It was a two-raincoat type of day at My Lady’s Manor on April 16, where only the true mudders prevailed. Despite driving rain and gale force winds at the Monkton, Md., course, six horses ran in each of the three races.
Merriefield Farm’s Bon Caddo (Blair Wyatt) tackled the soft going and came away with a victory in the $35,000 My Lady’s Manor timber stakes.

Up against last year’s winner, Morn-ing Star Stables’ South Monarch (Jody Petty), Bon Caddo went straight to the lead and never relinquished it. Only challenged in the stretch by Rosbrian Farm’s More Fascination (Jeff Murphy), Bon Caddo kept him at bay at the wire by almost a length.

Owned by Charles Noell of Merrie-field Farm and trained by Dawn Williams of Towson, Md., Bon Caddo has been
second nine times, including to Irv Naylor’s Patriot’s Path at the Pennsyl-vania Hunt Cup last fall and in the Virginia Gold Cup, where Arcadia Stable’s Bubble Economy passed him last May.

But Wyatt had no worries of getting passed this time. “He jumped really well,” she said. “There probably weren’t any Bubble Economys or Patriot’s Paths out there, but he still was full of run. It was kind of surprising since the ground was pretty darn soft. The conditions were far from ideal.”

Wyatt hadn’t planned to set the pace. “But we adapted really well, and he seemed happy to be out in front,” she said. “He’s a smart jumper with a huge heart, and he let me settle him easily.”

Though she’s been around the steeplechase world for a long time, Williams has mostly worked behind the scenes. She’s familiar with the 10-year-old Bon Caddo, who was once owned by her employer of six years, Bruce Fen-wick. The bay is easy to work around and is more like a big, sweet pony, she said.

“I’ve always had a couple of horses on my own,” Williams said. “Bon Caddo was our little slow horse. Getting him here has been a three-year project.”

Bon Caddo’s had a few different jockeys, but Williams likes the way Wyatt meshes with the bay gelding. “That’s some chemistry right there,” Williams said. “Those two get along nicely.”

Williams planned for their next stop to be the Maryland Hunt Cup, which Wyatt won in 2004 on Northwoods Stable’s Bug River.

First Win

As they approached the stretch, He’s Got Mojo (Mark Beecher) and You And I (Chris Read) appeared to have wrapped up first and second, respectively. But that was before Erica Gaertner asked Yin Yang for a little bit more.

In an explosive run, NoGo Stable’s Yin Yang blew by the other horses, making up more than 7 lengths to win the $10,000 amateur maiden timber by 1 length and give Gaertner her first sanctioned win.
“He’s a great horse,” Gaertner said.

“I ride him every day. [He’s] probably one of my favorite horses ever.”

Although she’s ridden at point-to-points and a few sanctioned races since 1998, Gaertner had never finished better than third in a sanctioned race. She was thrilled, at 30, to finally get a win.

“He was really strong. He jumped great, and I had so much horse at the end. I hardly asked—he just went for it,” said Gaertner.

Trained by Maryland’s William Meister, Yin Yang was a giveaway with a bowed tendon. Meister turned him out for a year and brought the lanky chestnut, now 9, back slowly.

When Meister rode Yin Yang in the Brandywine Hills Point-To-Point (Pa.) and won the heavyweight timber, he started thinking he might have a diamond in the rough.

“He’s got this amazing turn of foot,” Meister said. “At Brandywine, Chip Miller was running off on the front end carrying 170 pounds, and Yin Yang was carrying 190, and I didn’t have to do anything to catch him.”

Meister hasn’t decided where Yin Yang will go next. “[We’ll] just have to see how he comes out of this race,”
he said.

Irish Perfect

Richard Valentine was ecstatic about the soft going for his Irish-bred contender, Justpourit. The 12-year-old Justpourit romped through the heavy, chewed-up footing and won the last race of the day, the $7,500 amateur heavyweight timber, by more than 16 lengths.

Owned and ridden by Pennsylvania’s George Hundt, Jr., Justpourit was imported in 2010.

“I’ve never been so happy to see so much rain,” said Valentine, of The Plains, Va. “This horse is so effective on that kind of ground. He won at Genesee [N.Y.] last fall, and we had similar conditions. I knew this was his race.”

Valentine had planned to run Justpourit in the heavyweight race at the Grand National (Md.) the weekend after My Lady’s Manor. “We have to utilize this footing while we can,” Valentine said. “These are his races. It’ll get hot and dry up soon enough again.”