2025 Recipient: Marion Thorne, MFH and Huntsman

Genesee Valley Hunt, Geneseo, NY

This year The Bryn Mawr Hound Show Association is proud to give the Julian Marshall Award to Marion Thorne, huntsman and Joint Master of The Genesee Valley Hunt, in recognition of her lifetime of contributions to hounds and hunting.

Marion has worked tirelessly from a young age to become a great horsewoman, an astute liaison with landowners, but most of all, a great hound person. She learned at the heels of her stepfather, W. Austin Wadsworth, MFH, and his sister, Martha Wadsworth, MFH, both accomplished huntsmen themselves.

GVH huntsman since 2001 and Joint Master since 2006, Marion has capitalized on her family’s tradition of excellent breeding and hound work. While consistently logging more hunting days than any other huntsman (131 last year), she also runs an extensive and complex breeding program. Her pack expands into American, English, and other Crossbred hunts to keep a cohesive pack with very broad bloodlines. While GVH is among the oldest hunts in America, Marion has not resisted innovation. She started hunting coyote as soon as they appeared in her country, and was an early adopter of tracking collars, both for safety and training purposes.

Marion has been generous with her time and her hounds to help other packs, offering nice, completely made hounds as needed. She served on the MFHA Board for 6 years, and has been Chairman of the MFHA Professional Development Program for 10 years. This program selects a few younger Hunt Staff each year for a 12-month course (in addition to their regular duties) to hone their skills through education and participation. Bryn Mawr and other shows are very fortunate that she also makes the time to judge hound shows, where her fine eye and fairness make her highly respected and sought after.

It is easy to see that Marion should be as famous and well-known as many other long-serving Masters, about whom books have been written and vainglorious movies have been made, yet that is not her style. She continues to work quietly to improve her pack, her hunt, and every hunt in America. This is why “The Irish Field” reported “Marion Thorne is at the height of her profession, and her pack must be the hunting world’s best kept secret.”