Sometimes the easiest race to lose is the one you are expected to win. This year’s Virginia Gold Cup, The Plains, Va., one of the most coveted and venerable timber stakes races on the National Steeplechase Association’s schedule, came up light. Only four horses entered and only three ran on May 6. But a three-horse race has a dimension to it that makes it harder to ride and win than any 14-horse field.

“In a way, a small field like that can be more unpredictable,” said winning rider Chris Read.

Not that it mattered in the end to Kinross Farm’s Miles Ahead. The bay gelding was indeed miles ahead at the finish line�22 lengths to be precise. He also knocked 8 seconds off five-time winner of the race, Saluter’s record, finishing in 8 minutes and 19 seconds.

Returning to defend his 2005 title, Miles Ahead was the most obvious and prohibitive favorite. The Kinross connections made no secret that the goal for Miles Ahead’s spring season was to recapture the Gold Cup. With an easy win in the open timber at the Middleburg Spring Races (Va.) as a prep, the steeplechase community all knew who the horse to beat was come Great Meadow time.

But it was not his formidable talent for four miles, or his uncanny ability to turn on turbo boosters in the stretch run that scared away most of the competition. Instead, the Gold Cup came up light due to money.

With a $45,000 purse, the Gold Cup is the one of the more lucrative timber races on the NSA calendar. But one week before the Gold Cup is the Maryland Hunt Cup, with a $65,000 purse. One week after the Gold Cup is the $75,000 timber race at the Iroquois Steeplechase (Tenn.). So the Gold Cup was light as owners and trainers went for a different piece of the pie.


Close The Gap
What Read and trainer Neil Morris did predict was that Augustin Stables’ Seeking Seattle would tear to the lead.

“We knew that Seeking Seattle would open up on the field like he did when he ran in the [My Lady’s Manor open timber stakes in Maryland four weeks ago,]” explained Read. “We knew he would try to drag me along. But the Manor is 3 1/2 miles and the Gold Cup is 4 miles long, and that’s a big difference when you open up on a field by 20 lengths and try to set a pace like Seeking Seattle did. It was because of his early pace that we ended up breaking the course record.”

Seeking Seattle did indeed take his jockey, amateur rider Stewart Strawbridge, to a quick and mammoth lead, opening up on Miles Ahead and Askim (Charles Fenwick III) by 20 or so lengths. Read proved his worth as a patient and strategically savvy jockey, as he just settled his horse and waited to make the right move at the right time. Askim tracked Miles Ahead while Seeking Seattle appeared to be running his own race far out on the lead.

“I didn’t get too worried,” said Read. “I know my horse has these amazing gears that I can call on, and I just made sure I started to close the gap on Seeking Seattle before we got to the water jump.”

Read said he’s watched enough tapes of Saluter’s wins and ridden the race enough to know that you have to start gearing up to win by the water jump. “So I made sure I was close enough there to be able to catch Seeking Seattle,” he said. “I rode the whole race with a loop in the reins, galloping along like I was on a foxhunter. Then after the water jump Askim came to me a little. We quickened up the pace; I closed down the gap and that was it really.”

As elementary as Read may make it sound, Miles Ahead’s ability to quicken at the end of 4 miles makes him a timber standout. And Read’s cool-headed trust in his horse and his own innate sense of pace makes him a jockey standout. Three horses or not, this year’s Virginia Gold Cup was a heck of a horse race.

Map Anyone?
So was the spectator-popular $20,000 Steeplethon. Often called the “funny race” due to its use of mixed jumping obstacles and a water splash, the 3 1/2-mile race winds around the Great Meadow course with frequent changes in direction. These directional changes were almost the undoing for Robbie Walsh and Northern Thinking, who won over Earmark (Matt McCarron) by 17 lengths.

“I almost jumped a hurdle I wasn’t supposed to,” said Walsh with a grin. “I turned back to Chip Miller [who was galloping behind me on Loughbeg Rambler] and said, ‘Do I jump the hurdle?’ and he was yelling at me to, ‘Go left, go left!’ “

Had Walsh gone off course, it would have been a cruel twist of fate for Northern Thinking. Just two weeks before at the Middleburg Spring Races (Va.), jockey William Dowling, riding Northern Thinking, appeared to have that meet’s funny race in the bag when he missed a beacon and went off course. Trainer Jack Fisher was not amused.

In mock disgust he quipped in a post race interview that he had had to remove Dowling and replace him with Walsh due to Dowling being directionally challenged and now despite Walsh’s win, he’d have to seek out another jockey.

“I don’t know, maybe he should equip us with a GPS or something,” said Walsh.

As to why a fellow jockey might want to give his competition a helping hand and point out the right fence to jump, instead of letting him go off course and reap the rewards of elimination, Walsh said, “All the lads are pretty good at taking care of each other in a race. Chip’s a good guy like that.” Then with a cheeky grin Walsh added, “Besides, I don’t think Chip wanted to end up on the lead. Not in that race!”

Pointing out the right fence to jump wasn’t the only help Miller gave Walsh. Earlier in the race, at the seventh fence, he inadvertently stopped Walsh from falling off. The fence is timber with an uphill bank on the landing side. The horses have to jump, land and then jump down off the bank. These horses only see a fence like this on the Gold Cup course, and it gave Northern Thinking pause for thought.

“He’d made a bad mistake at this fence last year, and I guess he remembered it,” said Walsh. “He jumped up on the bank and just stopped, and I was coming over his head when Chip’s horse cannoned into the back of him and pushed him down over the edge of the bank. Then I was almost coming off the back of him. I almost came off twice at the same jump.”

Walsh made the pace for the whole race and pulled away to an easy 11-length win. Not that it was his idea to gallop off to the front. “He was on the muscle all the way,” he said. “He’s a big strong horse, and he wanted things his way that day. All I had to do was sit and steer.” Steer the right way of course.

EMO Stable’s Orison has done everything right since coming to Virginia-trainer Doug Fout’s barn last fall, and he broke his maiden spectacularly at the Gold Cup, winning the $15,000 straight maiden hurdle by 8 lengths under McCarron.

Fout gelded him right away because he “was mean as a snake” and then taught him to jump over the winter. He was impressed with the horse right away, impressed enough to debut him over jumps at the Carolina Cup (S.C.) in March. Due to its flat and fast track, Camden is not the usual choice for a first-time starter, but according to Fout, Orison handled himself with aplomb.

“He ran third at Camden and was very impressive,” he said. “Then I ran him at the Middleburg Spring Races. I wanted to win that race so badly because it’s named in honor of my father [the late Paul Fout] but he was second. That horse of Jimmy Day’s [Oobitwa, who won] was so much more experienced and just ran and jumped faster than my boy could handle. We should have rated him better there.”

So this time out McCarron dropped Orison into the middle of the pack for most of the 21�2-mile race. He shuffled him up to fourth place as the field rounded the turn for home and then “smoked the last two hurdles,” said Fout. “Matt didn’t even hit him after the last. He just folded up on him and cruised to the wire.”