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.

To co-workers, he's known as The Racing Guy. His neckties have little horses on them, and James Stierhoff has a different one for each day of the week. The walls of his office cubicle at the investment firm Brown Advisory are peppered with news clippings of recent Maryland Hunt Cup races. Stierhoff has won it twice. Saturday, on the lush, rolling hills in Glyndon, he'll try to win a third Hunt Cup aboard the same horse - a feat last achieved in 1967, and only seven times in the 116-year history of the brutal four-mile steeplechase race.

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.

Connor Hankin's dorm room at Virginia could be a tack room. There are collages of race horses on the walls and riding boots in the closet. On the desk sits a framed picture of Hankin and his BFF, Battle Op, an aging grey gelding on whom he nearly won the grueling Maryland Hunt Cup last year. Clearly, Hankin has a thing for racing. Most mornings, the freshman from Butler rises at 7:15, drives to a farm outside Charlottesville, saddles his ride and gallops over the grassy hills, popping some fences, for nearly an hour.

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.

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.

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.

Crompton "Tommy" Smith Jr., an accomplished steeplechase rider who won the Maryland Hunt Cup five times, died Tuesday at his Upperco home from complications of a riding accident suffered more than a decade ago. He was 75. The son and grandson of noted steeplechase riders, Crompton Smith Jr., who was known as Tommy, was born and raised in the horse country of Middleburg, Va., where as a child he began riding in fox hunts and steeplechases, and...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.