It wasn’t ideal footing, but Augustin Stables’ Imagina (Jody Petty) made the best of it in the $30,000 Valentine Memorial for fillies and mares at the Fair Hill Races, May 26.

The Elkton, Md., course, although well manicured, was bone dry. The 90-degree heat did not help matters, and the circumstances caused most of the seven pari-mutuel races to scratch down significantly.

The three entries in the feature included Kinross Farm’s Gold Mitten (Matt McCarron). The 7-year-old, gray daughter of Waquoit had not liked the deep going at the Iroquois Steeplechase (Tenn.) on May 12, and the pair pulled up. But she had liked the firm footing at Colonial Cup (S.C.) last fall, winning the $25,000 race by several lengths, so trainer Neil Morris kept her in the stakes race.

Midnight Cry Stable’s Mary Cat (Liam McVicar) was the final entry. This was the second start for the 4-year-old daughter of Tactical Cat. She too was not happy at Iroquois, and trainer Jack Fisher was hoping she would take to the firmer going, but Mary Cat had other ideas from the get go.

At flag fall, Imagina and Gold Mitten boldly left for the first fence, while Mary Cat chose to go sideways, dwelling at the start. She finally bolted forward, chasing the others some 30 lengths behind them.

To Mary Cat’s credit, she did catch  Imagina and Gold Mitten after about three fences and jumped along with them for most of the race, but she was no match for the speed at the last fence, when Imagina pulled away to win by 5 lengths.

This is the Chilean-bred’s second win of the season. The 5-year-old daughter of Great Regents won the $20,000 Sport of Queens race at the Carolina Cup (S.C.) easily, but like so many other mares, Imagina struggled in the rain-soaked turf at Iroquois, coming in a distant sixth.

Petty knows Imagina well and was a little concerned when Mary Cat did not seem to be running with the rest of them.

“The thing about Imagina is she does not like to meet the lead too early. She needs to run with someone else. The secret is to present her at the last or the second-to-last so she lands going away,” Petty said. “It
worked out perfectly, and you have to give that Mary Cat a lot of credit; she caught up after a couple of fences. That’s pretty fast on this going.”

McVicar was happy with Mary Cat’s second sanctioned start, though the jockey was beginning to wonder if his day was going to settle down. He had arrived very late to the course after seeing his life flash before his eyes while driving to Elkton with Virginia trainer Jimmy Day. While traveling on Interstate 70 in Maryland, one of the front tires to the truck pulling Day’s gooseneck blew out. Day was able to keep control of the gooseneck as it jackknifed and kept it from rolling over as they skidded to a stop. Luckily, none of the horses were injured.

McVicar said a passerby must have called in the accident immediately because three Maryland State Police cruisers quickly arrived to help, and they were able to get a tow truck to get the horses safely back to Virginia. While Day called in to scratch his horses, McVicar caught a ride with another race-goer who had stopped to lend assistance.

“It was a pretty eventful day,” McVicar said. “We were really lucky we didn’t flip over. All the horses took it very well.”

McVicar added: “Mary Cat’s still a maiden. I was very proud of the way she caught up to the other two. She just doesn’t have the speed yet. She’s still learning about everything.”

Imagina heads into the summer with $31,500 to her name, just shy of Linda B. Klein’s Orchid Princess who leads with $35,000. The filly/mare series resumes in the fall.

Looking Good For Aizpuru
Jockey Xavier Aizpuru picked up two wins on the day, first on Coppertree Farm’s Ed’s Empire in the $10,000 maiden claiming hurdle for trainer Tom Voss, then on Kingfisher Farm’s Looking Best in the $15,000 open claiming hurdle for Fisher.

Looking Best has all the markings of what Fisher would like to see in a timber horse. The 5-year-old can run all day and jumps well, however, he does not seem quite ready for wood.

On April 22, Looking Best made his first start over timber with jockey Robbie Walsh in the irons. Instead of jumping the first fence, Looking Best refused and turned sideways. Unfortunately, William Meister and Why Not Baby were right behind him. Why Not Baby jumped Looking Best cleanly but took Walsh out in the process. Then he turned sideways mid-air and landed on the jockey on the other side, seriously injuring him (see sidebar).

Aizpuru likes the horse and thinks he was well-suited for the hurdle course at Fair Hill. “I am a great believer that some horses like certain courses, and he broke his maiden here last year,” Aizpuru said. “He was in a field of very competent horses who could have easily won the race today, and it would not have been any disgrace to him. He won it in good fashion today.”

Aizpuru added about the heat: “It’s just so hard to get air in temperatures like this. You can only imagine what it’s like for the horses. Every horse who has run here today has put in a pretty courageous effort.”

Two Winning McKennas
New trainer Todd McKenna got his first career win with his own horse Sheriff Dillon. Ridden by Paddy Young, the little 6-year-old grandson of Carson City shot by the rest at the end to win by more than 6 lengths in the $15,000 maiden hurdle, picking up an added $5,000 for being a Maryland-bred.

McKenna, who is married to winning trainer Kathy Neilson McKenna, is still fairly new to the sport but is really enjoying the experience as a rider and now a trainer. About three years ago, McKenna and his wife went to Bill Boniface’s farm to look at a stakes horse for her stable. After they got there, they realized the horse wasn’t quite what they wanted.

“Mr. Boniface said to us, ‘Gosh darn you are not going to leave here empty-handed‚’ and showed Kathy this horse. I liked him, and Mr. Boniface said, ‘He’s small and he’s cheap‚’ and well, $1,200 later, here he is. He doesn’t hunt very well and has to live outside 24/7, but I still really like him.”

McKenna’s wife is sitting pretty heading into the summer season, thanks to English jockey Carl Rafter. Rafter has won all 10 races for the trainer, who stands third in the National Steeplechase Association standings behind her sister Sanna Neilson Hendriks (12) and Fisher (13).

Kathy McKenna’s 10th win came with Move Up Stable’s Trusted Comrad (Rafter) in the timber race. Run over a new course, the race scratched down to three horses, including Augustin Stables’ Flying Contraption (Chip Miller) and Adair Bonsal’s Zaratanie (Bonsal).

Zaratanie pulled up early after refusing two fences, and Rafter and Miller played cat and mouse, each taking the lead until the last fence. The endless stretch turned out to be Trusted Comrad’s, and he and Rafter sailed under the wire some 16 lengths ahead of Flying Contraption. This win also marks McKenna’s 10th anniversary of her very first win as a trainer.

“He jumped a couple really big early on,” Rafter said. “He’s a pretty big, scopey horse. All I had to do was keep him focused.

“I had an issue with the heat weighing out,” he added. “I had to go and find 6 pounds of lead. I know what my gear weighs, and when I went up to the scales I found I was 6 pounds light. I know it’s really hot when I have lost six pounds.”

The timber course was rebuilt this year, after an infestation of ground hogs and rotten timbers made the course unusable in 2006. The fences, which are between 3’4″ to 3’8″, were built with the help of race course director Frank Hopkins and timber trainers Joe Gillet Davies and Fisher, who wanted to keep the same feel of the original course.

“Jack and I wanted to make sure that the course was built in the old style Maryland way, in contrast to many of the courses that have been built recently that are solid poles and lean-tos,” Davies said. “We wanted to return to the old style, so if a horse makes a terrible mistake they will just take out a rail.”

Walsh On The Mend
Since jockey Robbie Walsh’s injury sidelined him from being an exercise rider at the Fair Hill training facility and is keeping him from riding steeplechase races, the community has rallied together to start a fund to help defray costs. While his medical bills have mostly been paid for, the added expenses of physical therapy and everyday costs were not covered. In addition, Walsh has a wife and a new baby.

Friend and former champion jockey Gus Brown and his wife Linda held a fundraiser after Willowdale (Pa.) on May 13 and raised more than $21,000 for the jockey.

“It just shows that people in this sport take care of each other,” Brown said. “Robbie was really in a bad spot, and I have had people take care of me when I have been hurt. It’s just my way of giving back.”

Walsh, who had never broken a bone in 14 years of race riding, made up for it in one day when a horse fell on him at the Plumstead Hunt Point-To-Point (Pa.), April 22. He broke his shoulder blade in three places, had his jaw knocked out of alignment, fractured one of his thoracic and one of his lumbar vertebrae, broke several ribs in his back and had three metal plates put in his face. Walsh is hoping to be back on the circuit this summer.

The jockey said his new helmet saved his life. “Had I been thrown out a little bit further, it would have been really nasty,” Walsh said. “The helmet I was wearing definitely saved my head. It’s the Charles Owen A.P. McCoy helmet. It has extra padding in the side and on the back of your head.”

Walsh said the outpouring of money has humbled him, and many of the gifts were from people he did not even know. Without the monetary help, he said he might have given up his passion forever and possibly moved back home to Ireland.

“Hopefully, we have raised a lot more money than what I need, and this money will be there to help someone else who may get in the same position,” Walsh said. “I am a freelance rider; I don’t have a salary job. If I work, I get paid. If I don’t work, I don’t get paid. People like me do this because we love riding races. You are not going to become a millionaire riding steeplechasers.”

Walsh added, “You hope your health insurance covers most of it, but if not that’s where it really gets expensive. This enables me to stay doing what I love doing. Coming back by Saratoga [N.Y.] is the aim. I am just going to take every day as it comes. I am trying to follow the doctor’s orders as best I can.”

Sarah L. Greenhalgh