Photo courtesy of
Cynthia Stewart, Jt-MFH Beech Grove

By Lauren R. Giannini

Elese Alsup grew up on a farm in Tennessee and rode horses, but she didn’t get actively involved with foxhunting until she was 30 years old. The former high school English teacher read a lot, especially about hunting: she knew it was something she wanted to do. In 1990 she started subscribing to the Mells. Her dedication and passion for the sport showed, and she was designated field master and eventually appointed Jt-MFH. She got the notion to start her own pack and with the help and support of her whipper-in/husband Dale Alsup, founded Beech Grove Hunt in 2000.

Sidelines: What was challenging about starting a hunt?
EA: Everything was hard! I would drive 70 miles one way to hunt with the Mells [Pulaski, TN] and I did that all those years. In Beech Grove, when I was still with the Mells, I put together a fixture here at my house and another nearby so I wouldn’t have to drive all those miles. Right off the bat I had two fixtures that weren’t in anyone else’s hunt country, and I put together a third later. I never knew or cared anything about hounds the whole time I hunted with the Mells. I loved being field master and I just wanted to run and jump.
The hardest thing for me – I had to learn from scratch about hounds and hound care. Walking out hounds filled me with terror, because I thought, ‘oh my God, what if I lose all these hounds?’ I didn’t know about hounds and a lot of people joining Beech Grover were brand new to foxhunting, so I needed to learn a lot, but I also needed time to teach them.

Sidelines: Who helped you to be a huntsman?
EA: I knew if I started a pack, I would be the one to hunt them. I got hounds from Hillsborough [Franklin, TN] and Henry Hooker [MFH] and Johnny Gray [huntsman] were very generous with help and advice. Joy McCormick [MFH/huntsman] at Mells was very helpful and gave me hounds. Sue Skipper is huntsman and Jt-MFH of Chula Homa [Miss.] and she’d hunted hounds for 15 years. I would pick up the phone and call her. She held my hand. We continue to call each other every week and discuss our hounds and the hunting. Robert Douglas, professional huntsman at South Creek Foxhound (FL) – he’s hunted all his life and it means a lot to me that we swap hounds. Before I hunted hounds, he would always let me ride with him and I learned a lot by observing what he did in the field. He’s always giving me good advice and answering my questions.

Sidelines: Life with hounds doesn’t bode well for hairdos and manicures – did you mind the wear and tear on your appearance?
EA: I was right from the farm, I was a tomboy and I played in the mud much to my mother’s horror – she was more of a girly-girl. I don’t think that spending so much time in the kennels and with the hounds changed me.

Sidelines: How do you deal with the pressure?
EA: Well, there’s the me that you can ride with on the trails, and then there’s this thing that happens to me when I’m hunting hounds. Friends say, ‘Elese is a nice person, she just gets a little intense when she’s out there hunting85’
Hunt members don’t realize there’s a lot at stake if a hound goes over on this person’s property where we can’t go or that if a hound crosses over here, there’s a highway – or if hounds go over there, the hunt will be over because it’s a seeded field and hounds can go there, but the horses can’t.
If you come back and the hunt’s successful, and everyone’s had a good time – it’s immediate, the pressure just goes away. We’re a small hunt, like a family, and I unwind and can sit down together and re-live the day, enjoying the food and the fellowship.

Sidelines: Has life gotten easier for you, as master and huntsman?
EA: Hunting hounds is easier. I was very uptight. I didn’t want to do wrong by the hounds, and I didn’t want to lose them. There was a point that I was so uptight – you couldn’t say that hunting was fun fun, but by the fourth or fifth year I started feeling more comfortable and I guess I’ve gotten more competent.
I developed my own breeding program. I want biddable hounds – it makes life easier when they listen to me. Our country isn’t that large, and I’m not trying to breed the fastest pack. Our terrain is very steep, rocky and heavily wooded. My friends from Mississippi call our hills the “mountains” of Tennessee. You need a Thoroughbred to get around. Terrain is what probably limits our membership, to a certain degree. We’ll get up a hill, and people turn around to look and ask, ‘How are we going to get back down?’
As for the horn calls, I get by and my hounds know what I’m trying to say, but I don’t think I’m going to be entering any horn-blowing contests anytime soon!