Ashleigh Dove, a Purcellville, VA resident who discovered foxhunting while she was a Foxcroft School student and has been a regular participant with the Middleburg Hunt even while away at college, received the Theodora Ayer Randolph Sporting Scholarship "under the oaks" at the Upperville Colt and Horse Show last Saturday.

The scholarship, which carries a $1,000 cash award, is given annually in memory of Randolph and the true sporting spirit she embodied. It goes to a young equestrian who is an active foxhunter with interest in several horse sports and a desire to improve her knowledge and skills of horses and hunting. Ashleigh continues to show hunters and jumpers in addition to riding to the hounds.

"This award was made for Ashleigh," said Penny Denègre, one of the Masters of the Middleburg Hunt (and a past Foxcroft trustee and parent), who nominated Ashleigh for the honor and attended the presentation. "She has experience in other riding disciplines, but also loves hunting so much that she drives up from Charlottesville to ride with us all the time."

As Denègre noted in her nomination, Ashleigh participated in the Foxcroft School/Middleburg Hunt annual FoxHound Day four times, shadowing the huntsmen and other leaders of the Hunt. As a senior, she held an internship at the Hunt's kennels during Wintermission. She learned about the care and training of the hounds and then shared that knowledge with a presentation to the entire School community.

A rising senior at the University of Virginia, Ashleigh rarely misses a weekend of riding with Middleburg. Most often she works with horses that belong to the Hunt's honorary whipper-in Carey Schefte. Ashleigh wrote about her love of hunting for eCovertside, the MFHA's magazine, while she was at Foxcroft, and the publication has featured her in a more recent issue.

From the moment Ashleigh first rode with the Middleburg Hunt, on October 1, 2011, as a Foxcroft sophomore, she was smitten by the sport. "After my first time out, I knew that this was for me!" she says. "I had found something that I wanted to do for the rest of my life."

Thanks to her friends at the Middleburg Hunt for nominating her and the Upperville Colt and Horse Show organizers for establishing the Randolph Sporting Scholarship, Ashleigh can take another step on her quest to do just that.