Sarah L. Greenhalgh

Jockey Brian Crowley is on a roll this spring, picking up wins at the Block House Races (N.C.), the Carolina Cup Races (S.C.), the Atlanta Steeplechase (Ga.) and the Aiken Steeplechase (S.C.). At Queens Cup, held April 30 in Mineral Springs, N.C., the Irishman added to his résumé by pulling off three top finishes in jumping races and one flat victory.

Crowley’s biggest win of the day was the $50,000 Queens Cup MPC ’Chase Sport of Kings Novice Hurdle Stakes. He was aboard Magalen Bryant’s Triplekin for trainer Jonathan Sheppard.

May ’tis the season for triple ’chasing wins, and jockey Richard Bou-cher became the latest lucky winner of a hat trick at the Radnor Hunt Races, including the $50,000 hurdle feature, on May 21 in Malvern, Pa.

Riding Mede Cahaba Stable’s gray Complete Zen, Boucher followed along behind Magalen Bryant’s Triplekin (Brian Crowley) for most of the running. Boucher kept the son of Cozzene out of trouble, but Triplekin wasn’t as lucky.

When the starter raised his flag for the $75,000 Livingsocial Virginia Gold Cup, May 7, six horses were nervously approaching the line. But by the time they’d set off and reached the second of 23 fences, the race was down to just three—and still dwindling.

It took eight long years to get Sportsmans Hall’s Private Attack to the winner’s circle at the $75,000 Maryland Hunt Cup, but it was worth every setback along the way for trainer Alicia Murphy.

She was all smiles as she took the reins after the race on April 30 in Glyndon, Md. This was the Maryland trainer’s first time winning the Mary-land Hunt Cup. Murphy’s had Private Attack in her barn since the horse was
a 4-year-old, but she never considered him a Hunt Cup hopeful in those early days.

When Private Attack and Blythe Miller Davies secured the Grand National timber feature by a neck, it wasn’t the first win in Butler, Md., for either one of them. Private Attack, owned by Sports-mans Hall, took the title in 2008, but for Davies, it’s been 20 years since her last victory there.

A two-time champion jockey in the 1990s, Davies has been retired for nine years and now rides as an amateur. But she helped to make it ladies’ day on April 23, as she, along with three female trainers and another lady rider, dominated the card.

Irv Naylor’s newest stakes hurdler Decoy Daddy took advantage of his low profile to best the veterans in the $50,000 Temple Gwathmey grade III hurdle handicap stakes at the Middle-burg Spring Races on April 23.
Days of rain prior to the race in Middleburg, Va.,  kept a few of the big guns away, including Kenneth Ramsey’s Slip Away, who won the 2010 Gwathmey and Eclipse Award, and grade I winner Randleston Farm’s Spy In The Sky.

For Complete Zen and Richard Boucher, the $50,000 Georgia Cup Sport of Kings novice hurdle could have been a disaster. But in the end it went down on the horse’s record as a win, as he cruised around the $50,000 Georgia Cup Sport of Kings novice hurdle on April 16.

The pair took off at flag fall and dragged the field of four around the course in Kingston, Ga. Andre Brewster’s All Together (Xavier Aizpuru) shadowed the pair, only a few lengths off for most of the running.

Trainer Arch Kingsley Jr. had a pretty good feeling about his horse’s chances in the $50,000 Carolina Cup Grade III Hurdle Stakes. But even at his most optimistic, Kingsley wasn’t expecting him to win by more than 27 lengths.

To say Kingsley’s horse Sunshine Numbers dominated the field in Camden, S.C., April 2, would be an understatement. Sunshine Numbers and jockey Jody Petty shot to the early lead, immediately leaving the other four horses to play catch up.

The death of Devil’s Preacher in a hurdle race made for a somber mood at the Carolina Cup, April 2 in Camden, S.C. 

According to his jockey Xavier Aizpuru, the Virginia-based 'chaser, owned by Colvin Ryan and trained by Julie Gomena, was traveling well in the five-horse field until leaving too long before one of the National hurdles in the $30,000 allowance race.

“He took a chance at the fence, and tragically this time he didn’t get away with it,” Aizpuru said. “He hit it hard and flipped on the other side, breaking his neck.”

Steeplechase jockey Jorge Torres remains unconscious after a fall on Nov. 13 at the Colonial Cup meet (S.C.), but he is showing improvement.

The 25-year-old was critically injured when his mount, Rafael Fernandez’s Class Moon, fell over the third hurdle from home in the $25,000 hurdle stakes for 3-year-olds. The horse was unhurt in the accident.

Torres suffered a severe concussion, a broken pelvis and fractures in his back and was airlifted to Palmetto Richland Memorial Hospital in Columbia, S.C., where he remains at press time.