Muscogee County GaArchives Photo Place.....Fox Hunting 
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Christine Thacker http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00033.html#0008100 June 2, 2007, 7:31 pm

Source:             Sesquicentennal Supplement IV, Ledger-Enquirer
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                    Hardaway Put Georgia on Fox- Hunting Map

                                By Beverly Greer  
                                Ledger Staff Writer  
  The November winds blow brisk from the north.  A wintry sun plays on the 
black wool coats and the shining boots of the huntsmen as their mounts strain 
impatiently at the bit.
  From a nearby frame barracks comes the excited cries of the hounds: anxious 
to be let free to join the pacing horses. 
  Riders huddle in knots, warming their hands, gazing at winter-bare meadows, 
awaiting the Master of the Hunt and his whips-riders who align themselves with 
the exuberant hounds to control, their ramblings and keep them well in 
formation.
  It's Sunday, hunt day at Midland, Ga. home of the famous Midland' Fox Hounds, 
and the ancestral home as well of Ben H. Hardaway III, who has  brought to this 
unlikely corner of the world, the prestige formerly known only to the hunt 
countries of England and Maryland and Virginia and earning the cherished honor 
of being recognized by the Masters of the Fox Hounds Association of America.
  As though on signal,Hardaway strides into the crowd of eager hunters, nodding 
perfunctory greetings but riveting his attention on the rising cries of the 
hounds.
  A smile of pride crosses Hardaway's face as the hounds he's chosen for the 
day's running are released, bounding ecstatically off porches and down wooden 
steps to get in position for a rigorous several hours of racing over hill and 
dell, woods and glen, hot on the trail of the red fox.
  Hardaway is a strong, lean and rugged man, well known throughout the ,south 
for his expertise and dedication to business and civic and cultural affairs and 
known too, for the devotion with which he, approaches, with heart and mind and 
untold energies, his beloved ,sport of riding to the hounds, when the affairs 
of business are done.
  This day he wears the bright red wool coat known as hunting "pinks," reserved 
for the master and  his whips. No window dressing, these riding clothes of 
Hardaway's, but  clothes that bear silent testimony to days spent  riding rough 
over West  Georgia's varied terrain.  Off-white riding breeches are frayed at 
the knees, and the black velvet hard  hat shows signs, too, of a rugged duty. 
  Hardaway mounts his  horse, still keeping a  watchful eye on his hounds, 
searching for signs that any one of them is unfit for the  day's race. The 
riders of  the Midland Hunt, a private group happy and grateful  to reap the 
benefits of Hardaway's dedication to the  sport; know the hunt is  about to 
begin. 
  Horses, riders and a hounds move, in a loosely knit group, to the fields 
beyond the barns and a fences, to the open pastures  Where the master calls 
the  hounds to order, and the hounds, some reluctantly, obey. 
  Their training accounts  for their good manners, that and the combination of  
bloodlines Hardaway has  skillfully bred for heart, stamina and brains.  
  Over a period of 30  years, Hardaway has selectively bred a pack that runs 
together in controlled harmony under almost any conditions, a pack that 
responds to his slightest command. Hardaway's philosophy of gaining the trust 
and love of the hounds speak of the man who put the Midland Foxhounds on the 
map. Discipline is attended to by the whips. For safety, haven, direction and 
praise, the hounds scamper to the master. And are well rewarded.
  Hardaway's extraordinary pack includes the bloodlines of the prizewinning and 
elegant Gainsborough from England, and the Ebony, carefully bred with the July 
hound whose founding fathers came from Waterford, Ireland and Northumberland. 
White Fell Border Hounds provide the settled, civilized qualities that when 
bred with July bring not beauty or conformity, always, but intelligence, drive 
and teamwork.
  Riding to the Midland hounds is, in the words of one huntsman, an 
extraordinary experience, filled with excitement and exuberance. Watching the  
Midland Hunt take the  fields, leaping coop jumps, Hardaway has constructed  at 
every fence line over  several thousand hunting  acres, watching the flying  
manes and tails of the  horses, hearing the bawling  of the hounds, is an 
inspiring experience to nonhunter and an uncommon one as well to residents of 
West Georgia,   Hardaway's romance with the hunt began many years ago when at 
15, he  assembled a pack of hounds for the time-honored  Georgia sport of 
possum  and raccoon hunting, most  of it taking place at night. 
  He was hunting with an ancient black man when he heard the cry of hounds  
down  creek, and asked what it was. When he was  told it was a fox hunt, a new 
gleam lighted his eye.
Soon, he acquired his  founding pack of July hound a strain he still  holds in 
highest esteem. 
  A hiatus in his fox  hunting was brought about  by WWII, and later, when  
Hardaway got his pack going again, along with his brother-in-law, Dr. Jack 
Hughston, and with full cooperation and participation of his wife, Sarah 
Hardaway, the Midland Hunt, as it is known today, was formed.
  The hunters ride to the hounds in Georgia, Florida and Alabama, following 
hounds with legendary bloodlines like the Tipperrary, Tiverton and Taunton 
Vale, mixed with West War Waterford, Penn Mary Dell and July.
  Hardaway is boastful in his statements that his well-trained pack is no 
threat to deer or other wildlife in the areas they hunt. A deer offers no 
temptation to his hounds whose eyes and noses and hearts are firmly fixed on 
the fox and the fox alone. He is proud too, that the hunt has, instead of 
depleting the supply of West Georgia foxes, has rather improved the number and 
the vigor of the species.
  "When we started hunting here," he said, "the foxes were skinny, weak, half-
starved, diseased."
  As the hounds ran to ground the sickly foxes, the stronger ones were left to 
improve their situation and today, Hardaway is encouraged that in a hefty 
percentage of his hunts, the wily fox is the victor, and he knows that healthy 
and fat foxs abound in the area.
  At Midland, no foxes are captured, then penned to be released for the hunt. 
All foxes pursued are wild and native to the property.
  If Hardaway is known throughout the South as a leading breeder and hunter, 
his fame has spread too, to the hunt country of Maryland and Virginia, and 
across the Atlantic to England and Ireland, where he regularly takes the 
fittest members of his pack to hunt- and perhaps  show off a bit- to 
aristocratic huntsmen from around the world.
  Hardaway once remarked, when speaking of one hard-hunting stallion July 
hound, that so many  farmers had come to breed to Ole' July "the poor ole' dawg 
was bred so many times he plum wore out.
Got so when he heard another farm wagon or pickup truck coming, he'd take to 
the hills." 
  He provides for his prize pack the ultimate in canine living quarters, solid 
wooden buildings set high on poles so they can be hosed and kept meticulously 
clean, and so the hounds don't run along the ground picking up parasites, 
eliminating the need for constant, harsh wormings,that can affect their 
stamina, and keeping down illness as well. 
  Whelping bitches are housed in special quarters away from the pack, and their 
offspring watched with an eagle eye for markings, characteristics and potential 
of becoming another prized champion.
  When hunt time comes, as it does every Sunday in the hunt season, riders are 
at the ready, anxious to follow, and to ride alongside the man who is 
acknowledged as having put Georgia on the map when it comes to high adventure 
of riding to the hounds - a man who loves every minute of it'

Special Sesquicentennal Supplement IV
Ledger - Enquirer, Sunday, May 7, 1978, S-31

 

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