Steeplechase Revival

PREV 2 of 2

The upper classes eat crab cakes and ham and drink bourbon and branch or Maryland rye or gin and tonic in the tea barn, which really is an old hay barn where people occasionally really drink tea.
   
The lower orders bring beach chairs and beach umbrellas and beach chests full of comestibles, or they eat hot dogs and homemade cake from the stand set up by the Union Hospital, the charitable institution in Elkton, Maryland, designated by William du Pont as the beneficiary of all this activity.

In the feature, the $30,000 Miles Valentine Memorial for fillies and mares, the heaviest betting was on seven-year-old Guelph. The filly-mare and novice champion of 2005—the year she finished third in the Valentine—was trying to win the only major race that had eluded her. At even money, Guelph was more than just a sentimental favorite. In 2006, while getting saddled, she had reared and flipped, landing on her back. Despite the mishap, the 160-pound highweight seemed healthy. She ran and wound up losing by a neck to Isla Mujeres, who carried 21 fewer pounds.
   
X-rays later revealed 16 fractures in her withers, the high point of a horse between the shoulder blades.
   
The injury caused her to miss an entire year of racing. When she returned last fall, she lost all three starts. But on May 10 a more svelte Guelph (she now carries just 144 pounds) won a stakes race at the Iroquois in Nashville.
   
At Fair Hill, she easily fended off seven challengers over two and a quarter miles and 15 fences for a wire-to-wire victory. Her career steeplechase bankroll swelled to $143,650.
   
It was the fourth triumph of the afternoon for jockey Xavier (Chev) Aizpuru, the defending National Steeplechase Association champ. He earned $1,800 for the Valentine and $3,570 on the day.
Aizpuru leads the circuit in victories (13 in 37 starts) and earnings ($267,922). The take of the 33-year-old Cotswolds native, who won more than 100 races during an eight-year professional career in England, has been a relatively meager $26,792—about 10 percent of the earnings.
   
Then again, for Aizpuru, steeplechase is just a sideline. He works at the Fair Hill Training Center as an exercise rider for flat trainer Graham Motion, whose Icabad Crane was third in the Preakness.

"Much of my recent success in the sport has been because I've been injury-free," says Aizpuru. His top rival, 2005 N.S.A. champ Jody Petty, dislocated a wrist and broke a forearm last month at the Radnor Hunt in Pennsylvania. Two years ago, Petty emerged from a fall at the Little Everglades Steeplechase in Dade City, Florida, with four broken ribs and a ruptured spleen.
   
One chief difference between steeplechasing and flat racing is that no one joins the jumping set to get rich. "It's pretty much all for fun," says K.C. Kulp, a recovering stockbroker who co-owns the Whip Tavern, a genteel country pub near Fair Hill in Coatesville, Pennsylvania.
   
Not so many years ago, Joe Clancy's brother Sean, then a student at the University of Delaware, won a race at Fair Hill. Sean's frat brothers celebrated by jumping the rail and joining him for a photo op in the winner's circle.
   
"Needless to say, they were not wearing standard winner's circle attire," Joe recalls. "But it was steeplechase, and they were welcome just the same."

PREV 2 of 2