Skip and Vicki Crawford, MFHs, Potomac Hunt, celebrate their horse’s second winning of the Maryland Hunt Cup with trainer Joe Davies (center). / Douglas Lees photoAfter winning the Grand National Steeplechase in Butler, Maryland on April 21, 2018, Senior Senator marched to the starting line of the legendary Maryland Hunt Cup at Worthington Farms on the following Saturday, April 28. The eight-year-old bay gelding with the long white blaze must have reminded himself, ‘I won this race two years ago, and I can do it again.’ And he did. Two prestigious wins in two successive weeks. Senator is now two legs up on the three wins necessary to retire the cup for owner Skip Crawford and his wife Vicki, MFHs of the Potomac Hunt (MD).
Senior Senator is aloft over Fence 13, a vertical obstacle of solid timber rails nearly 5 feet high and a favorite for race watchers. (Note the soft hands of jockey Eric Perez.) Drift Society (Haddon Frost up) approaches takeoff. / Douglas Lees photoAfter a winless career on the flat track in seven starts, Senior Senator took advantage of a career change. The Maryland Hunt Cup win was his fifth win in ten starts over timber. Of the five races he didn’t win, three were seconds, one win was disqualified, and one was a fall in last year’s Hunt Cup.
On this day, the horse-rider team of Senior Senator and Eric Perez, under trainer Joe Davies’ regimen, went to the front of the nine-horse field from the start and stayed there. “That’s the way Senior Senator likes to run,” said Vicki Crawford. “He likes to be in front.”
After four miles and twenty-two fences, Senior Senator led just two survivors to the wire. Joshua G, the only challenger over the last few fences, placed second. Drift Society was third. Four horses fell, one lost its rider, and one pulled up, all victims of the stiffest timber course in all of jump racing.
Derwin’s Prospector, also trained by Joe Davies, is one of the horses that fell. Derwin’s Prospector was the Maryland Hunt Cup winner in 2017 after Senior Senator’s fall. Davies’ win this year makes him the first trainer to win three consecutive Maryland Hunt Cups. Joe Davies is a Maryland Hunt Cup winning rider himself from his days in the irons.
Of the 122 Maryland Hunt Cup races now in the history books, there have been only eight three-time winners. That elite list includes Jay Trump, one of only two horses to have ever won both the Maryland Hunt Cup and the English Grand National Steeplechase at Aintree. The other Hunt Cup winner that also won at Aintree, was Ben Nevis II with two Maryland Hunt Cup wins.
Happily, Senior Senator has put last year’s frightful fall behind him. After surgery at New Bolton Center and months of stall rest as the result of a broken bone in his neck, he came back strong this season, winning the point-to-point at Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire (PA), placing second at Elkridge-Harford (MD), then winning the Grand National and the Maryland Hunt Cup on successive Saturdays.
Speaking of the 2018 Grand National, jockey Perez had himself quite a day there, winning each of the three races on the card.
Click for complete results of the 2018 Maryland Hunt Cup.
Posted May 4, 2018