A proper flyer in Virginia
catherine.austen@futurenet.com
Middleburg, Foxcroft, Virginia
THE pretty Virginia town of Middleburg is deservedly known as America’s horse and hunt capital. Home to the headquarters of the American Masters of Foxhounds Association (MFHA), the National Sporting Library and the renowned Red Fox Inn, it is also within hacking distance of some of the nation’s most famous packs of hounds.
There is the venerable Piedmont, established in 1840, the fashionable Orange County, where I am assured even the coyotes have slightly turned up noses, and the Middleburg Hunt itself.
The Middleburg hunt a country approximately 10 by 15 miles in Loudoun County. It is a rolling country of grazing land interspersed with lovely oak woods, mature enough to be easily ridden through.
The hunt was established in 1906 under the mastership of John Townsend, and traditionally kept purebred American foxhounds. When the current huntsman, Richard Roberts, came to the Middleburg from the Deep Run five years
