The Chronicle of the Horse - In the
Country Erskine Lott Bedford, the popular and
respected jt.-MFH of the Piedmont Fox Hounds (Va.), died of
head injuries on Dec. 6 after his horse collapsed beneath
him on a run. He was 65. © Copyright 1998 The
Chronicle of the Horse
Although Mr. Bedford was a stockbroker and farmer, his
life's passion was foxhunting. He joined the late Mrs. A.C.
Randolph as joint master in 1979, and many regarded him as
one of the finest fieldmasters in the world. "He had a
wonderful sense of the country and what was going on with
hounds," said Gail Wofford, a former Piedmont jt.-MFH. "He
was a gentleman, he was kind, he was a mentor to children.
Everyone loved him."
Mr. Bedford majored in agricultural science at Cornell
University (N.Y.), and in 1961 he purchased the 385-acre
"Old Welbourne," near Bluemont, Virginia. He was twice named
Farmer of the Year in Loudoun County.
Mr. Bedford was a former treasurer of the U.S. Combined
Training Association, a co-trustee for the Glenwood Park
race course, and a trustee of Morven Park, where he helped
found the Museum of Hounds and Hunting. He was also a life
member of the U.S. Pony Clubs, which his parents, Dean and
Louise Bedford, had co-founded, and a board member of many
local farming and conservation organizations.
Daughter Cricket Whitner, of Bluemont, Va., said her father
was intimately familiar with Piedmont's 85,000-acre
territory. "You could have dropped him blindfolded out of a
plane in Piedmont country, and in 15 seconds he could
identify every panel, every hole, every gate, every covert,"
she said.
Mr. Bedford took pains to spend time with landowners,
counseling them on farming practices and urging them to keep
their land productive and open. He was always ready to scoop
up a piece of trash or a rock, build a coop, lower a fence
rail, settle the field with a joke, offer a discourse on the
Civil War history of the land over which they were hunting,
or to simply exclaim over its beauty.
Whitner said her father's 16-year-old Thoroughbred suffered
an aneurysm and was dead within seconds. A rider in the
field summoned an ambulance with a cellular phone, and he
was evacuated by medical helicopter. He died that evening
without regaining consciousness.
"In many ways, we couldn't have written a better ending. He
went down doing what he loved," said Whitner.
He was buried in the family cemetery at Old Welbourne on
Dec. 10. Andrew Barclay, huntsman of the Green Spring Valley
Hounds (Md.), blew "gone away" as Randy Waterman, Piedmont's
jt.-MFH and huntsman, and the Piedmont hounds paraded past
the graveyard in silence and then galloped over the hill in
full cry.
In addition to Whitner, Mr. Bedford is survived by his
children: Lily L. Raines of Baltimore; Daphne Wooten of
Camden, S.C.; and Dean E. Bedford of Charlottesville, Va.;
brother Dean Bedford Jr. of Metamora, Mich.; sister Daphne
Dennehy of Lake Forest, Ill.; and partner Karen Ewbank and
her daughters, Charlotte and Maureen.
Contributions in his memory may be made to the Glenwood Park
Trust or the Piedmont Fox Hounds.
D.F. & P.W.