MARTYN BLACKMORE, LHW HUNTSMAN

Martyn was born ( a long time ago!) in Bridgetown, a small Exmoor village on the River Exe, in Somerset, UK.   As a child he and his family followed local hunts and once he gained his independency, he followed hounds on his bicycle until old enough to ride a motorcycle and then progressed to driving a car; thus allowing him to travel to hunts further away.

A Jack of all trades, Martyn started work on his 15th birthday at a tannery and then moved on to working for Somerset County Council as a supervisory foreman.   Upon moving to Hampshire, he became a highways superintendent for the County Council.   Whilst living and working in Hampshire, Martyn spent all of his free time helping the staff in the Vine and Craven Hunt kennels.   They encouraged Martyn to take riding and jumping lessons and once he'd mastered that skill, he left the County Council and went into hunt service initially being employed by the Essex Hunt as their first whipper-in in 1983.  

Moving on, as many young whippers-in do to gain experience and work their way up to ultimately becoming a Huntsman, he became 1st whipper-in to the Hursley Humbledon Hunt.   In 1992 he became Kennel Huntsman for the East Sussex and Romney Marsh Hounds, based near Hastings, Sussex.   Whilst there he met his, then unbeknownst, future wife, Sue, who was finishing up the ES&RM hunt's 1992 season as stud groom.   Martyn then moved back to his beloved Exmoor and took on the Kennel Huntsman position with the Tiverton Staghounds, after two seasons there he then became 1st whipper-in for the Dulverton East Hunt; this was a part-time position so he was also stud groom for the, then, joint secretary of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds.

1997 was the big change year:  He and Sue, who was working for a joint Master for the Devon and Somerset Staghounds, officially became an item; he was a core walker for the Liberty and Livelihood March, and spent 3 weeks walking from Penzance to Hyde Park in London; he was offered the position as Huntsman for Mr Jeffords Hounds, in WY.

Martyn and Sue headed to the USA, taking everything they owned, plus two dogs and spent 4 years in the wild west of Wyoming.   Martyn hunted a pack of Penn-marydels and soon gained the experience in hunting coyote instead of fox.   He and his pack won the first Western Hunt Challenge in 1998.   Sue also learnt, very quickly, how to whip-in as she was all Martyn had to assist him, and the 150 hounds, in hunting over one million acres of the most awesome country you could imagine!   Moving on south and further west, he became Huntsman to the Santa Ynez Valley Hounds on the central coast of California.   During his 5 years there, Martyn built up a fabulous pack of predominantly English hounds and together they hunted coyote, wild pig and occasionally bobcat.

The Blackmore's then ended up with an great opportunity to hunt with Loudoun Hunt West.  Finally, Martyn had made it to Virginia and to the Hunting State of the US!  After his first season of settling in and with many changes, he's already proving himself to be the professional, successful huntsman his preceeding reputation had advertised and, hopefully, he'll be continuing the good hunting trend for many years to come!