Steeplechase

Home cooking, indeed. Just a few miles northeast of the My Lady's Manor steeplechase course sits Bonita Farm, the long-running operation by the Boniface family that produced the last Maryland-based winner of the Preakness, Deputed Testamony. Saturday, those same connections motored down Route 1 to capture the 103rd edition of the My Lady's Manor steeplechase with Moonsox, a 7-year-old chestnut gelding whose grandsire was, coincidentally, Deputed Testamony Jockey Amelia McGuirk scored big in her first sanctioned race with an impressive stretch run that left five rivals convincingly beaten.

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.

The $100,000 Joe Aitcheson Stakes, the second leg of the Steeplechase Triple Crown, has been canceled for 2003 because of the impact of weather at Pimlico Race Course and the scheduling involved in the three-race series. Originally scheduled for May 16, the Grade I steeplechase was postponed the morning of the race when 3 inches of rain fell in less than 24 hours at Pimlico. The race had attracted a full field of 12 and was in Pimlico's program for that day, which included the Grade I Pimlico Special and Black-Eyed Susan stakes.

Baltimore County police are warning residents about several road closures expected for the Maryland Hunt Cup Steeplechase on Saturday. Beginning at 2 p.m., eastbound traffic will be diverted from Tufton Avenue onto southbound Dover Road. The following roads will be closed from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., according to police: Worthington Avenue and Tufton Avenue; Belmont Avenue and Butler Road; Mantua Mill Road and Geist Road; Tufton Avenue and Falls Road; Dover Road and Tufton Ridge Road. Police say traffic is expected to return to normal by 6 p.m.

Incomplete, ridden by Joey Elliott, won his second My Lady's Manor timber race Saturday as the first race in the Maryland Triple Crown of steeplechase drew thousands to Monkton. Owned by Robert A. Kinsley and trained locally by Ann D. Stewart, the 11-year-old bred by Press Card, also prevailed at My Lady's Manor in 2009. He finished the three-mile course in 5:58. and held off three-time timber champion Bubble Economy, the runnerup. Bon Caddo, winner at My Lady's last year, took third.

With yellow blooms of forsythias brushing spring's first color across its lawns, Ladew Topiary Gardens is preparing for tomorrow's 85th running of the My Lady's Manor steeplechase races.Workers at Ladew, which opens to the public Sunday, were busy yesterday preparing a champagne reception it will hold after the My Lady's Manor races. Proceeds from the races are used to maintain the famed gardens. Organizers of the steeplechase are preparing for as many as 5,000 spectators tomorrow. Two 3-mile long horse races over timber fences are featured.

Blythe Miller could be called the Julie Krone of steeplechasing.The 22-year-old college student, who ranks among the nation's top jump jockeys, will try for a repeat victory today at the My Lady's Manor Point-To-Point in Monkton.Miller will ride Cabral, a 10-year-old Chilean-bred gelding. They won the maiden timber race, the John Rush Streett Memorial, in 1989 in their only other Manor appearance.Cabral is returning after missing last year's timber season because of an 18-month absence caused by a leg injury.

A record crowd of nearly 2,000 yesterday attended th Elkridge-Harford Point-to-Point, the first leg of the American Timber Season, culminating with the Maryland Hunt Cup on April 27. The featured Edward Voss three-mile timber steeplechase was won by John Fisher's Revelstoke, ridden by Jack Fisher in a time of 6 minutes, 2/5 seconds, over Joe's OK and Capital K. The winner came from five lengths off the pace and is expected make his next start in two weeks...

Michael F. Wettach, a Maryland steeplechase rider who formerly owned the Admiral's Cup restaurant in Fells Point, died Sunday of heart failure at St. Joseph Medical Center. He was 66 and lived in Monkton.Mr. Wettach was the grandson of Solomon R. Guggenheim, founder of New York's Guggenheim Museum, and great-nephew of financier Benjamin Guggenheim, who perished on the Titanic. Mr. Wettach had served continuously as a Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation trustee since 1957.Mr. Wettach came from a family of equestrians.

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.

The day couldn't have turned out better for owner Irv Naylor. And it wasn't too shabby for jockey James Slater, either. With Slater in the saddle, Naylor's Alfa Beat captured the 111th running of the Grand National Steeplechase in Butler, adding a punctuation mark to a four-win performance at the Middleburg (Va.) Spring Races that shot Naylor into the national lead among owners in purses won. All four Naylor horses who prevailed in Virginia were trained by Slater's wife, Brianne.

"Gone Ridin' " reads the sign on Joe Aitcheson's door, beneath a wooden silhouette of a horse's head. "Be Back. Maybe. " It's an apt howdy-do from Aitcheson, 84, the winngingest steeplechase rider of all time. A member of the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame, he lives in a retirement community in Westminster, surrounded by keepsakes of a 21-year pro career in which he won a record 440 timber races and a record seven North American championships between 1961 and 1970. If they tallied the number of bones broken by jockeys, Aitcheson would likely hold that record, too. His knack of bouncing back from falls is legend.

Home cooking, indeed. Just a few miles northeast of the My Lady's Manor steeplechase course sits Bonita Farm, the long-running operation by the Boniface family that produced the last Maryland-based winner of the Preakness, Deputed Testamony. Saturday, those same connections motored down Route 1 to capture the 103rd edition of the My Lady's Manor steeplechase with Moonsox, a 7-year-old chestnut gelding whose grandsire was, coincidentally, Deputed Testamony Jockey Amelia McGuirk scored big in her first sanctioned race with an impressive stretch run that left five rivals convincingly beaten.

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.

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...

Louise W. Stump, an accomplished competitive equestrian who continued riding until she was in her mid-70s, died Monday of complications from Alzheimer's disease at Springwell, a Mount Washington senior living community. The longtime Reisterstown resident was 82. Louise Warfield was born in Baltimore, the daughter of Edwin Warfield Jr., a banker who had been publisher of The Daily Record, and Katharine Lawrence Lee. She was raised at Oakdale, her family's estate in Woodbine that had been home to her grandfather, Edward Warfield, who had been governor of Maryland from 1904 to 1908.

Heavily favored Newport Hero rallied from last place in a seven-horse field to win the $25,000 Miles Valentine Novice Steeplechase yesterday at Fair Hill Race Course.The 4-year-old gelding, ridden by Joe Walsh, caught his stablemate, Mort The Sport, at the 14th fence and then drew off after the 16th and final jump to beat him by four lengths. Both horses are trained by Hall of Fame steeplechase trainer W. Burling Cocks.Lexington Ball finished third. Happy Friar was a late scratch.Newport Hero is owned by Mrs. Miles Valentine, widow of the race's namesake, and ran the 2 3/8 miles in four minutes, 21 seconds.

It's April, which means spring has sprung and warm weather and sunny days (we hope!) are on the horizon. Savor the outdoors this weekend with one of Maryland's venerable traditions: the steeplechase. Originally run on a course oriented to church steeples (how it derived its name), the steeplechase now refers to a distance race for horses and riders, who have to navigate terrain that includes fences and ditches. Today's race is the 97th running of the My Lady's Manor, with jockeys and horses competing for a $30,000 purse.

One by one, the favorites in Saturday's 116th Maryland Hunt Cup steeplechase fell by the wayside. First, defending champion Private Attack failed to clear the 13th fence. Then, four fences later, And The Eagle Flys, the winner of last week's Grand National, suffered a similar fate. In a $75,000 race that 12 horses started and only six finished, Twill Do and jockey James Stierhoff never wavered from their game plan, starting slowly before taking their first lead with three fences to go, then out-dueling Battle Op down the stretch to win by a half length in one of the closest finishes in race history.

Each April, I look forward to the Saturday when the Grand National Steeplechase jockeys ride across a swath of unspoiled Baltimore County valley. From a vantage point atop a hill off Butler Road, just off Falls Road, I look out across the Western Run Valley and think how fortunate we are to have this setting — and the chance to visit it on a single spring afternoon. That's enough; too much traffic is not what this location needs. The countryside race, held Saturday, is over private estates and farms.