In the blood
From Miss Susan Clarke
Sir: I read with interest Charles Moore's column (Hunting, 1 March). Mr Moore's articles on foxhunting in your magazine are one of the highlights of my week, and I regard him as a modern-day Surtees. However, in last week's piece, entitled `The end of the line?', which he devoted to the skill of the breeding of foxhounds, he failed to make any mention of Miss Daphne Moore. Miss Moore, a close friend and confidante of the late Duke of Beaufort, known as 'Master'. devoted her entire life to the foxhound. Indeed, she is still regarded as a colossus in the world of foxhound bloodlines. No Peterborough Show was complete without Miss Moore. Her knowledge extended to such famous hounds as Fourburrow Whipcord. 1905, the famous Meynell Pageant, 1935, by South and West Wilts. 1928, out of the renowned Tedworth Pastry, 1930. South Dorset Salesman, 1944, and Tipperary Growler, 1964, should not he forgotten. Her two works on the subject, bibles for those whose business is the bloodlines of foxhounds, were The Book of the Foxhound, published in 1974, foreworded by the late Duke of Beaufort, and Foxhounds, in 1981.
Together with 'Master', from her home at Pond Cottage, Badminton, she worked tirelessly to improve the line of the Beaufort pack; other packs too benefited from Miss Moore's advice on breeding and bloodlines. Hounds singing at dawn was as grand opera to Daphne Moore.
Miss Moore died in the 1990s and was much lamented, not least in the pages of Horse and Hound.
This omission in his article could of course be false modesty on the part of Charles Moore. Is Mr Moore by any chance related to the great Daphne? In which case it proves his point that some things are just 'in the blood'.
Susan Clarke
London SW3
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