photos of Jackie Kennedy and her children taken at the Glen-Ora farm. Frank, now 25, her fox hunter in later years, lives in nearby Upperville at the late Paul Mellon’s Oak Spring Farms. There, Frank greets visitors on the annual spring stable tour, a Memorial Day weekend event in which Hunt Country’s private stables are open to the public.

At the Middleburg Tack Exchange, a consignment shop for things equestrian, we watched a dapper mustachioed gentleman bring in his scarlet formal wear (for hunt balls) to sell.

“I just sold my horse,” he explained. The women in the store, including me, pleaded with him not to quit hunting, but he insisted that he had taken too many falls lately, and, besides, he was 86.

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ON PREVIOUS TRIPS HERE, I’VE RETREATED TO THE WELCOMING QUIET of the National Sporting Library, which houses 12,000 books on horses, dogs, fly-fishing, falconry and other field sports. The tomes range from a 1529 Latin treatise on veterinary medicine to Teddy Roosevelt’s handwritten 1886 essay, “Riding to Hounds on Long Island.” The library, in a handsome, new 15,000-square-foot home, is populated by equestrian bronzes, paintings and staff who can talk horses as well as literature.

Peter Winants, the director emeritus of the sporting library and author of a new book on the history of American steeplechasing, has been hunting since age 11. He’s now 74 and still hunts often.

“I love the challenge of making a horse go well in a crowded situation, when they are apt to get excited and unruly,” he says. “Also I like the people I do this with. They share a bond.”

The bond, of course, is horses, and their image and their essence are everywhere in Virginia’s Horse Country: In Middleburg, a bronze horse stands in the courtyard of the sporting library, a memorial to the 1.5 million horses and mules that died or were wounded in the Civil War.

In Morven Park in Leesburg on an earlier trip, I’d gaped at the jumps of the cross-country course, and in Warrenton I had hyperventilated ecstatically through Horse Country Saddlery, a fine English tack and riding apparel shop.

In The Plains, a town of 220 and the home of equestrian Olympic gold medalist David O’Connor (he won the individual three-day event in Sydney), I’d strolled into the railroad station--now an artists workshop--where the high-living Harrimans of Union Pacific Railroad fame once brought fox hunters to enjoy the season, which is still distinguished by a devotion to good horses and good food.

Both are the focus of the International Gold Cup, where last year, a country-elegant crowd of about 30,000 strolled in houndstooth and tweeds, velvet hats and plush fedoras, lace and denim--actor and Virginia resident Robert Duvall was in a chalk-stripe suit--to view tall, fast horseflesh and short, yappy dogs. Among the pre-race entertainment was a Jack Russell terrier derby, in which a half-dozen furious little beasts tore after a foxtail, reeled on a cable, and cleared little hurdles. The victor hung onto the tail, growling, and refused to let go.

Horses thundered over turf and monstrous timber jumps, and grooms with Irish accents cooled lean steeds with bulging veins. On the slope above the splendid autumn-hued Shenandoah Valley, feasts were served in tents, where lemon and ivy centerpieces graced Jacquard tablecloths.

“Now this feels like a horse race-- money in my pocket, a pen and a bottle opener,” said Angel Negron, a banker from Staunton, Va., at the event with his wife and friends for their annual vacation. The foursome shared their seats with us. Unlike track racing, which is over in two minutes or so, the suspense in steeplechasing lasts about eight minutes, since there are four miles and 20 timber jumps in the main race. As each of the seven races starts, the picnicking crowd goes taut with tension. Then there’s elation (if your horse wins), then more food and drink, then tension again as the next race starts. This continues from 1 p.m. until late afternoon, when the whole gregarious group rolls happily out the gate in a surfeit of sun and champagne and heads to dinner.

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BY THE EVENING BEFORE OUR HUNT, I had found the right jacket, a brown-black tweed, but Lucy had not, so Roma Sherman, our innkeeper, lent Lucy a green/gold tweed, a perfect fit. At dawn, we pulled on breeches, slipped into our boots, fumbled outsize gold pins into our ties (which serve as slings in case of injuries), donned our jackets and gloves, pulled our hair into black nets and bows, and were out into the morning.

We headed to Ruetz’s farm in Purcellville, a speck of a town near Middleburg. Having sized up my height, weight, age, horse experience and nerve, she assigned me to Mover, a slim gray mare that had hunted most of her life. She looked at me with contemptuous impatience as if to say, “Shut up, get on and don’t be a bother.” I obeyed. Lucy was assigned to Bubba, a genial and elephantine bay thoroughbred.

The hunt became real now that we had horses, and Lucy and I rolled our eyes at each other and silently mouthed “Yee-ha” as our excitement grew. Among the 30 riders in the misty field where we mounted up were pigtailed Lillibet, age 7, on a pony accompanying her mother, Patti Motion, who rode a sturdy Irish draft horse. And there was windburned Charles Shaffer, 68, who managed to flirt in a devastating Virginia accent while deftly handling his lively mount. If they can do it, I thought, so can we.

The horn sounded, and we were off, following 40 hounds that kept up a canine opera when they found the scent. Electricity born of fear and excitement traveled from hoof to hips to head, and my hair stood sharply on end under my helmet. Mover’s breath came strong and rhythmic as I arrived at a coop--a triangular wooden jump. She took it low and easy and pounded up the hill, everything in fervent eagerness to see, to smell the gold and red morning.

We swept through fields where an old brown barn was slowly dissolving and headed into the woods. We skidded downhill, splashed through a stream and slogged up the far side, reining in around tight turns, opening up across meadows, hounds barely heard for the wind in our ears, horses enthralled, ears up and eyes bright.

An hour or so out, I found the scarlet-coated Master as he sat on his white gelding, cooling its legs in Goose Creek. A harlequin-colored array of hounds stood around him; the antler handle of an old, well-oiled whip was coiled in his hand. This was the world the way it looked, sounded and smelled two centuries ago.

“I don’t care how old you are,” author Peter Winants had told me, “when the hounds open and a fox is above ground, that exhilaration of galloping at speed and jumping the occasional fence and your blood is up and you’re whooping and hollering--it’s a helluva good time. There is no greater thrill.”

Over hills we cantered, behind farms, down lanes, around russet and scarlet woods, across bright pastures and crisscrossing the creek. Sometimes the hounds announced they smelled a fox. We never saw a fox. Sometimes we lost the hounds, catching up by following the notes from the copper horn.

At nearly three hours out, Lucy and I and a few others headed back with a guide. The horses could have gone on, but we were satisfied. I loosened Mover’s girth, ran up my stirrups and scratched her fine neck farewell. “Thank you, my good girl,” I told the mare, who regarded me, I thought, with a little less indifference as I led her into Ruetz’s trailer. Lucy kissed Bubba goodbye on the nose.

We wobbled toward the car, our boots slick with dew and horse sweat and creek water. We had helmet hair, and we didn’t care. We felt leggy and lean and happy. And tired: My legs shook so hard I could barely press the accelerator. Retreating over the hills to the Ashby Inn, we swaggered into the dining room, ignoring the sign that says, “We have no dress code, although riders with muddy boots and spurs are likely to get very slow service.”

John and Roma greeted us in the sun room and piled on thick slices of ham, caviar and sour cream omelets, buttermilk biscuits, white beans with fennel and shrimp, Roma ladling with an unspoken edge of shared knowing of where we had been, what we had done. Rosy-faced and joyful, we toasted the day, the Shenandoah Valley air, the hunt, the Virginia autumn and ourselves with tulip glasses of champagne.

If we never do another thing in our lives, we have done this.

Guidebook: Chasing the Fox

Telephone numbers and prices: The area code for much of Virginia’s Hunt Country is 540, except where noted. Hotel rates are for a double room for one night. Restaurant prices are for dinner for two, food only.

Getting there: Dulles International, in suburban Washington, D.C., is the nearest major airport to the Shenandoah Valley. American and United airlines offer nonstop flights from Los Angeles. Legend Airlines has direct flights involving a stop (in Dallas) but no change of planes.

The Shenandoah Valley is best explored by car. Middleburg is 30 miles from Dulles, 45 miles from Washington, D.C. Major car rental agencies are available at the airport.

Where to stay: The Ashby Inn, 692 Federal St., Paris, 592-3900, fax 592-3781, https://www.ashbyinn.com. Rates: $145 to $250, with a 20% surcharge in October. A historic inn with six rooms and a converted schoolhouse with four suites. In Middleburg: The Goodstone Inn, 36205 Snake Hill Road, 687-4645 or toll-free (877) 219-4663, fax 687-6115, https://www.goodstone.com. Rates: $225 to $475 in autumn, varies in other seasons. Eleven guest rooms on 265 acres settled nearly 300 years ago. The Middleburg Inn and Guest Suites, 105 W. Washington St., 687-3115 or toll free (800) 432-6125, https://www.middleburg.

com/mgs/. Rates: $145 to $250. A five-suite inn that can accommodate as many as 14 people. The Red Fox Inn and Tavern, 2 E. Washington St., 687-6301 or (800) 223-1728, fax 687-6187, https://www.

redfox.com. Rates: $140 to $250. A 25-room inn established in 1728 and on the National Register of Historic Places.

Where to eat: The Ashby Inn, 592-3900. Seasonal menu emphasizing modern American cooking; $35 to $80. In Middleburg: the Black Coffee Bistro, corner of Madison and East Federal streets, 687-3632. Contemporary American, seasonal menu; $30 to $60. The Coach Stop Restaurant, 9 E. Washington St., 687-5515. Casual dining and children’s menu; $15 to $60. Piedmont Gourmet, 23 E. Washington St., 687-6833. Gourmet specialty store. In The Plains: The Rail Stop, 6478 Main St., 253-5644. Traditional American with Italian influence; $30 to $75.

What to see and do: There are steeplechases every weekend from Sept. 16 through Nov. 4; listings at https://www.vasteeplechase.com. The International Gold Cup takes place Oct. 21 this year at the Great Meadow Course, The Plains. General admission is $40 advance, $50 at the gate for one car and six passengers. For information, 347-2612, https://www.

vagoldcup.com. National Sporting Library, 102 The Plains Road, Middleburg, 687-6542, https://www.nsl.org.

Morven Park Museum, Winmill Carriage Collection and Museum of Hounds and Hunting, 17263 Southern Planter Lane, Leesburg, (703) 777-2414, https://www.morvenpark.org. Admission $6 for adults, $5 for seniors, $1 for children 6 to 12; those younger than 6 admitted free.

To watch a hunt: There are 10 hunts in the area, most of them listed, that have recorded messages on where and when the hunts meet. Call the Loudoun Hunt, 338-4495; hunts Wednesdays, Saturdays and holidays.

To ride in a hunt: J.R. Field Hunters, Purcellville, rents horses, 338-6558. You must cross-country ride before hunting, and you must be an accomplished English rider in good physical shape. You must have medical insurance; bring your policy number and a medical insurance identification card. Costs range from $150 to $200, plus fees to ride with the hunt of $75 to $150.

Although I haven’t tried it, another option is Hidden Trails Riding Vacations, (888) 9-TRAILS, https://www.hiddentrails.com, which offers fox hunting through an inn in Sperryville, Va., 75 miles from Washington. A four-day, three-night package at the inn runs $495 per person, based on double occupancy (15% surcharge for Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays). The hunt is extra: $75 for an hour and half, $135 for three hours, plus fees of $45 to $65 for riding with the Rappahannock Hunt club.

For more information: Virginia Tourism Corp., 901 E. Byrd St., 19th Floor, Richmond, Va., 23219-4048; (804) 786-4484 or, for brochures, (800) 932-5827, fax (804) 786-1919, https://www.virginia.org.