Points scored today in S&D is just shattering the marks of 15 yrs ago. What caused this. Faster Dogs, Better Four Wheelers for judges, better feed, better pens. Out here we have had coyotes for yrs. so the thought of that versus fox want hold. What is your opinion.

This by belief we have breed for more speed in our hounds with this in mind the building of preserves to run in all over has given us the ability to see more for hunters and hounds hounds are faster today steve but more heart and ability to run game of yesterdays hounds not....and the dog feed companys have stepped up there formulas to help us get the most from our hounds.and as heath would say so has other matters at that?????

i think the perception of the "need for speed" combined with rule changes that favor this type of hound has changed peoples breeding habits producing not better foxhounds than 15 years ago but simply faster/smarter hounds that are scoring more.

Good question Steve. I believe all of the reasons you listed are legitimate plus the fact that for the most part everyone is breeding for speed rather than combination like many years ago. Obviously hunting and trailing are not legitimate factors much anymore. If you check the score sheets back before the past 20 yrs you will see that many of the winners were because of hunting and trailing scores in addition to speed and drive. Most of the hounds you listed as old time stud dogs that were field trial champions won with large hunting and trailing scores. Also with the help of GPS and tracking collars, endurance is not much of a factor any more because we usually have our hounds caught up pretty quick after the 5 hr running is over and therefore are able to get them on the chain, feed them, water them, and get them rested for the next day. This has helped a lot. Actually a short houred hound works great in todays trials because they sprint the whole time and have been trained to do it rather than "pace" themselves thinking about running 10 to 12 hours like it was many years ago. Most of the field trialers start from pups training their hounds to run 5 to 6 hours in a dead run and they never really tire so they certainly run faster than a hound that has been run all night all their lives. I don't know many hunters any more that let their hounds run more than around 6 hours and mostly they turn out just before daylight and let them run nearly all together in the daylight for around that amt of time. Therefore they are certainly trained to do just that. When I first started hunting in the 50's and even into the 60's we all ran all night and all of the hounds in the trial were run that way. Not any more, most of them are programmed to run the shorter hours and therefore they can run faster"sprint" the whole time. The same difference in a quarter horse race and a thoroughbred horse race. There is no real strategy in quarter horse racing, its just run as hard and fast as you possibly can for a short race as opposed to a thoroughbred race which requires strategy, holding back, preparing for the long run, and outlasting the ones that ran harder at the beginning of the race.

Evidence of this is look at your older Hunters Horns, at the stud dogs and field champions, and as I mentioned in my above post, the hounds you listed a few days back about the champion stud hounds, they were usually heavier built, big boned, stout made hounds, Big Jester, Big Benny, Mark S, just to name a few, and the hounds today are streamlined, more greyhound looking, sprint type hounds rather than big stout heavy hunds that are bred to run a long time. And as I stated earlier, it was very rare to win a trial without lots of hunting and trailing scores and those older hounds were very adapt at doing that. There wasn't usually wall to wall running back then like it is now and so the hound that would hunt tirelessly and the one with the big flag tail and the great mouth that would get a judges attention scored lots of these scores and quite often won. That is the main reason the Masters rules were formed, to keep the hound that gets off over to himself hunting and trailing from taking the win from the fast hound that runs the front for 3 days and doesn't get any hunting and trailing. You and I both know this and so do most of the other guys that run in field trials today.

Rule changes.

Don, Great points. They explain a lot about higher scores.
Maybe another point to consider as well is that we've learned a lot more about judging pen hunts -- how many judges it takes to adequately cover the various pens; where to place judges for least duplication of scores within ten (or five) minute time frames etc.
An exception to this is Mallens pen up here where we often have 15 judges covering the more open side of the pen and 1-3 covering the other half. The running is as good there as any enclosure I've been in, but because of the south-east side with no roads and few paths, the scoring isn't.
Number and quality of judges and pen coverage are definite factors in high scores.

You are so right Eric, I know in most pens we know where the main crossings are and judges strategly placed in those places certainly add to the scores.

Steve one thing is the 5 minute intervals. Also the size pen and number of hounds play a huge factor and the amount of game. The layout of the pen is a major factor. Once had a puppy hunt in my puppy pen ran 2 and a half hours with a 10 puppy limit and the winning pup had 2400 pts. The pen is 25 acres and they passed by 4 judges which is all i had but they could go by the 4 in a minute.If you run a trial with 75 hounds in a 3oo acre pen you will have higher scores on dogs than in a 2000 acre pen with 500 hounds. The point total may be the exact same but 500 hounds split one and 75 split the other which will be larger per hound.

If you mean why has the top score gone up, it is mostly due to having more game in the pens and having the judges to cover the running.
If you mean why has the average score gone up, I would say because a higher percentage of entries are actually well conditioned Running hounds rather than friday night pleasure hounds or hounds that won't get in a race.

It's all your fault Steve. You and Skinny keep breeding those speed demons with endurance.

Seriously it has alot to do with the flow of knowledge through Masterfox. Foxhunters are more educated and the hounds are healthier due to this knowledge. They conditioned better. Every successful foxhunter I know works hard to be the best. They give thier hounds the best nutrition and best conditiioning and leave the rest to the hound. Overall I would contribute it most to knowledge shared over the years has made the sport what it is today.