18 SIDELINES JANUARY 2012
FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE
Richard Lamb conducts one of many Pony
Club course walks
Photo Courtesy of the USPC
the Foxhall Cup (GA) and Jackson Hole Horse
Trials (WY). Again, he emphasizes the basics
for the particular level. “Making a course tricky
does not teach riders how to jump better,
especially on the lower levels,” said Richard.
“For eventing, as you work your way through the
levels, you start with a 20 meter circle, then 15
meter circles, then fying changes. I try to relate
the show jumping courses to the requirements
for the dressage. As you get to the higher
levels, Intermediate, two-star, three-star, you
start to add some of the technical questions with
the power questions – bigger jumps – because
the level of training and experience can handle
that.”
Richard’s mantras include the basics.
Breathe. Carry your hands. Look up. Let it
happen. The bottom line is always balance.
Eventing Richard Lamb continued from page 8
provide excitement and familiar routine: they are unique and
ideal transportation, of course, to explore the countryside with
and without a pack of hounds. When the UK hunting ban seemed
certain to end the rural lifestyle that Roger had come to embrace,
and a teaching position made the move sensible, to say the least,
the Scrutons bought a derelict property in Virginia’s Rappahannock
County.
“We bought Montpelier (the one in Sperryville, not James
Madison’s) without having seen the place, simply because we
wondered how we were going to live in England after the ban
on foxhunting,” recalls Roger. “When we arrived at the bleak and
silent ruin the frst thing we saw was a fox. To which hunt, we
asked, did that fox belong? Thornton Hill was the reply.”
Recently, Thornton Hill and Fort Valley merged, expanding
THH’s country to a vast area on the western side of the Blue
Ridge Mountains. The Scrutons set about making their new home
habitable and rode to hounds, cutting a friendly swathe through
the rural fabric of Virginia. They lived there for six years.
And Back to England
“When it transpired that the ban in England had not prevented
hounds from going out, we returned to our old ways,” explains
Roger.
They moved back to the UK and sold the beautifully restored
Montpelier, but Roger’s teaching brings them Stateside frequently
where charming accents frame witty and blistering social discourse
that charms and entertains their American friends. The academic/
political world, after all, is a jungle where only the strong survive.
As a father and family man, Roger cites three things he’d like
to instill in his children: “Music, Latin, and hunting. I’ve had partial
success with the frst, little with the second, and total with the
third.”
Foxhunting Roger Scruton continued from page 10
The gathered feld: Radnor Hunt’s 125th anniversary meet was a special time
combination of that group effort, plus being out in the elements
and the challenge of riding on uneven terrain, up and down hills,
and going over fences, plus the excitement of moving along at a
pretty good clip cross country, it’s just a great experience. If you
haven’t tried it, it’s hard to describe. It’s one of those things that it
isn’t hard to get hooked on once you do it.”
It is also not diffcult to start foxhunting. By simply contacting
Collin or one of the Radnor Hunter Secretaries, riders can hunt
with legendary huntsman Joe Cassidy leading the way. “It’s not
a closed off, exclusive group,” says Collin. For more information
about Radnor Hunt Club, please visit www.radnorhunt.org, or
become a friend on Facebook!
Foxhunting Radnor’s Continued from page 16