At 8 cents an acre, the Genesee Valley racecourse (and the thousands of acres that surround it) was an excellent purchase back in the 1780s
The steeplechase circuit makes it’s northernmost stop Saturday, and all systems are go for what’s certain to be the highlight of the year for Livingston County, New York
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There are three National Steeplechase Association-sanctioned races over the meet’s innovative safety rail timber jumps, plus an undercard that includes everything from the recognizable field masters’ ‘chase to the cavalry charge-esque stock horse sprint.
“It’s pretty much a county fair atmosphere,” says GVH joint-master and huntsman Marion Thorne. “People don’t think of New York as ‘farmland’, but this area is totally agricultural. This kind of community event is really important, especially for ‘horse people’ to put on a great show, with all sorts of fun things to do for everybody that comes.
"They look forward to this day all year long. There’s tailgating and racing, there’s food trucks and a farmers market, there’s dog races and a trade fair. It’s a really fun day.”
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Community engagement remains key at GVH. The crowd gathers on the course to meet the hounds. The parade of hounds is a spectator favorite every year.
©Karen Kandra
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Headliner on the card is the $25,000 Genesee Valley Hunt Cup timber stake. Three-and-a-half miles set on the left-handed, lightly rolling 1 1/2-mile course, the feature attracted a solid group of five headed by Schoodic (Connor Hankin up). The Jack Fisher-trained Schoodic won the last running of the GVH Cup in 2019.
“It’s a great course,” says Fisher, saying the old turf has a great thatch and really good footing throughout the sweeping oval.
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Jack Fisher and jockey Hadden Frost teamed up for two victories at GVH in 2017 - with Bruton Street's Preseli Rock (pictured) in the Maiden Timber and Charlie Fenwick's Doc Cebu in the Genesee Valley Hunt Cup.
©Karen Kandra
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Joint-master and huntsman Marion Thorne oversees the racecourse, and helps her sister, Martha Wadsworth, run the meet. “No one’s really in charge,” Thorne says. “We all are. Our hunt is very volunteer oriented. Everybody helps do everything.”
She says Saturday’s card includes three NSA timber races, a training flat race, field masters’ chase, junior turf race, pony races, stick pony races, a draft dash and the crazily popular stock-horse sprint.
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The draft horse dash. ©Karen Kandra |
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“Then everybody parties all day long,” she says, and the GVH club has their hunt ball that night.
The event is important to the community, she adds, with landowners invited for free, and tons of activities for everybody. “It’s a big family day. I doubt there’s another jump meet where you can watch a timber stake, a dog race, buy local produce at a pop-up farmers market and get hand-knit alpaca socks.”
The races have generated thousands of dollars for their longtime charity, the Golisano Children’s Hospital near Rochester north of Geneseo.
The course is in excellent condition for Saturday, Thorne says. The stacked rails, set on an inviting angle, are topped with a sort of safety rail.
Thorne calls it “redneck frangible.”
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The break-away timber at GVH, doing its job - to fall away when a horse hits it hard, but not land on the ground and present an additional hazard.
©Karen Kandra
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The event course builder at the Genesee Valley Horse Trials came up with the design when jump trainer Joe Davies and others suggested they make a safety adjustment. The top rail – like the others an 8-inch pole, is set in a stiff rubber cup with a rope to hold it in place, horizontally, if a horse whacks it with enough force to dislodge it. “That way, it doesn’t go flying into the racecourse,” it just drops down, Thorne explains, “and we can repair it between races.”
The top rail gives to pressure, but not too easily, so it doesn’t invite sloppy jumping form, she adds. And rope around the top rail allows it to drop straight down if it gets dislodged from its cups, but not fall to the ground or get askew to create a hazard for trailers or back markers, Thorne says.
Some believe the Genesee timber fence could be a model for other courses to annex as a safety feature in the future, she says.
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Genesee Valley Hunt was founded in 1876 by Major W. Austin Wadsworth. He continued as master of hounds until his death in 1917. Wadsworth was elected president of the newly formed Masters of Foxhounds Association in 1907.
For the first few years, he called his pack the Livingston County Hunt and hunted a trencher pack, with neighbors providing hounds each hunting day. They had “a” huntsman, but in fact everybody hunted their own private hound or hounds, and it wasn’t a great model, Wadsworth said at the time.
He thusly decided to step it up two seasons later, developing his own pack of crossbred hounds. They hunted well – fast and full of drive in what many called the “best hunt territory in the entire nation,” with huge open farm fields with extraordinarily good old turf footing (as is on today’s Nations Road racecourse) divided by thin strips of thick covert between fields. Deep ravines and gullies that formed in the glacial terrain provide great covert and promoted, then, a healthy fox population, and, now, healthy fox and coyote populations.
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Beautiful hunt country for the Genesee Valley Hounds.
©Karen Kandra
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Wadsworth name etched on the nation’s top timber prize
Mrs. W.A. Wadsworth won the nation’s most prestigious timber stake in 1935, the Maryland Hunt Cup, Wadsworth’s Hotspur II also won many of the circuit’s other top races.
Stuart Janney was aboard.
The family remains intimately involved in jump racing. Genesee Valley joint-master and huntsman, Marion Thorne, was an amateur rider in her day, and her sister, race secretary Martha Wadsworth, is part of the fifth generation of the Wadsworth family at the helm of the hunt and race meet.
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It was always a winning formula – in 1899 what was now being called the Genesee Valley Hunt won the pack class at New York City’s Westminster Kennel Club show.
The club hosted its first “old-fashioned” point-to-point races in 1885 over an unmarked course designed by Major Wadsworth.
Also starting in 1885 were the hunt’s Cavalry Games, with games like javelin throw, slicing a lemon with a sabre and something called the Manikin Race, won by Teddy Roosevelt one year.
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The first hunt-sponsored race meet over a flagged course started in 1895.
In 1933, William P. Wadsworth, the founder’s son, took over as master, and, eventually, as huntsman, titles he held until 1972.
Like his father, William P. Wadsworth served as MFHA president.
In 1972, William P. Wadsworth’s son, W. Austin Wadsworth, took over the horn and served as joint-master with his father until William P. Wadsworth retired in 1975.
Austin continued as huntsman and solo master until 1980 when his daughter, Martha C. Wadsworth, joined him as part-time huntsman and joint-master.
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As a not-for-profit land trust, the Genesee Valley Conservancy strives to conserve important natural resources and strengthen connections between people and the land in the Genesee River watershed. |
In 2001, Austin’s stepdaughter, Marion Thorne, became joint huntsman, becoming joint-master with Austin and her sister, Martha, in 2006.
Genesee hunts four days a week July through September, three days a week until after Christmas when possible, and they pick back up for spring hunting in March, April and May.
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Winter hunting in upstate New York.
©Karen Kandra
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A bargain price for land in 1788 – The Homestead was part of a trade deal
One of the Wadsworth central family properties, William Wadsworth’s The Homestead was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
The title to Homestead goes back to the Phelps and Gorham Purchase of 1788. Col. Jeremiah Wadsworth (1745-1804) of Hartford, Connecticut backed Phelps and Gorham, two speculators snapping up land bought from the native population in western New York along the Genesee River.
Jeremiah Wadsworth asked his cousins, James Wadsworth and William Wadsworth, who lived in Connecticut, to act as his buyers’ agent in return for the opportunity of buying 2,000 acres for 8 cents an acre.
They moved to the Genesee Valley in 1790, having an immediate impact on the small settlement at Geneseo. William Wadsworth was elected town supervisor for 21 years, and they helped create a thriving agricultural community based on crops and dairy.
Today, the 15,000-acre GVH territory – and the Nations Road racecourse and horse trials venue, are centered on the original family parcels. Formerly big commercial dairies, today the Genesee region is cropland, sheep grazing and hay.
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Far out but not a far stretch |
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American jump racing horsemen have seen the steeplechase circuit expand and contract through the years, but it’s pretty much centered on a 120-mile circle including northern Virginia, Maryland’s hunt valley and southeast Pennsylvania these days. Gone are the periphery meets in Florida and Illinois and St. Louis, and some of the Carolina meets have waned as well.
The Genesee Valley Hunt hosts NSA’s northernmost meet, and while their entries reflect the fact that it’s a five-plus-hour drive for most horsemen, the prize money and the superior course attract a cadre of enthusiastic supporters that appreciate and regularly support the meet for many reasons.
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Maryland’s Charlie Fenwick (His Doc Cebu won in 2017 and 2018.) |
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While maybe not the most convenient hunt meeting, Genesee Valley has always been a wonderful spot to take a timber horse – stakes horse or maiden.
The course is open and long with only a couple of fences jumped multiple times.
They developed the industry-standard for the “breakaway” timber fence – state of the art.
On top of everything else, the turf is superb. It is clearly well-manicured year-round, making for a fine surface, no matter the moisture – too much or too little.
It is a wonderful prep for either the International Gold Cup or the Pennsylvania Hunt Cup, or, eventually the Maryland Hunt Cup.
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Charlie Fenwick's Doc Cebu won the Genesee Valley Hunt Cup in both 2017 and 2018 with jockey Hadden Frost and trainer Jack Fisher. ©Rob Slifkin |
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Rider Hadden Frost (He rode the winners of the last three Genesee Valley Hunt Cups – 2019 with Dolly Fisher’s Schoodic and 2017-2018 with Charlie Fenwick’s Doc Cebu. Frost retired earlier this season to focus on his show jumping career.) |
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I loved riding at Genesee. The atmosphere was always fun, with lots of tailgaters and costumes.
And the scenery never fails to impress especially this time of year, though (I bet it does get very) cold up there.
The track is great to ride – I like the sweeping turns so you can steal an advantage on a good horse, and the breakaway fences are innovative and good for racing.
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Trainer Jack Fisher (He rode Gus’s Boy to win in 1991, Saluter in 1993. He trained Doc Cebu and Schoodic to win the last three runnings of the Genesee Valley Hunt Cup. Schoodic is morning-line favorite for Saturday – he won the Virginia Gold Cup this spring and the Legacy Cup at Shawan two weeks ago.) |
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It’s a good course. And, more important, the people that run the meet and take care of the racecourse, are great. |
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Trainer/rider Jack Fisher accepts the Genesee Valley Hunt Cup from Perky Lloyd following Saluter's victory in 1993.
©NSA Archives
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Trainer Todd McKenna (He saddled Crossing Again to win in 2013, Serene Harbor in 2014 and Be Great in 2015. For Saturday, he’s got Mystic Strike entered; he pulled up in the 2019 Genesee stake.) |
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Geneseo is friendly, engaging, beautifully designed and always fun. They are always welcoming with the best accommodations for both horses and competitors.
You ask anyone that has ever visited, and you’ll find excellent reviews.
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Huntsman Marion Thorne (Current Genesee Valley Hunt huntsman, she won her first race at GVH in 1976.) |
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I’m what you’d call ‘a step-Wadsworth.’ My mother married Austin Wadsworth and moved us to New York from Philadelphia when I was 7.
I went to St. Tim’s in Baltimore and then to Skidmore and St. Lawrence College in New York. (Leading amateur jump rider in the late ‘80s and ‘90s) Gregg Ryan was a classmate, maybe he was a year behind me. I think his first NSA ride was at Genesee (Close to Glory, second in the GVH Cup in 1980) and I’m pretty sure his first feature win was the same race (Cyanotype, in 1982.)
We had just an awesome time back then in school. We’re still great friends.
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We love this racecourse, and people love coming here. Horsemen, hunt members, people in the community. It’s something you look forward to all year long.
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((Marion Thorne – then Marion Kenney, won eight of 35 races 1976-1997 including three over timber at her home meet. She won the NSA sanctioned foxhunters ‘chase with Jig Potts over the steeplethon course at Great Meadow at the Virginia Gold Cup meet in 1997.))
Photo, above, of Marion Thorne and Bleu parading the hounds at the Genesee Valley Hunt Races, courtesy of GVH.
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Race secretary Martha Wadsworth. Great-granddaughter of William A. Wadsworth, hunt Board of Governors, GVH whipper-in |
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We like to have fun and to celebrate the many blessings that come along with living in the Genesee Valley.
The best way to have fun and raise money is to reach out to the community and share the resources of scenery and good sport with as many people as possible. The added benefit of in some small way helping kids and their families who are experiencing difficult medical challenges makes it even more worthwhile. I think it helps us stop and think about and acknowledging the great good fortune each person has who can make it out to enjoy the fair-like atmosphere.
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Martha Wadsworth selling raffle tickets to the crowd at the GVH Races.
©Karen Kandra
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This Wadsworth wrote the book (literally)
William P. Wadsworth, who died in 1982 at age 76, was master of Genesee Valley Hunt 1932-1975, huntsman for much of that time, and president of the MFHA 1972-1973.
Major William Austin Wadsworth – William P.’s father, had established the Livingston County Hunt in 1876, which became Genesee Valley Hunt in 1894.
Through the years, William P. wrote articles on hunting for the Chronicle of the Horse magazine. In 1962, the Chronicle assembled the pieces in the first printing of “Riding to Hounds in America.” Now stretching beyond 17 printings, the guide has served as introduction for novice foxhunters and a refresher for veterans.
“Little has changed,” wrote Chronicle publisher Peter Winants in 1987, “in foxhunting practices and theory since Mr. Wadsworth’s text was initially printed (in 1962.)”
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RACING DOUBLE HEADER for Saturday! We travel to the Virginia Fall Races and to the Genesee Valley Hunt Races.
WATCH BOTH on the NSA website (NationalSteeplechase.com). If races in both locations are running at the same time, just hold tight - the other race will be shown on a brief tape delay.
Post time 1pm
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