2026 Bedford County Hunter Pace/Trail Ride Series
Fox Hill Farm (Moneta) – Friday March 27th and Saturday March 28th
Oldenacres (Goode) – Friday April 24th and Saturday April 25th
Sweet Briar College (Amherst) – Friday May 8th and Saturday May 9th
Cedars (Goode) – Friday September 11th and Sunday September 13th
Long Meadows Farm (Huddleston) – Friday November 6th and Sunday November 8th
More information will be posted closer to each event!
Special Hunter Pace Series Awards
William R. King Perpetual Trophy
The William R. King Perpetual Trophy is awarded annually to the Junior team or individual that earns the highest total number of points in any given year’s Bedford County Hunter Pace Series. The winning team or individual must compete in all the paces.
The trophy is awarded in honor of Bill King, who served as Professional Huntsman to the Bedford County Hunt for 41 years, from 1972 to 2013. Originally, it was awarded to the champion of the fox hunter division at our fall horse shows. It is now awarded to the top junior team or individual in the Junior Division of our Hunter Pace Series to encourage young riders to advance from hunter paces to fox hunting. The trophy was sponsored by a group of long-term members of the hunt who desired to express their great appreciation for the sport he provided for so many years.
Bill came to Bedford from the Radnor Hunt in Pennsylvania where he was the professional huntsman, following in the footsteps of his father, Harry King, who hunted hounds for the prominent industrialist George Brooks in Philadelphia. As Bill recounted to Ed Cann, MFH, he started hunting “when I was eight and hunted my pony in a halter and shank. My uniform was a pair of blue jeans.” Bill was not just a huntsman, he was truly a “houndsman,” and became known as “King of the National Beagle Club” for his champion Beagle pack, the Fox Valley Beagles. He was a known expert on fox hound breeding, particularly Penn-Marydel foxhounds. Our hound Winston, who was Champion at the 2017 Kimberton Hound Show, came from Wishful, one of the last Penn-Marydel hounds that Bill bred before retiring. Bill’s legacy lives on!
Jesse Ray Ford Perpetual Trophy
The Jesse Ray Ford Perpetual Trophy is awarded annually to the team or individual that earns the highest total number of points in any given year’s Bedford County Hunter Pace Series. The winning team or individual must compete in all paces.
The trophy is a memorial to Jesse Ray Ford, who served as first whip to both the Bedford County Hunt and the Fox Valley Beagles. Jesse Ray, a local Rustburg boy, was larger than life. He was the Amherst County Extension Agent for years and a 4-H leader who profoundly impacted the lives of those he touched. As Dot Morcom accurately said, “He made the lives of dozens of Amherst County teens have a brilliance that could not be expressed in words by dedicating each weekend to spending time with those kids in his 4-H group.”
He left the area to earn his PH.D. at the University of Tennessee, and from there was hired as the Professional Huntsman for the Midland Foxhounds in Columbus, Georgia, a truly legendary pack. Jesse Ray served in this position until diagnosed with a brain tumor in the 1990s. He returned home to Rustburg with his wife Julie and three sons and passed away in 1999. The Reverend Jerry Falwell personally gave his eulogy. To quote Med Long, “We all loved and adored him. He brought out the best in everyone he met, and I’ve never ever met anyone who could make me laugh as hard as he could. He was, in a word, magical.”
Bedford County Hunt Club 