The Great Hound Match of 1905

Alexander Henry Higginson, Harry Worcester Smith, and the Rise of Virginia Hunt Country

In November 1905, the peak of foxhunting season across the Midlands of England and up and down the east coast of North America, two towns in Virginia saw the coming of illustrious and wealthy men. There was to be a contest, a Great Hound Match, between two packs of foxhounds, one English and one American. The English hounds carried, on their great stout forearms and deep chests, the monumental weight of centuries of foxhunting in England and were expected to make their hound dog ancestors proud of their New World conquest. The American hounds were expected to show those stodgy old Brits how it was done over here—with spunk and intuition, individuality, drive, and nerve. This book chronicles this ostentatious match of Britain versus America at the turn of the century.