Earning your Colors at WHC

One of the greatest honors WHC can bestow on a Hunting Member is to award them the privilege of wearing the Hunt Club’s colors. It’s an honor, and also brings with it responsibility for the wearer. It’s more than just getting to ride in the front of the field. It means the Master(s) consider you a valued member of the hunt, based on your participation year round in supporting the hunt, and your abilities in the hunt field. Other riders should be able to look to you to solve little problems as they arise during a hunting day and to navigate them though our hunt country if necessary.

Earning your colors will entitle you to wear a special red collar and our WHC buttons on your hunt coat. Awarding of individual Hunt Colors is completely a Master’s prerogative. The Master will follow a set of guidelines in determining a candidate for their colors. Prerequisites include hunting regularly to permit a proper evaluation of the individual’s qualifications, participating in Hunt events, assisting with the affairs of the Hunt and volunteering for non hunting activities. Any member awarded colors should, in the opinion of the Master, be a person knowledgeable of Foxhunting etiquette, and a proficient rider, who when hunting with any Hunt, would not be an embarrassment to their club.

Earning your colors at WHC is a two to three year time commitment to our wonderful sport of foxhunting, and it will be as great an honor for the Masters to give a member his or her colors as it will be for him or her to receive them! The information below provides a member with the guidelines to earn their colors, whether they are in the first, second or third year and should help prepare them for the written test. Each year the test is changed and/or updated and the requirements may change as well. For example, candidates used to have to know how to get back to the clubhouse from various fixtures because the hunt always started from the clubhouse before JBLM fenced off TA 7N. Now you need to know how to navigate back to the trailers at multiple parking fixtures on various JBLM training areas

Here are the general requirements:

Have hunted the majority of formal, weekend hunts for two to three years or more.
Be thoroughly familiar with the rules of the hunt field, hunt riding protocol and dress protocol, and have been observed putting them into practice. This information will be obtained from the fieldmasters with whom you have been riding.
Be knowledgeable about the WHC hunt country. This includes five areas: 1.) .Know our hunt country well enough and where you are in it so that you could lead a flight back to the trailers if needed. 2.) Know the names of the main roads well enough to report your location if your flight gets lost or you see a hound and need to report the location to the huntsman (don't worry, there really aren't that many!). 3.) Be able to recognize and name some familiar JBLM landmarks (which also may be fixtures) ie. the Chimney, Johnson Marsh, Osama's, Hillhurst, the cemetery, Chambers Lake, the wooden bridge, etc 4.) Be familiar with the courses we use and who they are named after, ie. the Kellogg, Selden prairie, Sferra, Gilpin, Kolt, etc.
Participated on two breakfast teams per year while working on your colors, one of those years could have been a paid ($175.) breakfast sponsorship.
Joined or chaired a WHC board committee for two to three years.
Participated in work parties and trail clearing parties yearly
Volunteered at a major WHC fundraiser, such as the Hunt Ball, Hunter Trials or a competition like the Hunter Paces and Horse Show for two to three years.
Be familiar with the WHC hunting pack, be able to identify some of the key hounds by their name and color. The upcoming Hound Challenge will provide you with all the information you will need, so bid on your own hound and watch them for the remainder of the season!
Be courteous, kind and helpful, especially to guests and new members and always in an emergency or when someone is having problems with their horse.
Pass a written test on riding to hounds and hunting terms based on the pamphlet "Introduction to Foxhunting," by LT COL Dennis Foster. (You received one in your new member package, and it is available from the Membership Chair, Jt. MFH Theresa Lazares). The test will be administered in the Spring before the closing dinner where colors are awarded. Those wishing to be considered for their colors must sit for the test.

Each member working towards their colors should have a copy of the "New Member Activity Log Sheet" Please contact JT Master Theresa Lazares to obtain one at [email protected]. Log sheets can be downloaded from the MEMBERS ONLY section of this website. Some of you have been turning them in each year, if you haven't, you can retroactively fill one out and have it signed by one of the Masters. When the requirements on the activity sheet are complete and signed off by a Master, notify Jt. MFH Theresa Lazares that you are submitting the completed worksheet for this year and would like to sit for the Colors test. The Masters may ask each candidate additional questions or work with them on areas that need to be strengthened prior to taking the test. The final decision to award colors is at the discretion of the MFH.

The Colors Test is an open book test, and in preparing for it, please reach out to any of the Masters or senior members who will have the answers!