Maryland Horse Breeders

Marguerite Finney Dance, retired senior editor of The Maryland Horse magazine and its successor publication, Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred, died of pneumonia Sunday at Stella Maris Hospice. The North Baltimore resident was 74. Born Laura Marguerite Stanley Finney in Annapolis and raised in Towson, she was a 1948 graduate of Towson High School and earned a history degree with honors at what is now Randolph-Macon College in Lynchburg, Va. Family members said she grew up in a home where her father, Humphrey Stanley Finney, was field secretary of the Maryland Horse Breeders Association and founding editor of The Maryland Horse.

North East -- The Maryland Racing Commission listened to an update on the industry at its monthly board meeting yesterday and lamented the previously announced $3 million cut in purses and stakes that will be put into place beginning in August, when racing resumes at Laurel Park. Then the commission approved the request by the Maryland Horse Breeders Association for another cut - in bonuses paid to Maryland-breds that win races at the state's tracks. The bonuses - paid to a winning horse's breeder, to the owner of the horse's sire and to the horse's owner - are funded by 1.1 percent of the tracks' live handle.

The executive boards for Maryland's horsemen and breeders have voted to recommend ratification of a revenue-sharing agreement between the state's thoroughbred and harness industries.The action culminates two years of intensive -- and sometimes bitter -- negotiations and provides for the thoroughbred side to receive 80 percent of all revenue produced at every Maryland pari-mutuel betting site, with 20 percent going to the harness group.The presidents of the state's thoroughbred breeders and horsemen's associations must approve the deal, but that is considered a formality.

Gov. Parris N. Glendening's inaugural committee raised roughly $1.1 million to pay for two parties for the governor this week, according to a list of sponsors released yesterday and the committee's estimates of tickets sold.The sponsor list shows that $855,000 of the total was raised in contnbutions of $2,500 to $20,000 from almost 150 businesses, law firms, lobbyists and other special interests.Officials said the parties, including Wednesday's inaugural ball and a cocktail party Sunday, cost more than $850,000.

The catalog resembles the Good Book, thick and rich in pedigree and promise. And this weekend, thousands are clutching their bibles as they roam the state fairgrounds, preparing for Maryland's largest sale of thoroughbred yearlings.If the three-day auction that begins tomorrow at Timonium follows the trend of this year's sales throughout the country, records will fall in every significant category. Already the sale has set a standard: So many yearlings were entered (the catalog lists 750)

Tenski, the only Maryland-bred last year to win a Grade I stakes, has been named 1998 Maryland-bred Horse of the Year.In the annual poll conducted by the Maryland Horse Breeders Association, Tenski was the unanimous choice for Horse of the Year and champion Maryland-bred 3-year-old filly. She was also the winner for outstanding turf runner.Tenski's 2 1/2-length victory Oct. 10 in the Grade I Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup Invitational at Keeneland was one her seven wins in 1998. She also won two Grade III turf stakes at Saratoga.

Evidence is mounting that the state's horsemen and breeders are leaning toward a ratification of the Maryland Jockey Club's lTC latest simulcast agreement with Rosecroft Raceway.The board of directors of the Maryland Horse Breeders' Association met last week with track management and came away with a mostly favorable outlook about the situation."There is a general sense that the revenue sharing is sensible," MHBA director Tim Capps said. "It is a revolutionary concept and very complex and detailed."

The Maryland Jockey Club and the state's thoroughbred horsemen and breeders reached a tentative agreement yesterday to share revenues and expenses from pari-mutuel wagering in the state.The agreement marks the end of nine months of negotiations among the thoroughbred groups and paves the way for the development of an accord with the state's harness industry on the same issues.Maryland Jockey Club president Joe De Francis announced his pleasure with the accord and said it "will enable Maryland racing to move forward in a cooperative spirit and address the many serious issues faced by the racing industry."

As thoroughbred racing enthusiasts turn their attention today to the sport's second-biggest day in Maryland, the commercials on television plead for slot machines at the racetracks. The commercials cry out: Preserve the state's horse racing industry.The presumption is that Delaware, which embraces slots at its three tracks, threatens horse racing in Maryland. A further presumption is that horse racing in Maryland is on its last leg.The state's Standardbred industry, which supports harness tracks in Prince George's County and on the Eastern Shore, has clearly suffered because of slots in Delaware.

Although the $200,000 Federico Tesio Stakes showcased 3-year-olds born anywhere in the country, the four other stakes comprising Maryland Spring Challenge yesterday at Pimlico featured horses born in this state.$100,000 Jennings Handicap: Testafly pressed early leader and favorite Fireside Brass for most of the 1 1/8 -mile race before swooping past in the stretch for a 1 1/2 -length victory.The celebration in the winner's circle was jubilant. Testafly's trainer, Dale Mills, 32, celebrated his first stakes victory.

Horse breeder Allen Murray is 76 years old, but when he laughs, he sounds like a much younger man. "People keep saying to me, 'When are you going to retire?' " Murray says. "I tell them: 'Shoot, I am retired! I retired a long time ago.' " It's hard to tell, considering how hard he still works. Murray - who owns Murmur Farm near Darlington with his wife Audrey - realizes he's one of the fortunate ones in his business, one of the few who can still say he's having fun and doing what he loves.

Horse racing Md. thoroughbred breeding likely to fall 18 percent in '09 Thoroughbred horse breeding in Maryland is projected to fall 18 percent this year, more than twice the national average, The Jockey Club reported Thursday. Overall, breeding in North America is down 8.2 percent in 2009. With the decrease, Maryland drops from eighth to last among the 11 top foal-producing states and provinces. For the first time, Maryland ranks below Pennsylvania, the only state to record an increase in live foals this year.

Mary Valliant Thomas, former general manager of the Maryland Horse Breeders Association who later was a church secretary in St. Michaels for more than a decade, died Aug. 20 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at her Neavitt home. She was 76. Mary Valliant Warner was born in Baltimore and raised in Mount Washington. After graduating from Eastern High School, she attended what is now Towson University. She worked for the old State Roads Commission and in the admissions department at the Johns Hopkins University before taking a job in 1965 as assistant general manager of the Maryland Horse Breeders Association.

A November slots referendum designed to keep millions in gambling dollars from going to nearby states would, if approved, likely end up sending millions in tax revenue to out-of-state racehorse owners, according to a new analysis by a taxpayer advocacy group. In 2007, 58 percent of Maryland thoroughbred race winnings went to out-of-state owners, according to the report to be released today by the Maryland Tax Education Foundation. If that trend continues, much of the $80 million in annual thoroughbred purse subsidies under the proposed legislation will continue to flow to non-Maryland horse owners and a small number of in-state breeders, said Jeffrey C. Hooke, a gambling analyst and president of the Bethesda-based nonprofit.

His back is swayed like a Nike swoosh. His shaggy coat, a sign of age, would warm a woolly mammoth. At 28 - ancient for horses - Deputed Testamony looks like he should live at Charlestown. The retirement community, not the racetrack. Yet there he was, at 8 a.m., cavorting like a youngster in a grassy 2 1/2 -acre paddock at Bonita Farm in Darlington. In a nearby paddock, another stallion ambled nearer. In a flash, Deputed Testamony crested his neck in defiance and gave the interloper the stink eye. Hardly the spirit you'd expect of the oldest surviving Preakness winner.

Lou Raffetto, president and chief operating officer of the Maryland Jockey Club, will leave his post immediately "to pursue other opportunities" and will be replaced by Chris Dragone, a former Jockey Club senior vice president and general manager, the organization announced yesterday. The news set off loud protest from within the Maryland racing industry, where Raffetto, 57, had earned respect through his skills in working with and for Maryland's horsemen and breeders through difficult times.

Jeanne Frederique van den Bosch Begg Clagett, who was knighted for her work aiding the resistance movement during World War II and went on to have careers in real estate and horse breeding, died of Alzheimer's disease Nov. 5 at her Roedown Farm estate in Davidsonville. She was 94. Born in the Netherlands, she received bachelor's and master's degrees from Oxford University. She came to the United States before World War II, working as a writer and photographer at the New York Daily Mirror and doing public relations for the Red Cross.

Two years after beginning a search for property near their Cecil County breeding farm, the owners of Northview Stallion Station are expanding into Pennsylvania. "I'm Maryland born and bred," said Tom Bowman, who owns the Northview Stallion Station near Chesapeake City with partner Richard Golden. "I've never had it in my mind to leave Maryland. And we're not leaving Maryland. "I think a lot of people would like to scream that we're leaving because of the slots, but we're not leaving. We're not jumping ship.

Marguerite Finney Dance, retired senior editor of The Maryland Horse magazine and its successor publication, Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred, died of pneumonia Sunday at Stella Maris Hospice. The North Baltimore resident was 74. Born Laura Marguerite Stanley Finney in Annapolis and raised in Towson, she was a 1948 graduate of Towson High School and earned a history degree with honors at what is now Randolph-Macon College in Lynchburg, Va. Family members said she grew up in a home where her father, Humphrey Stanley Finney, was field secretary of the Maryland Horse Breeders Association and founding editor of The Maryland Horse.

North East -- The Maryland Racing Commission listened to an update on the industry at its monthly board meeting yesterday and lamented the previously announced $3 million cut in purses and stakes that will be put into place beginning in August, when racing resumes at Laurel Park. Then the commission approved the request by the Maryland Horse Breeders Association for another cut - in bonuses paid to Maryland-breds that win races at the state's tracks. The bonuses - paid to a winning horse's breeder, to the owner of the horse's sire and to the horse's owner - are funded by 1.1 percent of the tracks' live handle.