HUNTING is about more than horses and riders and jumping fences. The tradition of hunting is about the love and respect for the relationship between man and animals. In Old Virginia, hunting often meant, and still means, following hounds on foot. Hunting is really about hounds! Comparatively few people in the United States have experienced foot hunting with a pack of hounds. There are 35 recognized and active Beagle Packs and only 17 Basset Packs in the U.S. today. In England, however, such pack hunting has been thriving for centuries with packs maintained by individuals, schools, colleges, and the armed forces.
Learn more about the history of the Basset Hound here.
ASHLAND BASSETS is a subscription pack and our organization is similar to foxhound packs, though we hunt entirely on foot. Foot hunting is part of the tradition of Virginia Hunting. The pack began as a private pack of the late Mrs. (Amory Carhart) Edward Graves, owner of Ashland Farm, located just outside Warrenton, and the pack retains the name of the farm. Mrs. Graves began the pack in 1960 when she was no longer able to fox hunt. In 1973, she left the pack to the community as a subscription pack to further the traditions of foot hunting. The current pack consists of AKC and English crossbred hounds, as well as the French Bleu de Gascogne hounds. Ashland Bassets is the oldest basset pack in Virginia and the third oldest recognized basset pack in the United States. The huntsmen and staff help to take care of the hounds. The hounds walk out for exercise and training during the summer months, and begin their formal season in October after a brief “cub hunting” season in September. As a subscription pack, Ashland is open to individuals who, by paying a yearly fee or subscription to support the hounds, are allowed to follow the pack. They are members and are called “the Field”.
Members of Ashland Bassets are entitled to wear a green coat, and, when they have been awarded “colors”, red piping on the coat with brass hunt buttons. Green coats are traditional wear for foot hunting, just as the black and scarlet coats are traditional wear for fox hunting. On the most formal occasions, staff wears white pants and shirts with formal hunting stocks. On most days, they usually wear red turtlenecks. As with fox hunting, “tradition” dictates attire – but reality has modified tradition to some extent: all those who foot hunt wear good heavy boots or shoes with thick brush pants for the briars and brambles that are part of Virginia fields. Unlike fox hunting, foot followers can get close to the action and see the essentials of hound work at close view.