Originally posted by Rose McCurdy.


The Hunter’s Horn
July, 1966
Page Twenty-nine

Notes on US Open History
Half-Back Pickett
By Arthur Cook, US Open Secretary, Box 434, Florence, Ala

The 1950 US Open has gone down in my memory as the greatest field trial I ever had anything to do with.

The trial was run under some of the most adverse weather conditions ever experienced at any hunt. The
temperature didn’t get above the freezing point any morning.

Seventy-three eager hounds were cast the first morning under a cold east wind. Six hounds eliminated themselves the first day by loafing. One was caught babbling.

To show you the good work the remaining 66 hounds did, 700 points were scored in hunting, 335 in trailing and 1025 in speed and driving. No points were given the first day for endurance.

Tuesday night it rained and sleeted. When the roll call was made, ice was everywhere. Up in the day it
began to rain and continued all day with a hard and steady downpour. Believe it or not, the hounds ran
hard the full five hours.

The judges were kept busy scoring the remaining hounds. Six hundred forty points were scored in hunting, 485 trailing and 1490 for S&D. This day eight hounds loafed and 4 eliminated for babbling.

Wednesday night the rain turned to snow. The third cast was made Thursday morning with the thermometer
hovering around the 20 degree mark. The snow took the stuffing out of a lot of the hounds this day; 29
loafed, four were babbling and one was lost. At the close of the day the scoreboard showed 415 pointes
scored for hunting, 350 for trailing and 770 points speed and driving.

The winners of the first four USO trials were North Carolina hounds. In the hotel lobby the night before the last 1950 cast, there was lots of speculation as to where the next winner would hail from, as 60% of 20 hounds eligible to be turned loose the last day were from North and South Carolina.

At five o’clock the last day, Friday morning, the thermometer was on 20 degrees, with a layer of ice on the snow. Everyone put on all the clothes he brought from home and what he could borrow.

When Master John Allen and his judges called the roll, two entries answered lost. This left 18 sore and tired hounds to be turned loose.

How well I remember this cast. Most of those who braved rain, snow and freezing weather the second and
third days fell by the wayside. The gallery was very small. As we stood there waiting for the word to let the hounds go, I could see the smoke curling from the chimney of a farmhouse. Little by little the mist was fading away and the woods taking shape. The glimmer of the backwater from the Wheeler Dam showed on the valley below. The flowers that died would bloom again, the same birds build their nests, the same trees blossom. Sir Reynard and his mate would have their young in the same den and raise them up to afford us the pleasure we had come to enjoy for another year with our hounds.

All was very quiet. I glanced up and down the line, and each one standing there seemed to have a little
prayer on his lips with the hope that his hound would be the winner.

John Allen broke the silence with, “Take the leashes off your hounds.” At the final count the hounds were
free and on their own. They began to hobble across the little clearing, and most of us began to walk slowly behind them s if we were paying our last respects to a loved one.

Just a few yards into the piney woods, Scott Henslee hollered fox and the others began to perk up and look
for a better scent of the fox. They hunted and trailed for a great while and the scent seemed to improve.

As the morning passed on you could hear the cry of your hound and others. As luck would have it, just as it was time for the hunt to be called off the big red fox came right through the casting ground with every hound that finished in hot pursuit. As the fox came by in plain view, he gave us a sly look and a couple of shakes of his beautiful tail as if to say, “How is that for a perfect finish?”

Two answered lost and three loafed, leaving 15 hounds that finished the toughest and most grueling field
trial I ever experienced. The winners:

1. Half-Back Pickett (Howard Pickett ex kersha Haggin) HV ******* then of Petersburg, Ill;
2. Finley & Douglas’ Jim (Alka Setzer ex White Rose Judy II) Gist Finley and Dr. Charles Douglas, York,
SC;
3. Scott Henslee (Gabriel Heatter ex Little Baby Lou) Major Henslee, Camilla, Ga;
4. Wheeler Hill (Lynn Raider ex Mandy Hill) Mose Hill, Waco, Ky;
5. Larry Setzer (Alka Setzer ex White Rose Judy II) Finley and Douglas;
6. Light (Alka Setzer ex White Rose Judy II) JR White, Spartanburg, SC;
7. Smuggler (Sun Dial Governor ex Ruby Parrish) CG Green, Clarksville, Tex;
8. Pine Ridge Lady (Pine Ridge Swing ex Pine Ridge Patsy Begone) CL Robertson, Knightdale, NC;
9. Fanny Wade (Alka Setzer ex Lizzie Wade) Grady Turner, Winnsboro, SC;
10. Tom Boy (USO Ch Buck Branham Mooney ex Bonnie East) WV Mooney, Kernersville, NC

The other five that finished were:

11. Sam Brooks (Sam W. Brooks ex Gloria Maser) JR White;
12. Belmont Ceyfus (Baldwin’s Ripple ex Maggie Steel) Howard Stovall, Stovall, Miss;
13. Crooked Fly (B. H. Brook ex Roxie C. II) R.B. Murphy, Bahama, NC;
14. Kathryn Hill (Wade Webb ex Grace Cole) Arthur Cook, Florence, Ala;
15. Frank (Silver Stride ex Mary) WH (Alabama) Hill, Hedley, Tex

John Allen was master of hounds, assisted by 14 as fine judges as ever were assembled in one group:
Perry Prescott, Red Thomas, Lyle Pippin, Otto Hatch, John Genseal, Jack Hosch, Hugh Jeter, Ernest Davis,
J.B. Gill, Dale Hamilton, Robert Covington, Philip Wyatt, Jim King and Edmond Power.

I like to judge, but I sure didn’t envy the boys that judged this trial. They really had what it took to stay out there and work under the weather conditions we had. They certainly had my thanks. They were well mounted, as Henry Bell Covington furnished them with a fine lot of good horses. You can see what a fine job they did by the number of scores turned in on the ten hounds that placed.

Half-Back Pickett won with the lucky number 13. He placed first in S&D for the four days with 425 points, first endurance with 100 points. His total points for the four days were 715. He was already known in the winning circle, having won best derby at the Mid-West trials and placing fifth in the Futurity.

Finley and Douglas’ Jim, the second place winner, was a great hound. He placed 4th at the National and
came on to the USO with a bad front foot. He placed third in S&D with 250 points, a total across the board of
545.

Scott Henslee came back after placing 10th last year to third place this year with a total of 480 points.
Wheeler Hill placed fourth after being seen but very little for the first two days. Larry Setzer, 5th, placed first
in hunting.

You hunters that enjoy looking over the bloodlines of different hounds, take a second look at the pedigrees
of the first five place winners of this 1950 USO and see how many times they pop up in our present-day
hounds.

At the 1949 USO I was talking to Edmond Power about the breeding of different hounds as to some that he
liked best, their running qualities, pedigree, mouth, etc., and he told me that Cyrano and Filibuster would just about fill his bill. Now this year the winner had both of these hounds close up through his sire Howard Pickett, also another cross of Cyrano through his dam’s side, as well as the Buzzard Wing and Tom Crowe cross. Maybe Half-Back couldn’t help but be a winner.

When I think of Finley and Douglas’ Jim my mind carries me back to the 1942 National at Paducah, Ky. I couldn’t help noticing Alka Setzer—the way he was put together, his mouth and the way he could handle a
fox. He went on to place 5th in the all age. After looking over his pedigree it made me like him all the more.

When I look over a pedigree with hounds close up like Napoleon K., Pebbles Parrish, Flying Cloud, John
Branham, Glenn II, Grace Hall, Sampson, Scott, and the family of Blanton hounds all running back to old Hub Dawson, it makes me know that you have something that was bred to run a fox.

I have known Dr. Douglas for years, and he has bred some fine foxhounds. I know that Finley and Douglas’
Jim was bred to more than most popular stud hounds, and Jim was never advertised at public stud.

When Half-Back Pickett won and Jim placed second and Alka Setzer sired four of the first ten place winners, Dr. Douglas started looking around for a Howard Pickett hound to cross on his Alka Setzer blood (as he couldn’t buy Half-Back Pickett). He came up with Mulberry Pickett, and this has been a successful cross-Alka Setzer blood on the Pickett blood.

I would like to elaborate on Scott Henslee and Wheeler Hill also, but space won’t permit me to do it at this
time.

At the business meeting Judge Gist Finley of York, S.C., was elected president, and John Allen, Iuka, Miss., was elected secretary-treasurer. And it was a great, great field trial.

Arthur Cook's description of the last day is one of the best pieces of literature in American history. I would put it up against anything Faulkner ever wrote.

and they say it is all about money today. Look at the Wealth of the individuals that placed at this great hunt. Would like to know with todays inflation schedule what they would have been worth in todays Market. 3 days trials have never been and is still not about money any Hunter worth his salt knows alot more is spent than is ever won. It is the Competition