Elizabeth Cromwell Bosley Bird, the first woman to train a Maryland Hunt Cup winner, died on Dec. 30. She was 81.

Mrs. Bird was born in Monkton, Md., the heart of Maryland steeplechase country, and raised at Fox Hill Farm where she started riding as a small child.

She attended Gunston and Greenwood Schools (Md.) and after graduating worked for the Greenhalgh family in Virginia at their show stable. After a brief modeling career in New York, she worked for R.K. Mellon in Ligonier, Pa., where she ran the stables and showed the horses, and later, for Willy DuPont, who said she was an Olympic-caliber rider.

Mrs. Bird went on to become one of the great riding and training legends of her time. In addition to training many successful horses, she was responsible for many great riders and had a stable full of the best hunters and timber horses in the country.

In 1954, Marchized won the Maryland Hunt Cup, and in 1977 Fort Devon smashed the Hunt Cup field by 30 lengths, both under Mrs. Bird’s training.

A lover of working hard and playing hard, Mrs. Bird was known for her exploits, one of the more famous of which revolved around a horse named The Clown. Paddy Smithwick, a trainer and friend of Mrs. Bird’s, invited her over after a hunt ball to see a horse he wanted to sell. She schooled The Clown over fences that night in her gown, proceeded to purchase him, and won every show championship she entered.

Mrs. Bird is survived by her husband, Charles S. Bird III, two nieces, five nephews, and 13 great-nieces and nephews. Memorial contributions may be made to: Cheshire Land Preservation Fund, P.O. Box 983, Unionville, PA 19375 or The National Steeplechase Foundation, 400 Fair Hill Drive, Elkton, MD 21921.