The mighty foxhounds crest the hill in a tightly woven pack, tails in the air, led by the master in his hunting pinks. Before long, the crowd of cheery spectators turns quiet.
The festive blessing, led by clergy on microphones, takes no more than a few minutes: “Bless, keep and protect your servants — horses, riders, hounds and foxes — with your grace."
Then, a horn blares. In a rush, the hounds, horses and riders race away, fading into the chill of the Western Run Valley of Reisterstown, where barren trees and rolling, green grasses await them.
The old English tradition draws onlookers young and old every Thanksgiving Thursday, all braving cold and mud and precious time away from kitchens. It’s a distinctly Maryland custom, with roots dating to Colonial times, when settlers and hounds descended on strange new land and brought foxhunting for sport with them.
St. John’s Church, Western Run, nestled within Baltimore County’s lush farmland, is one of a handful of faith-based institutions that host a Thanksgiving blessing for Maryland’s foxhunting clubs. Over a century, the spectacle has outlasted wars, depression and disease.
But, like other traditions, theirs has evolved.
“We don’t kill foxes,” said Sheila Jackson Brown, an organizer for the Green Spring Valley Hunt Club. “We chase them.”
The open fields and wooded terrain extend for miles. A good chase can go for hours. Some observers track their riders by cellphone GPS.
Why the blessing happens on Thanksgiving Day, nobody seems to know. It’s an origin story that may have been lost to time.
But good traditions press on. Families come together, said Frank Cubero, another organizer for the hunt club. It’s a good time to be blessed — especially with more people in town to share in it.
The St. John’s parish brought in the hounds starting in the early 20th century, as a way to entice more church membership. The day now begins with tailgates, picnics and words of greeting across the forested campus — and a morning mass with prayers of thanks.
This year, the white-robed clergy then processed onto the field, where a crowd huddled behind caution tape, hopeful for a glimpse. The hounds bounded out, led by huntsman Ashley Hubbard, followed by a succession of helmeted horseback riders in uniform breeches and boots.
Some hounds broke from the cry — another word for pack — eager to be blessed and petted. The unscripted moments drew happy laughs.
Riders Willow Pagán and Rachel Blakey trotted up to wave to their family before the blessing. Daniel Blakey and Michelle McDonald, in town from California, said they’ve never quite found anything like it out West — something “quirky, fun, cultural” and “picturesque.”
The couple snapped quick pictures of their niece and Daniel’s sister, who then rejoined the other riders.
Normally Pagán’s mother, Meg Blakey, would have been out there, too, but she’d ceded her horse to her daughter for the day.
“It feels funny to be on the ground,” she said.
It’s enough, Blakey said, to watch America’s “best hounds” up close. They’re disciplined, and big, and can run all afternoon.
The family had more cooking to do, and rounds of pickleball and televised sports on the schedule.
But they started Thanksgiving in Western Run Valley, with a blessing for peace, prosperity and satisfaction in simple pleasures for “those who go a-hunting with horses and hounds.”
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