Horses

Photos by Douglas Lees

Maiden Timber (l-r): #14, Flaming Sword (Aaron Sinnott up), winner; Some Response (Eric Poretz up) is seen above winner; #12, Holiday Mousse (Jacob Roberts up); #3, Le Aqua (Paul Cawley up), finishes third

The Piedmont Point-to-Point Races at Salem Racecourse on Saturday, March 23, 2019 got off to an interesting start in the first race, Maiden Timber. Some Response and jockey Eric Poretz, captured above (top center) in a disagreement at the first fence, ultimately parted company at the sixth fence. The horse did prove he could jump and do the distance, however. He took his own line over a four-foot-three-inch boundary fence, raced east on Route 50, through the village of Upperville, and was finally captured unharmed at the Hunter’s Head restaurant by huntsman Jordan Hicks and whipper-in Lissa Green, outriders. The trio were met by a police escort for the return trip to Salem, followed by jammed-up westbound traffic.

Photos by Douglas Lees

 Open Hurdle race, Second Division: (l-r) Orchestra Leader, 15, (Keri Brion up) wins in the fastest time of both divisions. Storm Team is 4th and Special Skills finishes 3rd.

Hunt racing in Virginia opened on a beautiful spring day with the Warrenton Hunt Point-to-Point at Airlie on Saturday, March 16, 2019. Ten races were carded with the Open Hurdle and Maiden Hurdle races split into two well-filled divisions each.

This Douglas Lees photograph captures the huntsman’s horse expressing himself most clearly!

A horse walks into a bar.

“Why the long face?” asks the bartender.

Scientists at the University of Sussex must have heard that old joke and taken it seriously. They have discovered that horses are able to employ seventeen distinct facial expressions—three more than chimpanzees and one more than dogs. Humans, by way of comparison, are able to communicate their most subtle feelings by twenty-seven different facial expressions through our exceedingly dexterous facial musculature.

John Wittenborn and Soccer, representing the Smithtown Hunt (NY), win 2018 Theodora Randolph Field Hunter Championship in Virginia.

John Wittenborn and his fourteen-year-old Clydesdale-Thoroughbred cross, Soccer, returned home to Long Island and the Smithtown Hunt with the Championship Trophy and ribbon from the Theodora Randolph 2018 Field Hunter Championship in Virginia. Three tries was the charm for Wittenborn and Soccer. Last year the pair made a good showing, placing third.

It was the first team from a northern hunt to have won the coveted prize in thirty-five years of competitions. And it was fitting; Mrs. Randolph was a northerner, though from Boston’s North Shore.

One time when I was temporarily horseless, the huntsman offered me a mount. The horse, an ex-chaser with a lovely disposition and a big confident jump, was for sale because, according to the huntsman, “He won’t go in front.” After a vigorous day of hunting during which the horse in question certainly acted as though he wanted to go in front, I soaked my sore, stretched arms in liniment and remained curious about the huntsman’s assessment.

Not long after riding the ex-chaser, I had the privilege of hunting up front with huntsman Tony Gammell, where I got a lesson in the meaning of “going in front.”

Solo Lord and Michael Hoffman in the hunting field.A dear friend was lost today. We have known each other since he was two. There was an immediate friendship and connection. We did a lot of firsts together, and when we were both home you knew the other was there. He was an international traveler, visiting the Cheltenham Festival in the spring of 2002. He loved to foxhunt but was just as happy doing grid work and flat work.

The late Bay Cockburn and Gordie Keyes introduced us in Olney, Maryland. He was tall and skinny with a devilish gleam in his eye and a scar around his right ankle. And you knew right off there was something special about him. He was tough, but a quick learner and a graceful athlete. He took to field sports immediately and nothing was beyond his reach.

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).

This oil painting by Linda Volrath is a reminder of the cruel winds and sometimes worse weather that prevailed at the Blue Ridge Hunt point-to-point on that first weekend in March every year. With the new late-April race date, such days on this excellent viewing racecourse are now just a memory...it is sincerely hoped.The Blue Ridge Hunt’s point-to-point course at Woodley has long been one of the favorite venues for race watching as far as view ability of the races are concerned. But the early March date on the Woodley hillside has had an equally long history of unforgettably uncomfortable weather, as Linda Volrath’s wonderful painting reminds us. The hunt’s new April date, which fell this year on Sunday, the 22nd, promises now to substantially improve the comfort aspect of the equation for viewers and participants alike. This year, it was a picture-perfect day for both horses and people, and a new look greeted spectators with vendor and sponsor tents, a food stand, stick pony races for the children, spring temperatures, and blessed sunshine.

(Center) Greg Ryan's Three Kingdoms (Kieran Norris up) won the Open Hurdle Race. / Lesley & David Hower photoLoudoun Hunt opened a day of point-to-point racing at Oatlands Plantation in Leesburg, Virginia on Sunday, April 15, 2018, with two exhibition side saddle races—one over fences, the other on the flat. King of Hearts trained by George Kuk and ridden by Devon Zebrovious was the winner over fences. The sixteen-yerar-old bay gelding alternated the lead with Little Lady, Amy Jo McGee up, in the two-horse field and prevailed in the stretch.

Hail Yeah was the winner by a neck in the Side Saddle Flat race in a field of seven. Winning owner was Terri Ehrenfeld, and Kathryn Cowles was trainer and rider.

Trained and ridden by Amber Hodyka, Manacor returns to the races as a timber horse, and wins. / Douglas Lees photoManacor is back. Remade into a timber horse and now trained and ridden by Amber Hodyka, Manacor won the first race, Lady Timber, at the Old Dominion Hounds Point-to-Point Races on Saturday, April 7, 2018.

The bay ten-year-old was brought to the U.S. from Ireland by trainer Jimmy Day and was a frequent winner over hurdles out of Daybreak Stables for four years. He disappeared from the point-to-points last year and is back in the capable hands of Hodyka, a friend of the Days.

Manacor led throughout most of the race, held off a bid by Erin Swope’s Sweet Talking Guy, and won comfortably. Sweet Talking Guy—another familiar horse on the point-to-point circuit with a regular habit of winning Lady Timber races—was one of the top six Leading Horses in Virginia in 2017. Just off a Lady Timber win at Piedmont this season, he came up short against Manacor.