Blythe Miller-Davies on Private Attack is congratulated by husband Joe Davies after winning the Maryland Hunt Cup. Michael Wharton leads the winner.First the Grand National on April 23, then the Maryland Hunt Cup on April 30. Two winning performances for Blythe Miller-Davies and Private Attack. Yet the circumstances made it all the more dramatic.
Miller-Davies—former champion jump jock, mother, and trainer—had retired from riding races more than eight years ago. Mark Beecher was to ride Sportsmans Hall’s Private Attack in the Grand National for trainer Alicia Murphy, but was having visa problems in Ireland. Murphy turned to Miller-Davies, and the pair won by a neck.
Meanwhile, Miller-Davies had been training her husband’s horse Fort Henry which she had intended to ride in the Maryland Hunt Cup one week later. The Grand National win changed those plans, and husband Joe Davies, a former three-time winner of the Maryland Hunt Cup, graciously scratched his horse so his wife could ride Private Attack in that race.
The pair romped to a sixty-length victory in the Maryland Hunt Cup, and the only problem Blythe-Miller seemed to have was keeping her horse sufficiently interested in finishing the job. Private Attack, who had come in second in the Maryland Hunt Cup last year, was one of only three finishers out of ten starters this year.
For more details, see Kent Baker’s article in The Baltimore Sun.
Posted May 3, 2011
Third fence (l-r): And the Eagle Flys, Billy Meister up (second) and Private Attack, Blythe Miller-Davies (first)
Still a horse race, but not for long.