Trainer Teddy Mulligan Returns, Wins at Blue Ridge
Trainer Teddy Mulligan marked his return to the racecourse with a win in the first race. / Nancy Kleck photoThe sixty-sixth running of the Blue Ridge Hunt Point-to-Point Races were held at Woodley Farm on Sunday, March 22, 2015. This was the second year in a row that the Blue Ridge race meet had to be postponed due to the weather.
Trainer Teddy Mulligan returned to the racecourse after a year’s absence, saddling his first horse for the first race since his leave-taking and scoring his first win. Bedizen and Zol Zayne, the one-two horses, pulled away from the field of four in the Maiden Hurdle Race with less than a quarter mile to run. Turning for home, Bedizen with Jeff Murphy up took the lead and drew away for a convincing win.
In the remaining two hurdle races—Amateur/Novice Rider and Open Races—trainer Jimmy Day and his rider Brendan Brooks dominated the Winner’s Circle with Controlled Neglect, owned by Ann Braxton Jones-Lynch, and Manacor, owned by a Daybreak Stables syndicate.
Dakota Slew Retires Rokeby Bowl at Piedmont
At the finish of the Open Timber Race it’s Dakota Slew (Robbie Walsh up) 1st, Dr. Alex (Teddy Zimmerman up) 2nd. / Douglas Lees photo
Dakota Slew and Dr. Alex battled for the lead throughout most of the Open Timber race, even jumping the last fence abreast, but at the wire it was Dakota Slew by a length. It was Dakota Slew’s third win in this race under rider Robbie Walsh, thus retiring the Rokeby Bowl for owner Maggie Bryant. Trained by Richard Valentine, Dakota Slew is one of six horses that tied for Leading Timber Horse in Virginia in 2014.
The Valentine-Walsh team scored their second win of the day in the Open Flat Race with Clark Ohrstrom’s Kisser N Run taking the lead from Preachers Pulpit with less than a half-mile to run and winning easily. Kisser N Run was the 2013 Life’s Illusion Filly and Mare champion, and last season’s winner of the Atlanta Steeplechase’s Georgia Cup.
David Hopkins Semmes, ex-MFH
Joint-Masters David Semmes and Mildred Riddell move off at the head of the Old Dominion field from a meet at the Honorable and Mrs. Joseph W. Barr’s Houyhnhnm Farm near Hume, Virginia / Douglas Lees photo
David Hopkins Semmes—longtime Master of the Old Dominion Hounds (VA), amateur steeplechase rider, and deep-water sailor—died peacefully at his home, Indian Run Farm, near Flint Hill, Virginia, on New Years Day, just four days shy of his eighty-seventh birthday.
Born in Washington, D.C., Semmes graduated from Episcopal High School then served a tour of duty in World War II as an aviation radio crewman. He graduated from Princeton in 1949, and in 1950 served in Army intelligence on the Pusan perimeter during the Korean conflict. He worked as a government service officer in Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong before returning to Washington to practice law.
Semmes managed intellectual property for forty-one years, notably patenting the so-called “black box” used on airplanes, and the technology used for protective vests for jockeys.
Photographer Douglas Lees Awarded S. Bryce Wing Trophy
Janet Hitchen photoTwo-time Eclipse Award-winning photographer Douglas Lees was this year’s recipient of the S. Bryce Wing Trophy, awarded by the Maryland Hunt Cup Association to honor individuals who have made exceptional contributions to Maryland timber racing. Lees is a regular contributor to Foxhunting Life, and we congratulate him for his latest achievement.
With one foot in racing and one foot in foxhunting, Lees is a double threat. Each spring, during the point-to-point season, Lees sends us his brilliant racing photographs to enliven our coverage of the hunt races, and we publish his foxhunting images regularly. In fact, the cover photo of huntsman Spencer Allen and the Piedmont foxhounds for our just-published 2015 Foxhunting Life calendar was taken by Lees.
T’Breds Perform Gymnastic Feats at Elkridge-Harford Races
Hold Your Fire (Gus Dahl up) went on to win the Open Timber Race. / Douglas Lees photoThe ultimate equine athlete—the Thoroughbred—saved the bacon for at least two riders at the Elkridge-Harford Point-to-Point Races at Atlanta Hall Farm, in Monkton, Maryland on Saturday, April 5, 2014.
In the first race, Open Timber, Hold Your Fire led the field into the last fence, where he caught his right front on the top rail. Robbed of momentum, he twisted his rear end fully ninety degrees to get his hind end over. Rider Gustav Dahl stayed in the middle, and the pair went on to win the race. Click on Doug Lees’s brilliant photograph to see the three-shot sequence.
This was trainer Elizabeth Voss Murray’s first of two wins on the day. Ms. Murray, daughter of the late Tom Voss, is a new Master of the Elkridge-Harford Hunt.
Timber Horses Romp at Piedmont
Running for the Rokeby Bowl are (l-r) winner Dakota Slew (Robert Walsh up) and Zulla Road (Woods Winants up). / Douglas Lees photo
Virginia point-to-point fans were treated to a full weekend of racing on March 22 and 23, 2014. The Piedmont Fox Hounds Point-to-Point went off as scheduled on Saturday and the Blue Ridge Hunt races, postponed from their original date, were held on Sunday. In a spirit of cooperation, races over fences were split so that Piedmont ran timber races and Blue Ridge ran just hurdle (brush) races, thus assuring a good field of entries for each specialty.
In the Open Timber Race, Zulla Road (Woods Winants up) set the pace for the first mile, but Dakota Slew ridden by Robert Walsh took control from there to the wire. Skunked ran a strong second, but Dakota Slew in prevailing notched his second consecutive Rokeby Bowl win. Dakota Slew is owned by Magalen Bryant and trained by Richard Valentine. Ms. Bryant shared last season’s Virginia Leading Owner title with Pennsylvanian Irvin Naylor. Although Winants pulled up Zulla Road in that race, the fourth on the card, he had earlier shown his 2013 Virginia Leading Rider form by winning the first two races of the day, Maiden Timber and Amateur Highweight Timber.
Bennett’s Blue Ridge Blues
David Chapman photo
Novice rider Tom Bennett, riding for trainer Jimmy Day, fell at the same fence in the first two races at the Blue Ridge Hunt Point-to-Point on Sunday, March 23, 2014, but came back strongly to notch two wins on the day’s card. This spectacular photograph was taken by David Chapman. See the entire sequence by clicking on the photo and starting the slide show. Prints of these photographs are available from the photographer. Contact FHL to be connected.
Bennett’s blues started in the first race, the Maiden Hurdle, when his horse, Fall Colors (number 5) owned by Bruce Smart, fell. Bedizen (number 2) jumped Fall Colors cleanly (photo), but unseated his rider, Gerard Galligan, the two going their separate ways as well. (Click on the photo to see the entire sequence.)
“Dr. Joe”: An Appreciation
“Dr. Joe” Rogers, MFH / Douglas Lees photoDr. Joseph M. Rogers, who died March 8 at his beloved Hillbrook farm near Hamilton, Virginia, was of a rapidly disappearing breed of Virginians whose financial resources made possible the pursuit of a mission to preserve the countryside before it passed from reality to a lithographic memory.
These Virginians did not keep score with coin. The acquisition of land was not an egotist’s pursuit, and its preservation was not a beauty contest. Land was acquired and cared for because it represented an irreplaceable resource. That it provided the setting for pursuit of agricultural business and field sport was a cherished benefit, not a root rationale. To do otherwise, he believed, was to leave God’s earth to the vagaries of the marketplace.
“Dr. Joe,” as he was known by all, was at heart a man of that earth. He admired a craftsman who could build a proper four-panel fence or shoe a horse as much as he respected a man who made his fortune in business. In many cases, more so. He took pride in being able to train one species of canine to be capable of pursuing another much craftier, quicker, and agile species—a sport called foxhunting, in which the hunted had nearly insurmountable advantage over the hunter. It is a picturesque sport, photographed, illustrated, written about, and otherwise memorialized. But it was also a lot of hard work when you were in charge of bringing the show to the field.
Douglas Lees to Speak, Exhibit Photographs
Douglas Lees photo The photography of Douglas Lees has long been a benchmark of such excellence that Lees has earned the admiration of even the best of his camera-toting peers. Lees will speak and exhibit his photographs on Sunday, March 2, 2014 at 4:00 pm at Blue Ridge Farm, 1858 Blue Ridge Farm Road, Upperville, […]
Leading Steeplechase Trainer Turns Huntsman
Eva Smithwick and Hey Doctor / Douglas Lees photo
Eva Smithwick captured the Leading Trainer title on the Virginia Point-to-Point circuit this year. It was her and husband Speedy Smithwick’s first year back in Virginia after seventeen years in Kentucky training on the flat tracks. As if being a top trainer doesn’t keep her sufficiently busy, she’s agreed to hunt hounds for Snickersville this season.
The Snickersville foxhounds hunt over Sunny Bank Farm in Middleburg, home of the late Dot Smithwick. Eva, having returned to Sunny Bank with Speedy to continue his mother’s training business, just couldn’t say no to MFH Greg Ryan.
“Greg is a persistent fellow,” said Eva. “Every time the dinner conversation turned to the question of who would hunt hounds this year, Greg would stare at me.”