Fair Hill

FAIR HILL - The winner of the 2001 Breeders' Cup Steeplechase, Quel Senor, tops a field of six scheduled to jump in the $30,000 Miles Valentine Memorial Stakes, the headliner on a 10-race card at the Fair Hill Races today. Post time is 12:30 p.m. at the track at the intersection of Routes 213 and 273 west of Newark, Del., and north of Elkton. Eighty-nine horses are listed on the program, which offers the only American steeplechase meeting with pari-mutuel betting. Normally, about $200,000 is wagered at the picturesque track, which races just once yearly.

Morley Street heads a field of 12 steeplechasers in the $250,000 Breeders' Cup Steeplechase tomorrow at Fair Hill Race Course.Morley Street, the winner last year when the race was conducted at Belmont Park, has been made the 8-5 early favorite in the 2 5/8 -mile race jumping event.The field, in the order they will line up: Cheering News, French Hill, Le Sauvage, Declare Your Wish, Made Noble, Jive With Five, Morley Street, Yaw, Double Bill, Jimmy Lorenzo, Talkin Butter and Moonstruck.The Breeders' Cup Steeplechase is the fourth of a seven-race program that begins at 1 p.m. Taped coverage of the race will be provided on SportsWorld on NBC (channels 2 and 4)

FAIR HILL -- Judi Mackiewicz didn't plan on spending the weekend sitting in a lawn chair dressed in three large plastic garbage bags. But these are the things one does for love.And she does love her country music: Dwight Yoakam, Clint Black and Garth Brooks top her list. So the young East Windsor, N.J., woman was in good company yesterday among thousands dressed in an assortment of foul-weather gear and sitting beneath an assortment of tarps in the rain, mist and mud of the second annual Fair Hill Country Music Festival.

ELKTON -- Augustin Stables' 8-year-old, Maigret, is the favorite in the featured event at Fair Hill Race Course today, a $20,000 claiming race for a $7,500 purse.Maigret faces a strong challenge from two 9-year-old horses, Jet Wave and Tostadero.Maigret, trained by Bruce Miller and ridden by his daughter, Blythe, comes off two second-place finishes at Saratoga last month. Purchased at a steeplechase-only auction held at Fair Hill last year, Maigret could give the Augustin-Miller team a repeat of this spring's feature victory by stablemate My Lear.

FAIR HILL -- It wasn't Ladies Day at the Fair Hill races yesterday, but the ladies had a field day, anyway.Female trainers captured the first five races -- two each by Lilith Boucher and Janet Elliot and one by Katherine Neilson, who also rode the winner in the second race.But Sanna Neilson supplied the big finish for the women, sending out Chilean-bred Dictador to victory in the $25,000 Miles Valentine Novice Stakes, the feature of an eight-race card."I had to get a little taste myself," said Sanna Neilson in reference to her sister Katherine's success after Craig Thornton steered Dictador to a four-length score over Right Stuff.

FAIR HILL -- Paulrus, who had finished third in the Tropical Park Derby and later was seventh in the 1991 Kentucky Derby, reached stakes-winning form at age 7 over jumps yesterday at the Fair Hill Races near Elkton.Jockey Jeff Teter took Mrs. Jack M. Bass Jr.'s gelding to the inside three fences from home, reached the lead after that fence and then drew off in the stretch to post a six-length victory over John's Call in the $25,000 Miles Valentine Novice Stakes.Jockey Sean Clancy, who finished third with favored Tonto McSwartz, claimed a foul against Simon Hobson on John's Call for interference at the top of the stretch, but it was disallowed by the stewards.

FAIR HILL -- Another McCarron has surfaced as a jockey with a promising future -- only this time over jumps.Matthew McCarron, too big at 130 pounds to follow in the flat-racing stirrup leathers of his dad, recently retired Gregg McCarron, who won more than 2,500 races, and his uncle, Chris McCarron, who is in the Hall of Fame, rode three winners yesterday on the nine-race Fair Hill steeplechase card.Among his victories: a well-judged come-from-behind ride on Forty Four Thunder in the three-mile James Stump Memorial over timber, McCarron's first win in a race sanctioned by the National Steeplechase Association.

FAIR HILL - Darren Chicchia of Springville, N.Y., moved into the lead of the U.S. Equestrian Team (USET) Fall Eventing Championship after the completion of the dressage phase at the Fair Hill International yesterday. In the USA National Single Horse Driving Championship, Fred Merriam of Newfane, Vt., individual bronze medalist at the 2002 World Singles Driving Championship, completed the dressage phase in first place. Chiacchia moved ahead of Sydney Olympic gold medalist David O'Connor of The Plains, Va., when he received a dressage score of 36.80 penalties on Windfall, a 10-year-old, black stallion.

Activities for horse lovers and horse gamblers abound this weekend with the Fair Hill International in northern Maryland, a Grade III stakes race at Laurel Park and the West Virginia Breeders Classics at Charles Town.The 10th annual Fair Hill International and Festival in the Country takes place today through Sunday at the Fair Hill Natural Resources Area in Cecil County. Events will include dressage, cross country, driving and jumping as well as dog-agility competition, a classic car exhibition and more than 50 vendors, artists and craftsmen.

FAIR HILL -- In less than two weeks, the nation's most involved in thoroughbred racing will be located in Maryland.By July 1, the Thoroughbred Racing Associations, an organization representing 58 North American racetracks, and its subsidiary, the Thoroughbred Racing and Protective Bureau, is expected to be open for business at its new headquarters at the Fair Hill race course near Elkton.When the facility opens, it will culminate a two-year effort by state and local racing officials, including the late Frank De Francis, not only to attract the national organization to Maryland, but to house it in a brand new $1.3 million building.