Trainer Jack Fisher’s horses dominated the first and second spots in the open timber at the Marlborough Hunt Races, April 10 in Davidsonville, Md., and answered some questions about how they might perform this year on the sanctioned circuit.

Happenstance Farm’s Sham Aciss (Paddy Young) and Arcadia Stable’s Bubble Economy (Tom Foley) took to the timber fences at the Roedown course like fish to water. The fences were all upgraded in the off-season and were formidable enough to separate out any timber pretenders.

The four-horse field started out quietly, schooling along. The first fence was a mite sticky for all four as they worked out the kinks of a winter off, then everyone found their rhythm and tucked in behind the lead of veteran timber horse, Neruda (Remy Winants). Bubble Economy was next, while Bad Dog Press (Zach Miller) hung in the back, trading places with Sham Aciss.

As the field made the turn toward home, the pace quickened, with Bubble Economy and Sham Aciss moving to the front. Neruda tried to catch up, took a misstep over the last, and fell. Neither horse nor rider was hurt.

Both of the Fisher horses roared into the stretch, but Sham Aciss kept Bubble Economy at bay and won the race by 11³2 lengths in 6:314³5.

Young said the whole plan was just to go out for a school before heading to the sanctioned My Lady’s Manor races (Md.) the following weekend. “There was no point to try to win the race until after the last fence,” Young said. “I just had to keep Tom’s horse behind me. I could really feel my horse dig in. He really needed this race.”

Fisher went on to grab first and second again in the maiden hurdle, this time with a couple of fancy flat track horses–Sara Lyn Stable’s Quem Se Atreve and Ann Stern’s Latino.

The Brazilian-bred Quem Se Atreve has an impressive pedigree and won a couple of Grade I flat races in his native land. However, when the horse came to the Northern Hemisphere to try his luck, it was hard to tell the former stakes winner from the exercise ponies at the flat track.

“He was an absolute dog and wouldn’t run well in the United States at all and his owners wanted to sell him,” Fisher said. “I couldn’t buy him because I couldn’t really price him because he had run so horribly, so they just sent him to me.”

Foley rode Quem Se Atreve, and the horse showed his inexperience over hurdles by literally walking through a couple of the Camden brush fences. But the gelding got the job done and was pressed only by his stablemate, the Peruvian-bred Latino ridden by William Dowling.

Foley’s instructions were simple and typical of Fisher’s acerbic sense of humor. “Jack said, ‘Go to the front and don’t fall off.’ I came close a couple of times,” Foley said with a smile. “He’s a pretty nice horse, and Jack thinks quite a lot of him. I just gave him a couple of smacks on the shoulder, and he ran off down the hill with me at the end.”

Fisher, the 2004 National Steeplechase Association’s leading trainer, said he’s tried horses from every other country, so why not South America. “We are trying South American horses this year,” Fisher said. “We tried England and France; now we are going with South America.”

Maryland trainer Alicia Murphy is also looking forward to the sanctioned circuit after her win in the novice timber with Sportsman’s Hall’s Private Attack.

Young got the ride again, and the pair led wire-to-wire in the 10-horse field. Only the former hurdler Regal Again (Robert Massey) pressured the pair in the stretch.

“He is such a wonderful horse,” Murphy said. “He really didn’t shine last year except in training. Now, when I go out to catch him and all the other horses are moving away because they think I might want to ride them, he comes right to me and says, ‘Cool, what are we going to do now?’ You don’t find many horses like that.”

Getting new steeplechase owners inter-ested in the sport is always a goal of trainers, and Ricky Hendriks met a new owner he hopes to keep in the sport for many years. Hendriks saw something he liked in 4-year-old Noble Bob and met the horse’s owner and breeder Jeffrey Franz of Circa Farm (Md.).

Jockey Clayton Chipperfield, who won four races for the day and two on Saturday at Stoneybrook (S.C.), gave Noble Bob a nice trip around the maiden hurdle course, keeping him in the lead all the way to the wire.

“I have been schooling him the last couple of days,” Chipperfield said. “[Ricky’s] instructions to me were to follow the pace and see what the horse has got. ‘Bob’ took over from there. He is a pretty nice horse.”

Noble Bob is a handsome bay by Lord Avie, but he didn’t always look this good. In fact, he was not expected to live, much less ever race.

“He really is a miracle horse. He didn’t stand up for about a month after he was born,” said Franz. “For weeks he was lying on the ground with a blanket around him and was eating through a feeding tube. Nobody thought this horse was going to live.”

Franz would not give up and found “Noodle” a nurse mare after his mother rejected him. “And after he did stand he hobbled around with his leg bent under for a few weeks,” Franz said. “Then he straightened up and started walking right, and then he grew really big. We tried him at flat races and he was too slow for that because he had this big hind end.”

Noble Bob had four starts on the flat track and earned a total of $10,660. “At one point we sent him for auction at the Timonium Sales [Md.], but I just couldn’t do it and pulled him out,” added Franz. “Someone then recommended Ricky and steeplechasing. This is his first jumping race, and it’s so unbelievable to see him win like that.”