Maryland Hunt Cup

The moment should have been exhilarating for trainer Alicia Murphy. Her charge, Private Attack, was in the midst of running away with last year's Maryland Hunt Cup - the brutal four-mile steeplechase through Worthington Valley - nary another horse in sight. Yet all Murphy could do was fear the worst. "It was horrifying," Murphy said. "You could see him saying, 'The race is over, there's nobody around.' It would have been a whole lot easier if there was a horse pushing him a little bit. " This time around, that shouldn't be a problem.

The moment should have been exhilarating for trainer Alicia Murphy. Her charge, Private Attack, was in the midst of running away with last year's Maryland Hunt Cup - the brutal four-mile steeplechase through Worthington Valley - nary another horse in sight. Yet all Murphy could do was fear the worst. "It was horrifying," Murphy said. "You could see him saying, 'The race is over, there's nobody around.' It would have been a whole lot easier if there was a horse pushing him a little bit. " This time around, that shouldn't be a problem.

Approximately three-quarters of the way through the four-mile Maryland Hunt Cup course Saturday, Private Attack was beginning to lose interest. No competitors were in sight behind him and a mile of ground and five more fences were to be navigated before the Sportsmans Hall gelding claimed the 115th running of the $75,000 timber classic, a race that has proven elusive and full of disappointment for his connections. But jockey Blythe Miller-Davies adroitly kept him about his business and Private Attack romped home far ahead in a jumping race for which 14 entered, 10 started and only three finished.

Every April, camera crews from ABC's "Wide World of Sports" would turn up on the horse farms a few miles from where I grew up for the annual running of the Maryland Hunt Cup, part of the spring steeplechase horse racing series that graces Maryland's equestrian country from Monkton to Glyndon and beyond each spring. Portrayed as a grand tradition of what I call the lockjaw set (people of inherited means who talk in low growls though their back teeth have been soldered together), the event never failed to draw a substantial crowd of local commoners.

Look closely, and the inscription on one gleaming silver loving cup pretty much captures the nature of the sporting event celebrated by the Maryland Historical Society's newest exhibit:"Presented to my rider, Albert G. Ober Jr., by Billy Barton."Billy Barton won the Maryland Hunt Cup in 1925. He was the horse. Mr. Ober went along for the ride.The equine element rules "The Maryland Hunt Cup: 100 Years of America's Greatest Steeplechase." It's a rich collection of paintings, photographs and memorabilia from the legendary steeplechase, whose centennial running takes place today in the rolling Worthington Valley near Glyndon.

Sixteen horses, comprising one of the largest prospective fields in the history of the race, have been entered for Saturday's Maryland Hunt Cup in Glyndon.Included in the lineup are Cabral, winner of the My Lady's Manor and Grand National point-to-points in his last two starts, and Tom Bob, who has previously finished second in the 4-mile steeplechase.Four women jockeys, the most ever, have been named to ride. They are Blythe Miller (on Cabral), Sanna Neilson (Tom Bob), Anne Moran (The Wool Merchant)

A decade ago, Irv Naylor fell off his mount during a timber race and broke his neck. He has not walked since. Naylor could have quit the sport. Instead, the one-time jockey became an owner, twice winning the prestigious Maryland Hunt Cup. Saturday, Naylor will watch the 113th running of the race in Glyndon and root hard for his horse, Askim. A victory would give Naylor the Challenge Cup, a 2-foot silver trophy awarded to an owner with three Hunt Cup victories. That has not been done since 1983.

If the weather is fine today, and even if it's not, convoys of Volvos, Land Rovers, Suburbans, Explorers, Mercedes Benz sedans and a few vintage motor cars will be hitting the road early this morning.They will be bearing Maryland Hunt Cup steeplechase fans dressed in tweeds, caps, Villager skirts and floppy-brimmed straw hats. Eventually this mass of motorized humanity will converge at the intersection of Tufton Avenue and Falls Road in the Worthington Valley and, for a while, turn it into a Baltimore version of Times Square.

Because of an editing error, Sunday's article on the Maryland Hunt Cup ended in the middle of a sentence. Here is the complete article. There is little doubt among those affiliated with Maryland steeplechasing that Charles Fenwick III has the sport in his blood. His father, Charles Fenwick Jr., is a five-time winner of the Maryland Hunt Cup and his mother, Ann D. Stewart, won the race three times as a trainer. On Saturday, in the 112th running of the Maryland Hunt Cup, Charles Fenwick III added to the family's legacy by winning the $75,000 race in front of an announced 7,500.

Bug River demolished all the doubts yesterday. Concerns about his fitness, willingness and a new jockey were all removed in slightly more than nine minutes when the 13-year-old son of Polish Numbers staved off a determined bid by Rosbrian to capture the $75,000 Maryland Hunt Cup by a neck on a gorgeous day in Glyndon. Through the stretch drive, they were the lone survivors in a seven-horse field which confronted the grueling four-mile, 22-jump course and they staged a thrilling finish before Bug River clinched his second Hunt Cup victory in the past three years.

Approximately three-quarters of the way through the four-mile Maryland Hunt Cup course Saturday, Private Attack was beginning to lose interest. No competitors were in sight behind him and a mile of ground and five more fences were to be navigated before the Sportsmans Hall gelding claimed the 115th running of the $75,000 timber classic, a race that has proven elusive and full of disappointment for his connections. But jockey Blythe Miller-Davies adroitly kept him about his business and Private Attack romped home far ahead in a jumping race for which 14 entered, 10 started and only three finished.

The state's historic steeplechase season gets underway in earnest Saturday with the 101st edition of My Lady's Manor launching three consecutive weekends of major spring action. Feature purses begin with $35,000 for the big race at My Lady's Manor and conclude with a $75,000 offering at the Maryland Hunt Cup in Glyndon on April 30. While Tom Voss of Monkton (who has taken the early lead in the National Steeplechase Association trainer standings with three victories) campaigns at another meet near Atlanta, familiar top-flight local conditioners like Jack Fisher, William Meister, Ricky Hendriks, Katherine McKenna and Sanna Hendriks will have horses entered on the three-race Maryland card over timber.

Cary Wilson Jackson, a noted Maryland horseman, builder and developer who had been on the board of the Maryland Million Classic, died Feb. 7 in an automobile accident near White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. He was 88. At the time of the accident, Mr. Jackson was returning to his home in White Hall, Baltimore County, from Lexington, Ky., where he had sold a mare at the Keeneland horse sale. "Cary Jackson defined the term 'Maryland horseman' at its best. He did it all," said Ross Peddicord, former Baltimore Sun racing writer who is now executive director of the Maryland Horse Industry Board.

While thoroughbred racing is struggling through the throes of a downturn, the steeplechase circuit is holding rather steady. That is particularly true in Maryland, which kicks off its spring season in earnest today with the 100th renewal of the $30,000 My Lady's Manor race at Monkton. On consecutive weeks, the Grand National at Butler and the prestigious Maryland Hunt Cup at Glyndon will follow today's four-race card, which annually draws the largest crowd for any sporting event in Harford County.

As the National Steeplechase Association prepares to begin its 2010 racing season March 20 with the traditional kickoff in Aiken, S.C., its chief executive officer Lou Raffetto said Wednesday night that he will be leaving the organization June 30 or sooner. Raffetto, who served as the Maryland Jockey Club's racing secretary from 1978 through 1984 and then as its chief operating officer and president from 2001 to 2007, said while he does not have a job lined up at the moment, he is hoping to find a new opportunity in the thoroughbred industry.

As the National Steeplechase Association prepares to begin its 2010 racing season March 20 with the traditional kickoff in Aiken, S.C., chief executive officer Lou Raffetto said Wednesday night that he will be leaving the organization June 30 or sooner. Raffetto, who served as the Maryland Jockey Club's racing secretary from 1978 through 1984 and then as its chief operating officer and president from 2001 to 2007, said that while he does not have a job lined up at the moment, he is hoping to find a new opportunity in the thoroughbred industry.

Eight horses started the 113th Maryland Hunt Cup on Saturday. Two of them finished. One by one, the 22 menacing fences picked off mounts and jockeys, most of whom had ridden the race before. In the end, though, it was a couple of Hunt Cup rookies who fought it out as Michele Marieschi, with George Hundt Jr. aboard, defeated Rosbrian by 4 1/2 lengths on an unseasonably hot afternoon in Glyndon. The race was won in 10 minutes, 7 seconds, well off the record of 8:25 3/5 set by Young Dubliner in 2002.

The rolling land stretches farther than the eye can see, a 900-acre piece of Utopia in northern Baltimore County.It is the Monkton base of thoroughbred trainer Tom Voss, who conditioned his first winning jumper before he was legally licensed, and last year -- at age 47 -- reached the top of his profession by capturing the national steeplechase title with 25 wins and $510,073 in purses.Each morning, the barn area is buzzing with the activity of hot walkers, exercise riders and assistants who tend to Voss' 40 head.

Carol Helme Brewster, a former Philadelphia socialite and renowned equestrian who during her marriage to former Maryland Sen. Daniel Baugh Brewster owned Worthington Farms, where the couple hosted the annual Maryland Hunt Cup and feted celebrities from the worlds of politics, film and business, died Thursday of complications from a stroke at the Brightwood retirement community in Lutherville. She was 92. Carol Helme Leiper, the daughter of a wealthy and socially prominent lawyer and businessman, and a homemaker, was born in Philadelphia and raised in Chestnut Hill, Pa. Mrs. Brewster's father, James Gerhard "Gerry" Leiper Jr., was a talented equestrian, a master of foxhounds and co-founder of Andrew's Bridge Hunt in Pennsylvania.