Nancy Hannum’s Morning Mac was a 1963 son of Gene Weymouth’s Cormac. Cormac, injured in the 1949 Maryland Hunt Cup, sired many winning ‘chasers – 1974 Hunt Cup winner Burnmac, 1970 and ‘72 Virginia Gold Cup winner King of Spades and 1976 Olympic (Montreal) individual and team three-day event gold medalist Bally Cor.

Morning Mac was a real family horse – owned and trained by Nancy Hannum, and ridden by all three of her children. Buzz Hannum followed sister Carol (third in the 1970 ladies’ timber at Andrews Bridge in the horse’s first start) and brother Jock (third in the heavyweight at Cheshire the next week) partnering the horse he called “a sweet ride, a real gentleman.” Buzz was second (to Landing Party) in the allowance at the Grand National then swept the biggest win of his life a week later.

“The going was bottomless. It had rained all week,” Hannum recalls of winning the 1970 Maryland Hunt Cup, his first ride in the stiff test. “Morning Mac was an outstanding jumper, so that kind of footing really showcased him.”

Event rider Kevin Freeman was third in the 1971 Hunt Cup with Morning Mac, then Buzz Hannum got the mount back in ‘72. He was fourth in the Hunt Cup that year but returned to win it a second time in 1973.

Buzz’s brother-in-law Bruce Davidson (Olympic three-day eventing gold in 1976 and 1984, and World Champion in 1974 and 1978) got the ride in 1975; Morning Mac retired the next year to the hunt field for Nancy Hannum.

Russell Jones, Jr. swept the nation’s top timber races in the 1970s with Jacko – Pennsylvania Hunt Cup, Deep Run Hunt Cup, Chronicle Cup, the Radnor Hunt Cup, Rose Tree, My Lady’s Manor and the Maryland Hunt Cup.

He remembers Buzz Hannum came close to beating the four-time Timber Horse of the Year in the 1975 Hunt Cup.

“I put (Jacko) on the lead, that’s where he was comfortable,” says Jones, 85. The April 26 race included an added hazard of actual running water on the course, torrential rain having formed a little river across the galloping lane from the 15th down the hill to the 14th.

“Jacko was going well, but I remember Buzz coming to me (on Fort Devon) at the 19th along with Turney McKnight (on Hammurabi.)

“I have a great photo of the three of us all in the air at once, and you can see Hammurabi hanging a knee.”

Hammurabi fell, leaving the nation’s top timber stars to power to the line together. Jacko won on the nod, but Jones feels like he was easily best.

For his part, Hannum argues Fort Devon had an excuse.

“So I’m beaten a whisker by Jacko,” Hannum explains sheepishly. “Charlie Fenwick reminds me all the time it was my own damned fault. As Margaret Worrall so helpfully reported in her book (“100 Years of the Maryland Hunt Cup,”) I was overweight by two pounds. Fort Devon carried 167. Jacko carried 165.

“Did it make a difference? Could I have won? We’ll never know, will we?

“Those were serious horses.”

Jacko got the best of Fort Devon that day at Hunt Cup, but by year’s end, Fort Devon had accrued more points and secured his second-straight timber title. Jacko had been timber champ in 1971, ‘72 and ‘73, and came back for a fourth title in 1976.

Another Hannum clan family horse, Our Ivory Tower was a standout race mare and producer.

Owned by Nancy Hannum, the 15 hand chestnut was ridden exclusively by her children Carol – they won several ladies timber races, and Buzz – they were second in the 1970 Virginia Gold Cup and third in 1971, then won the 1972 My Lady’s Manor and Grand National.

Homebred by Mary Rumsey, Nancy Hannum’s cousin, Our Ivory Tower “was a little bit difficult,” Buzz Hannum recalls, “but my mother kinda liked that in a horse. She had some very, very good foals,” including 1985 Grand National and Hunt Cup winner Our Steeplejack and Our Climber, second in the 1987 Hunt Cup.

English-bred Master’s Degree was a winning hurdle horse for owner Mrs. William Wright and trainer Morris Dixon in the early 1970s. Kathleen Crompton bought the horse as a timber prospect after the 1975 season. She placed him with Pennsylvania trainer Bill Walsh.

Paddy Neilson had the call in three point-to-points but fell off at Radnor.

Walsh gave the mount to Buzz Hannum.

Hannum and Master’s Degree won a couple point-to-points then were second in the Virginia Gold Cup and the timber stake at Hardscuffle to cap the spring.

Next out was the timber at Foxfield Fall.

“I remember approaching that fence on the backside there at the bottom of the hill,” Hannum recalls Master’s Degree had been perfectly willing to be bold and stand off his fences up to that point, but when Hannum suggested the horse leave long – again, Master’s Degree set down and tried to add a stride.

There wasn’t room for it.

“The result, well the result you can see,” Hannum says of photographer Douglas Lees’ five-frame capture of the spectacular spill as a result of Master’s Degree chesting the stacked rail jump. “Honestly, it was a really soft fall, nobody was any worse for the wear.”

Lees won the Eclipse Award for the perfectly timed, perfectly framed, perfectly exposed shot of Master’s Degree standing on his head, Hannum poised mid-air as if still riding the horse across the turf.

“I used to tease Walshy that I won him the Eclipse Award that he’d always wanted.”

John Berne Hannum died in 2007 at age 92. A graduate of the Dickinson School of Law, in 1969, he was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania by President Richard M. Nixon. He served for 23 years.

John Hannum rode as an amateur in the 1940s and ‘50s, first to retire the Cheshire Bowl with Plunkett Stewart’s Our Hobo. Our Hobo was third in the 1949 Hunt Cup, second in 1950 and ‘51.

“The Maryland Hunt Cup was always this elusive prize my parents were always interested in,” Buzz Hannum says. “Our Hobo was a great jumper, but he kept running into Pine Pep,” who beat him in ‘49 and ‘50.

Mother Nancy Penn Smith Hannum died in March, 2010 at age 90. Born on Long Island, Nancy was niece of New York governor Averell Harriman. Her parents were joint masters of the Orange County Hounds that had relocated from New York to The Plains, Virginia in the early 1900s.

After her father’s premature death in 1929, her mother married Plunkett Stewart and the family moved to Unionville, Pennsylvania where her stepfather was master of the Cheshire Foxhounds he’d founded in 1912.

Nancy married John Hannum in 1940; she took the horn, and the mastership, at Cheshire when her father died in 1948.

Nancy Hannum served the Cheshire more than five decades, avidly following as a road whip for years after she retired from the saddle.

In addition to leaving a continuing family line in the horse world, Nancy Hannum’s most enduring legacy is more than 30,000 acres permanently preserved through conservation easements.

“Mom could walk with kings and not lose the common touch,” eldest son Jock Hannum paraphrased poet Rudyard Kipling at her funeral. He told a story about Michael Daly, a World War II war hero who received the Congressional Medal of Honor. Speaking of Nancy Hannum, Daly told him, “Jock, never have I met anyone who could have led men into battle any better.”