Horses

With four wins and two seconds of ten races on the card, Kieran Norris was leading rider at Orange County. / Douglas Lees photoKieran Norris had an outstanding day on the racecourse at beautiful Locust Hill Farm—timber, hurdle, flat—whichever course he rode. Norris, Virginia’s Leading Rider in 2017, rode four winners at the Orange County Point-to-Point on Saturday, April 1, 2018. He finished the day with two seconds as well, making it first or second in six of the ten races run.

Entries were reasonably strong, with the Maiden Flat and the Maiden Hurdle Races being split. Trainer Doug Fout saddled four winners as well, three of them with Norris aboard.

Teddy Davies, shown between (l-r) father Joe Davies and grandfather Bruce Miller, won two pony races. Trainer Joe Davies is a Maryland Hunt Cup winning rider. Trainer Bruce Miller is ex- MFH of Mr. Stewart's Cheshire Foxhounds (PA) / Douglas Lees photoTwo of the four timber races at the Piedmont Point-to-Point on Saturday, March 24, 2018, were split, giving race goers six well-filled and exciting races over the beautiful timber course at Salem. Turf conditions were good.

Dakota Slew, a multi-winning timber horse was back. Slew had the honor of retiring the Rokeby Bowl here two years ago after his third consecutive Open Timber win at Piedmont. Still trained by Richard Valentine, the old favorite that for a time practically “owned” the course settled for a second place finish under McLane Hendricks in the first division of the Amateur/Novice Rider Timber Race.

Warrenton Hunt opened the Virginia Point-to-Point Season on the first hospitable Saturday in the month of March this year. It was a spring-like day everywhere except at the Airlie Racecourse, where it snowed!

It was St. Patrick’s Day, and a good day for the Irish at that, with trainer Jimmy Day winning one Hurdle and two Flat races and two Irish horses winning the Open Timber and the Foxhunter Timber Races.

Moses discovered it was futile to resist.

Fresh Start Farm, both a name and sometimes a working philosophy, is a farm I rent where I maintain my horses as well as boarders.  My boarding is limited to retired or laid up horses since I do not want the liability associated with riders on the property. Or the owners, to be perfectly honest. Riding around the farm myself is enough of a liability.

The problem with boarding retired horses is that eventually you lose them to the infirmities of old age. This is what happened to my friend Jan’s big imported Rhinelander gelding Christmas Eve of 2015. JW had been with us for seven years or so before he passed away. The following spring, Jan mentioned that with JW gone she would like to get a rescue. A mule.

Moe Baptiste and Fifty Grand representing the Piedmont Fox Hounds negotiate a seven-board coop during the individual test on their way to winning the Virginia Fied Hunter Championship. / Catherine Summers photo

Mo Baptiste’s handsome bay Thoroughbred, Fifty Grand, has played the role of bridesmaid for years. He was Reserve Champion to Virginia Field Hunter Champions in 2012 and again in 2015. This year he was, finally, the bride. And the Champion.

Reserve Champion honors go to Marilyn Ware, Deep Run Hunt. The annual Virginia Field Hunter Championship is noted for the quality of the competing horses. The Masters of every Virginia hunt receive an annual invitation to nominate up to two horse and rider combinations which have been hunting regularly with that hunt. Chosen by the Masters, twenty-one riders from eleven hunts competed. They were:

Featuring the photographs of Douglas Lees

Easy Exit and Jeff Murphy (left) are Open Hurdle winners over Del Bando and Liam McVicar. / Douglas Lees photo,

Six jump races—three hurdle and three timber—and two flat races completed an eight-race card at the Old Dominion Point-to-Point at Ben Venue Farm in Virginia on Saturday, April 8, 2017. Jeff Murphy swept both the Open Races—Hurdles and Timber.

In the Open Hurdles, Murphy rode Easy Exit to an easy win by a seven-length margin for trainer Doug Fout. This was Fout’s first of two wins for the day.

Hishi Soar, owned and trained by Randy Rouse wins the Locust Hill Open Hurdle Race with Gerard Galligan in the irons. / Douglas Lees photo

In May, last year, at age ninety-nine, Randy Rouse, MFH of the Loudoun Fairfax Hunt (VA), saddled his Hishi Soar, put Gerard Galligan up, and won the featured race at Foxfield in Charlottesville—the sanctioned $25,000 Daniel Van Clief Memorial optional allowance hurdle. That feat made Rouse the oldest American ever to train a Thoroughbred winner.

Last Saturday, April 2, 2017, Rouse, brought Hishi Soar to the Orange County Point-to-Point Races at Locust Hill Farm, put Galligan up again, and won the Open Hurdle Race in a five-horse field. That feat, by our reckoning, makes Mr. Rouse the first one-hundred-year-old American ever to train a Thoroughbred winner.

Featuring the Photos of Douglas Lees

Jeff Murphy on Secret Soul. "If at first...try, try, again."  / Douglas Lees photo

Race-goers at Piedmont enjoyed a warm, sunny day at the Salem Racecourse in Upperville, Virginia on Saturday, March 25, 2017. Entries were strong for the seven-race card consisting of four timber races and two flat races. So much so that one timber race and two flat races were split into two divisions each.

Jeff Murphy scored a hat trick in the first race, Maiden Timber, winning as rider, owner, and trainer. His horse, Secret Soul, delighted his syndicate, but it was a multi-stage struggle to get to the winner’s circle. Secret Soul opened a comfortable lead on the eight-horse field, but lost a lot of ground midway through as the result of a loose horse. Secret Soul got his rhythm back and regained the lead, but turning for home he was passed by Going For It and Hill Tie. Both those horses went off course by jumping the fence at the finish line and were disqualified. So it was Secret Soul, saved again!

Featuring the photos of Douglas Lees

Fall Colors (Amber Hodyka up) and Slaney Rock (Erin Swope up) neck and neck in the Amateur/Novice Rider Hurdle Race.

Point-to-Point Racing in Virginia finally got its start on Saturday, March 18, 2017 at Airlie Racecourse with the Warrenton Hunt Point-to-Point. (The Blue Ridge Races, scheduled for the previous Saturday, were postponed because of weather until Sunday, April 23.)

Of the ten races carded, nine went into the books, entries being on the light side. The trainer/rider team of Neil Morris and Kieran Norris—last season’s leading trainer and rider respectively in Virginia—were certainly consistent. No appearances in the winners circle, but placing second three times: Open Hurdle, Maiden Hurdle, and Virginia Bred/Sired Flat Race.

Book Review by Norman Fine

100 Horses in History: True Stories of Horses Who Shaped Our World, Gayle Stewart, Blood Horse, LLC (2015), large format, flexible cover, illustrated, color, 168 pages, available from the author and Amazon.How insipid would be the history of man were it not for the horse. By magnifying our feeble efforts with its speed, strength, and endurance, horses have injected color and romance into our very lives and amplified man’s physical impact on the history of the world.

Pegasus Award-winning writer Gayle Stewart tells the stories of one hundred special horses, which she has organized into eight categories: Trailblazers; Movies, Music, and Timeless Tales; War; Racing; Celebrities; Heros and Heroines; Show Stars; and Legend and Lore.

Do you know about Old Billy, most likely a Cleveland Bay cross? He went to work on the river bank at the age of two or three, and worked for fifty-six years to provide the power for the hoist that loaded and unloaded heavy goods from river barges. He lived another three years in retirement before dying at the age of sixty-two.