Trainer Doug Fout knew if he wanted to win at the Fair Hill Races he needed a fresh horse, and that is exactly how he won the $30,000 Sport of Queens Filly and Mare Hurdle Stakes, May 27 in Fair Hill, Md.

With jockey Matt McCarron up, Brigadoon Stable’s bay, 4-year-old filly Isla Mujeres broke well. The British-bred immediately shadowed The Fields Stable’s Guelph (Cyril Murphy), leading F. Lee McKinney’s Feeling So Pretty (Michael Traurig), Otto Stolz’s Artsy (Danielle Hodsdon) and Linda Klein’s Orchid Princess (Xavier Aizpuru) for most of the 21�4-mile race.

Feeling So Pretty entered the field with the most money at $42,638 and lifetime earnings of $275,329. Her latest run was against top geldings in the $150,000 Iroquois Hurdle Stakes (Tenn.), where she placed second.

This was Guelph’s first start for 2006. The 5-year-old daughter of Sky Classic, trained by Tom Voss, had four wins in five starts for 2005, making her the heavy favorite by the bettors.

The field followed along quietly for most of the running on the firm going. On the backside, Artsy suddenly stumbled after fence 12, losing Hodsdon.

With only a few fences to go, it looked like Guelph was going to pull away and win easily, but Isla Mujeres was far from done. The tall, lanky filly gained ground with every stride.

At the last fence, the two horses dug in and barreled down past the full grandstands for a wild photo finish. When the tote board finally lit up, it was Isla Mujeres by a neck over Guelph. Feeling So Pretty was third, and Orchid Princess took fourth. Hodsdon came back to the stretch with just a bruised ego.

Fout, who has high hopes for the bay daughter of King Of Kings, had a big smile in the winner’s circle. He ran her for a school at Strawberry Hill (Va.) this spring just to see what she could do, then placed her in the $20,000 Sport of Queens Filly and Mare allowance race at the Queen’s Cup (N.C.), where she won by more than 2 lengths. But Fout decided that running at Iroquois and then two weeks later at Fair Hill was too soon, so he skipped the big Nashville race.

“She’s so honest,” Fout said. “We set her up for this. We talked about going to Iroquois, but we decided not to go with it and that is what made the difference today. She’s just an awesome filly, and we got the weight we wanted and had a fresh horse and it made all the difference. I have come here before and done the whole Iroquois thing, then come up empty.”

Fout prepped her by running her with “the boys” for the last two weeks, and she gave them all a hard time.

“She is tough as nails,” Fout said. “I thought [at the] second-to-last we were beat, but you could see as she landed, step by step she was gaining on them. If we did not run out of stretch I knew we were going to beat Guelph. This filly just never quits, and she is so strong, stronger than a lot of my other horses.”

Fout is not going to run her at Colonial Downs (Va.) in the new fillies and mares summer series. He has decided to put her away until the fall and pick up the series from there.

Trouble With Timber
But not everything went as planned at the 38th running of the Fair Hill Races. Early in the week, the timber course had been given an extremely unfavorable review by National Steeplechase Association course inspector, Barry Watson. Watson had noted that there was an infestation of groundhogs and the timbers were “in an advance state of decay.” His report called the combination of those two elements “a potentially dangerous situation.”

On Thursday, race officials decided to have Watson re-inspect the course, and after getting an even more unfavorable review from him, they took it to the NSA board. Bill Gallo, the NSA Director of Racing, said the board unanimously decided to cancel the $10,000 timber race.

Watson said they made the right decision and doesn’t just want the course patched up.

“The timber course needs to be completely rebuilt from scratch,” Watson said. “I think there is a lot of groundhog infestation, which has compromised the stability of the ground around the fences.”

Watson was not so fond of the way the hurdle course has been kept either. “There is so much clover, henbet and dandelion in the turf, and it thins out the fescue,” he said. “Clover is pretty slick so if you have clover on a turn it just makes the turn more slippery.”

Gallo said Fair Hill, which used to be the home of steeplechasing’s Breeders’ Cup up until the early 1990s, has succumbed to serious neglect.

“The NSA does not control this course,” Gallo said. “The races are run under the jurisdiction of the Maryland Racing Commission. The Department of Natural Resources maintains the property, and Union Hospital runs the races. It is a combination of all three of those entities, and as you can see there are a lot of chiefs.”

Trainer Jack Fisher already has a plan in the works to bring the timber course and the entire facility back to its prime.

“The hurdle track is in reasonable shape, but I think there is too much training that goes on here in the morning,” Fisher said. “Fair Hill was the No. 1 track in the country. It has kind of fallen on hard times, but I think it can be resurrected. I put a group of 10 people together on Friday night to rebuild the timber course. We just want to make sure we are going to have someone in place to maintain it.”

Fisher is hoping to keep the straight up-and-down timber fences, like most Maryland courses, but maybe with a little more height.

Watson agreed: “You need just one entity or person to look after the welfare of the course. Hopefully, that will change. This should be one of the top five courses in the country.”

Aizpuru, McKenna Win Two
Despite losing a runner in the canceled timber race, Fisher did have a winner in the $15,000 maiden hurdle with Edie Dixon’s Looking Best (Aizpuru). This win puts Fisher solidly in the NSA leading trainer category with 13 wins for the season.

Aizpuru also won for trainer Kathy N. McKenna on Stewart Strawbridge’s Straight Path by 41�2 lengths over Big Bad Joe (Jody Petty) in the $10,000 maiden claiming hurdle.

“He’s got a great temperament,” McKenna said of the horse. “I think he likes running on the firmer ground, which is probably good since we are so dry right now. He really dug in at the end. We may see if he likes Colonial Downs this summer.”

McKenna went on to win a second race for the day with Aluckyperk in the $10,000 claiming hurdle for amateur or apprentice riders. This time she called fellow trainer Alicia Murphy to see if her jockey William “Billy” Santoro was available.

Santoro burst on the spring steeplechase scene this year, winning several sanctioned races. But the 56-year-old jockey is not new to the sport. About 20 years ago he was active in the point-to-point circuit, then got sidetracked when he chose a career in acting.

Now he is back in the saddle and having fun. Just days before Fair Hill, he thought he was finished jump racing until the fall.
“I got the call, and I had just eaten this enormous fried chicken dinner,” Santoro said. “I woke up the next morning, and I had already put on 6 pounds, but, fortunately, you can ride a little heavier for this race.”

Although they’d formerly tried to rate the horse, McKenna thought he might be happier on the lead.

“She said let him go out front if he wants,” Santoro said. “We got an early lead, but I did get him back and let him settle after the first turn. I just wanted to keep him close. He was really right today. It was a great ride.”

While Hodsdon did not get a win at Fair Hill, she finishes the spring season with the most sanctioned wins so far at nine. McCarron is right behind her with eight wins, and despite having a slow start due to a bad fall, last year’s leading jockey Petty is tied with Aizpuru with seven.

The spring closes with Kinross Farm in the top spot for NSA leading owner title with a whopping $334,375, mostly won by their top horse Sur Le Tete. Irvin S. Naylor is in second place in the leading owner category, but he is the reigning king as the leading timber owner at $145,900 to Kinross Farm’s $74,000.