December 8, 2011

Mary Motion at sixteen is one of only four riders of that age in the country to have earned a steeplechase amateur jockey’s license. Riding against some of the best and experienced jockeys last fall on Pennsylvania Hunt Cup Day, she placed third. It was only a few years ago that Motion was tearing up the turf in the pony races at the point-to-points against the other moppets. Her latent genes were waiting to express themselves from the start, and she caught the racing bug early. Both her mother and grandmother raced, her father Andrew is a Thoroughbred breeder, and her uncle Graham, a trainer, saddled last year’s Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom. Motion is under the tutelage of a pair of the very best trainers in Neil Morris and Doug Fout, both in Virginia, and her sights are set on the Maryland Hunt Cup. Read more about this talented young foxhunter/race rider in Danielle Nadler’s article in Leesburg Today. Posted December 8, 2011

A morbid meeting place at first blush, but this historic tavern in Mount Royal, New Jersey, built around 1727, came by its name in the course of honest business—providing drink and sustenance to members of the Gloucester Fox Hunting Club after their hunts. Founded in 1766 by a group of Philadelphia gentlemen, the Gloucester Foxhunting Club was the first organized hunt in the New World. The club was named for Gloucester County in New Jersey, directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. The club flourished from 1766 to 1818, and presumably so did the Death of the Fox Inn. During the Revolutionary War, according to Kelly Roncace in her article in the Gloucester County Times, the inn was used as a recruiting center and military headquarters. Some of the more grisly history of the inn is associated with the hanging of a Tory from a walnut tree nearby. Today, it is a privately owned home with six fireplaces, wide floorboards, and some of the original doors and hardware. Posted December 8, 2011