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Joe Clancy You can’t sweep the card unless you win the first race. Far Hills’ record-setting day with $900,000 in total purses gets started with the $50,000 Gladstone Stakes for 3-year-olds. There’s never much to go on, because well . . . they’re 3-year-olds. Eight of the nine (with the scratch of Lonely Weekend) exit the race at Shawan Downs Sept. 29. Roller Rolls On won that one, but this is for real money.
Jack Fisher was aerating and seeding on his Maryland farm Wednesday afternoon and had plenty of time to talk while driving the tractor. Much of what he said was sarcastic. Some was unprintable. But plenty more was pure horse-training gold. North America’s six-time defending champion steeplechase trainer runs 15 horses at Saturday’s Far Hills Races in New Jersey, a number so big he recruited Hogan Horse Transportation’s tractor trailer rig to help.
The New York Racing Association, Inc. (NYRA) and Monmouth at Far Hills will partner to offer horseplayers an all-stakes Pick 4 on Saturday, Oct. 20.
Forgive Cyril Murphy if he doesn’t get ahead of himself. Don’t hold it against him if he takes it day by day. Or even minute by minute. You see, Murphy is a horse trainer and he’s been here before.
Zanjabeel, the leading steeplechaser in North America, will miss Saturday’s Grade 1 American Grand National at Far Hills, N.J. with a tendon injury – leaving the race without its biggest name and causing trainer Ricky Hendriks to look for answers.
In a bit of foreshadowing – or as she might have said, fate – Kathee Rengert rode a horse named My Fair Hill at the Fair Hill Races in 1979.
And won.
Want a horse to follow this weekend? Consider Kings Apollo. He runs in the open timber race at Shawan Downs in Maryland Saturday, and has a chance. He also carries some baggage.
In September 1961, Betsy Roosevelt went to the Fair Hill Races, and saw jump jockey Ronnie Houghton win the Cecil County Steeplechase aboard Trout Line.
“I was so proud to know somebody who won a race at Fair Hill,” Betsy said Tuesday of her then future husband who died Sunday at age 79. Houghton bred, owned and trained Thoroughbreds, was a father to four children and a grandfather to 11. The Pennsylvanian leaves behind a long legacy and, though he’ll be missed, not a lot of pain.
Laurel’s rescheduled De Francis Dash Day card featured seven stakes, the finale of the Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred Championship series, big fields and plenty of quality racing. Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens came in from California to ride several, while trainers Steve Asmussen, Tom Albertrani, Roger Attfield, Christophe Clement, David Donk, Jeremiah Englehart and others entered horses. The results included a 35-percent increase in handle over the same card in 2017 – to more than $5 million.
Back home in Ireland, jump jockey Jack Kennedy rode Zanjabeel plenty of times in the morning for trainer Gordon Elliott and teamed up with the English-bred in a race – a 48-length defeat at Punchestown in November 2016 – but the duo is much better on the other side of the Atlantic.
