Fort Leavenworth Hunt
c/o H. Lee McGuire, jt.-MFH
P.O. Box 702,
Leavenworth, Kansas 66048.
Established 1929.
Recognized 1966.
On the weekend of March 4-5, the Ft. Leavenworth Hunt played host to 10 foxhunts for a wonderful joint meet.
The weekend began with a historical ride on Friday afternoon to seven points of interest covering 5 miles on Ft. Leavenworth, Kan. Fort Leavenworth is the oldest U.S. military installation west of the Mississippi River, active since 1827.
The historical ride included what was once a Pony Express station in 1860, as well as the unique opportunity to ride a 100-yard
preserved section of the original Sante Fe Trail. It has remained as it was when countless wagons and riders traversed it on the way west.
Our final historical point was Otis Hall on the main post, where in 1926 a young Maj. Dwight Eisenhower and wife Mamie called Apartment 2C home. Ike didn’t care much for riding, but his contemporary George S. Patton Jr. did, and he left Leavenworth to become Master of Foxhounds at the Cavalry School Hunt at Ft. Riley. Some 78 riders enjoyed this glimpse of the past.
After the ride, foxhunters kept arriving to enjoy dinner and cocktails in the Ft. Leavenworth Hunt clubhouse in the Wainright Complex. The complex was named for Jonathan Wainright, an MFH at Ft. Leavenworth in 1929 and best known for being the general whose command was left behind in the Philippines in 1941, enduring the Bataan Death March.
Moving off the next morning in the McGuire fixture near Easton, Kan., 10 foxhunts with 119 riders, plus the Ft. Leavenworth staff, were present. Riders came from Arapahoe (Colo.), Coal Valley (Kan.), Moingona (Iowa), North Hills (Neb.), Lonesome Palm (Fla.), Mission Valley (Kan.), Wabash (Neb.), Long Lake (Minn.), Nodaway (Iowa) and Ft. Leavenworth.
Kansas weather can be truly variable, with historical highs and lows for the date ranging from 7 below zero to 80 above. On this day it was pleasantly in the 50s as Huntsman and Jt.-MFH Lee McGuire moved off for a mile hack to the first cast and an almost immediate sizeable coop, quickly followed by a second uphill rasper.
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We try not to make this any more difficult, but the local bovines seem to limit their coop attempts to 3’5″ and have become so proficient as to make us wonder what we might get if we crossed a Thoroughbred with a Jersey–something that would run and jump all day and provide milk in the off season?
In the past, our landowners had been insistent upon removable wires over lower coops. But these prove to be showstoppers when trying to stay with hounds on line. The large field’s rapid movement over the initial jumps proved exciting as 16 couples of hounds struck the line.
The hilltopping group viewed a large, reddish coyote some minutes later, running perhaps 200 yards ahead of the pack. The left side whipper-in hollered as the coyote made his way in a one-mile swing to the left, later passing almost under the hooves of that same whipper-in in the woods and mere seconds behind six deer. This we’ve seen many times–coyotes running in the tracks of deer.
A local observation is that coyotes at these close quarters seldom make eye contact. This one was no exception. As he crested the hill into the open, moving west, he ran past the first field with Homer on his brush, just not quite fast enough to close the distance.
That coyote ran into thick scrub timber and was lost after about 15 more minutes as the scenting conditions were not with us. So went the day, and about three hours later it was time to load horses, take a deep breath and move to the hunt ball. This was held at what used to be the Officers’ Club on post.
The Sunday hunt was pushed back an hour to accommodate those who partied too heartily. Some of the previous day’s number made their way south to hunt with Mission Valley, but the field still numbered 72 plus staff. With the temperature climbing, it soon became a bit warm for hounds after several enjoyable, if abbreviated runs on viewed coyotes.
Everyone acknowledged the support afforded us by Ft. Leavenworth, from billeting to stabling to M.P. escorts during our historical ride.
