We would love to be in Tennessee at the Iroquois Steeplechase or in Pennsylvania at the Willowdale Steeplechase today. Since we can't, let's go to Virginia to meet Don Yovanovich instead.
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Don Yovanovich gives as good as he got:
Virginia steeplechase Hall of Famer strives to boost racing from the ground up
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For more than four decades, longtime steeplechase horseman Don
Yovanovich has served the industry as a race director, course designer, rules challenger, visionary and all-around squeaky wheel. He's best known as a trainer of horses and a trainer of young riders, but, on and off the racecourse, Yovanovich changes hats as often as Mikey Mitchell changes hat covers.
(
Tod Marks
photo)
With a no-nonsense manner and a keen eye on progress, the Virginia horseman has been an architect of change within the industry, advocating for creation of the National Steeplechase Association’s safety committee, designing race series to promote grassroots participation at the point-to-point level, creating officials’ seminars to bring in new blood and most recently helping pen a shoe rule to align jump racing with flat racing.
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“I can’t think of anybody with a more impressive report,” says Central Entry Office founder Will O’Keefe about the 2011 Virginia Steeplechase Hall of Fame inductee. O’Keefe isn’t exaggerating – there’s an 18-page jockey report, 42-page trainer report and 60 year-end awards listed for Yovanovich's 46-year (and counting) career. “He was 13-time leading trainer, but I think more impressive are the 22 amateur champions he trained. Foxhunter timber series, owner-rider timber, owner-rider hurdles, ladies’ timber. He brought a lot of people into the sport.”
Yovanovich still gallops four or five horses each morning each morning at the old Rockburn Farm near Rectortown, Virginia, training mostly for the flat these days as his client base has shifted away from owner-rider ’chasers that were his forte in past decades. He’s slim and soft-spoken at age 69, and with signature white locks like Bob Baffert / Wayne Lukas, an easily identifiable part of the steeplechase community.
“He’s given a huge amount of time and energy to steeplechase racing,” says the nation’s longest-serving racing commissioner, Delaware’s Duncan Patterson. “But the thing I admire about him the most is if you ask him to do it, he’ll do it. What he tells you, you can take that to the bank.”
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Yovanovich working a race meet as an official in 2009.
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Raised in the Rosemont community on Philadelphia’s main line, Yovanovich’s father was an industrialist who designed paper conversion equipment machines. His mother raised five children – son Donald was second-youngest. The parents encouraged education and outdoor activities in equal measure.
“But we were not a horse family, not at all,” Yovanovich recalls his sisters being led to and fro on rental ponies on the sand on vacation at Margate City, New Jersey.
Back home, his older sisters clamored for lessons, and Malvern horseman Hervey Swann was contracted to teach the whole clan. An true all-around professional, Swann hunted, showed, taught lessons and played polo.
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By The Numbers:
Don Yovanovich
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Rider:
769 mounts (point-to-point and NSA) from 1974-1995. 112 winners – the first of which was Too Far Gone for Betty Bird over hurdles at Virginia Fall in 1974.
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Trainer:
1854 starters (point-to-point and NSA) from 1980-2019. 395 winners. 2314 starters (on the flat) from 1985-present. 139 winners. $1.534 million in earnings.
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Awards:
More than 60 Virginia Steeplechase Association and Virginia Point-to-Point Foundation awards, including the Francis Thornton Greene award, the Master’s Prize, Yves Henry Lifetime Achievement award.
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Notable:
13-time Virginia leading trainer. Trained 22 owner-rider or amateur series champions.
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A mud splattered Don Yovanovich at the Casanova Pt. to Pt. Races, Spring Hill Farm, Casanova, Va. 1983. Douglas Lees photo
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“I got drug into it by my ears,” Yovanovich recalls his initial indifference. “It was weird. I quit, but a year later, I told my parents ‘there’s something about riding I miss,’ and they let me go back.”
Swann got the small but strong Yovanovich to help make up and sell the show ponies, campaigning on the local and national circuit, first ponies, then junior hunters, jumpers and equitation.
Even back then, Yovanovich says, for every 100 girls at a show, there were two boys.
In his class, there were actually three.
The regional circuit in the mid-1960s became a feeder circuit of sorts for jump racing, producing three eventual jump jocks out of the show arena: Yovanovich, amateur owner-rider Nick Ellis, and Matt Collins, later a top adult hunter rider and steeplechase jockey who quit to become a male model, eventually landing the lucrative “Marlboro Man” ad campaign in Japan.
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The top male model of the 1970s,
Matt Collins
found himself thrust into a life and career he never expected. Spotted at The National Horse Show in Madison Square Garden in 1974, he was signed to Wilhelmenia Models. At first, he merely agreed to two months worth of work, and even then, it would be between horse shows. Two months turned in to four years.
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Yovanovich says he particularly thrived on the concentration required in equitation, qualifying for both Medal and Maclay finals and winning more than a dozen USET equitation classes.
College – first Ohio State, where he played right midfield on the varsity soccer team, then Villanova, where he earned a bachelors in biology, a masters in cellular physiology – curtailed his riding, but he jumped back in during his final semester at Villanova.
“I hadn’t been on a horse for six years,” Yovanovich says. “Someone said Mrs. (Betty) Bird over in Unionville was looking for someone to school young horses.
“I remember the interview. She asked me to dinner, told me to bring photos of me showing. We sat up ‘til 1 a.m. talking and looking at old pictures. Finally she looked at me and said, ‘Can you be here at 5 a.m.’?”
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“Mrs. Bird was a brilliant horsewoman, an elegant rider. She and Mr. (Charlie) Bird could not have been more generous to me.” Nearby horsemen Paddy Neilson and Buzz Hannum became mentors, Yovanovich says, and he “learned a ton” from Doug Small when he took over as Small’s assistant at Delaware Park.
“There’s another great horseman,” Yovanovich says. “How to pick races for horses, how to keep (older) horses sound and going, about swimming horses (for fitness.) Dougie used to swim horses in his farm there in Cochranville.
“He taught me that when in doubt about running a horse, scratch him. There’s always another race, but not always another horse.”
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Yovanovich next rode for Pennsylvania trainer Bill Walsh, winning the 1978 Virginia Gold Cup and Radnor Hunt Cup with Mrs. Edgar Scott’s Navy Davy and hooking up with Walsh’s client Randy Waterman. At the end of the season, Yovanovich moved to Virginia to help Waterman set up Trappe Hill Farm in Upperville and develop a property beside the Middleburg Training Center as home to the Middleburg Equine Swim Center.
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1978 Virginia Gold Cup, Broadview Race Course, Warrenton, Va. Don Yovanovich won on Navy Davy (number 5).
Douglas Lees photo
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Yovanovich whipped for Waterman at Piedmont, and later for Middleburg Hunt, and got his AHSA “R” judges’ card.
It was the eye he’d honed through showing and judging that Yovanovich credits for his later ability to mentor novice riders new to the race circuit.
“My favorite equitation test (in the show ring) was to have the top four riders swap horses and jump the course with no irons,” he recalls. “Show horses, racehorses, same. You’ve gotta learn to sit back and leave the horse the hell alone.
“Most errors are pilot errors.”
A stream of owner-riders followed (Will Russell, Rusty Cline, Jim Whitner and others,) with novice riders lining up to work with him (Mark and Joey Sharp, Deborah Rowe, Tiffany Mueller, Jake Secor, Molly Forlano White, Annie Yeager and more.)
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It worked because he rode with them, Yovanovich says, galloping, working and schooling upsides. “I’d say ‘look at me, mimic me’ to help them get the feel.”
“I met Donnie hunting with Middleburg 20 years ago,” says Molly White (then Molly Forlano.) “I asked him repeatedly if I could ride for him.
“He finally said yes,” sealing a seven-year partnership resulting in five series titles and the 2005 point-to-point rider championship for White.
“It’s exactly what Mr. Swann did for me,” Yovanovich says. “He gave me confidence, talked about mistakes later, privately and quietly.
“I walked every step of every course with every rider, like he did with me. You learn to pay attention to details.”
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Don Yovanovich (right) at a trophy presentation at the Piedmont Fox Hounds Point to Point in 2008. His late wife Robyn is beside him. Molly White was the jockey.
Douglas Lees photo
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Association with the Association
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In 1979, then-president Peter Winants called on Yovanovich for input at the point-to-point association. "A couple years later, he handed me the checkbook and said 'you run it'," Yovanovich recalls.
A couple years later, he assisted Nick Arundel in developing the Great Meadow racecourse, eventually becoming race chair and director for Virginia Gold Cup and International Gold Cup – 31 years each, and joining the NSA race chairmen's committee, eventually serving as four-time chair.
Yovanovich changed the Virginia Point-to-Point Association to the non-profit Virginia Point-to-Point Foundation in 2014, and he created a series of officials’ seminars. The feeder program has created a steady flow of officials, from placing judges to patrol judges, both for local point-to-points and at the NSA level.
He drew up novice rider and restricted young rider point-to-point divisions to increase participation at the “starter” level, and as president of the Amateur Riders Club of America, fosters international amateur competition. Given that six of the top 10 all-time NSA owners had amateur race careers themselves, Yovanovich says the hands-on involvement is, obviously, a key component.
“People tend to stick with something they’ve, personally, been part of,” he says, pointing to all-time sport leader Augustin Stables’ George Strawbridge and Irv Naylor as prime examples. “Division (races) make it accessible. That’s what’s going to protect and grow this sport.”
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2008 Virginia Gold Cup left to right: Director of Racing Dr. Alfred C. Griffin, Don Yovanovich and Clerk of Course Robert Hilton.
Douglas Lees photo
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What’s the bright idea?
Innovations Yovanovich helped bring to light
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Pre-race vet checks before each Virginia sanctioned race, eventually adopted circuit-wide.
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Runner’s Reward program for unplaced horses, eventually adopted circuit-wide.
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Uniform shoe rule, eventually adopted circuit-wide.
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Regional National Fence rental schedule.
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In 1975, Daily Racing Form cartoonist Pierre “Peb” Bellocq founded the
Amateur Riders Club of America
, a non-profit association for amateur jockeys that operates on grants and tax-deductible donations to fund trips to develop riders and allow them to represent the U.S. at home and abroad.
ARCA is a member of the international amateur racing club,
Fegentri
. Yovanovich was the first American elected to the Fegentri board of directors in 2015.
A short list of horsemen that got their starts in ARCA and Fegentri races, that remain in the industry, include Sean Clancy, Joe Gillet Davies, Blythe Miller Davies, Gregg Ryan, Matt McCarron, Kathy Neilson, Sanna Neilson, and flat riders Forest Boyce, Trevor McCarthy, Eclipse champion apprentice Weston Hamilton, runner-up Julio Correa and others.
It’s that kind of continued support, Yovanovich stresses, that makes ARCA an important part of the equation. “Riding in top company, around the world, gave these guys and girls a real leg up in learning finishing style, the importance of the start, how to settle a horse they don’t know, strategy,” he says.
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Don Yovanovich with Fegentri riders at the International Gold Cup Races in 2010.
Douglas Lees photo
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In their own words:
Former students, contemporaries say that underneath the no-nonsense exterior he's ‘deeply caring’
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Molly White (raced as Molly Forlano)
Rode 72 races 2004-2011, winning 27 races, four ladies’ timber series titles and the 2005 Virginia point-to-point riders’ championship. (seen here with Don in the paddock in 2007, Douglas Lees photo)
“When I was riding races and spending time with Donnie, he was a force of nature, (a sort of) mathematical chaos, barely harnessed. He was frenetic, yet somehow a beacon of reason and direction. Hardworking, deeply caring.
“To me, what made him a great teacher was the breadth of vocabulary needed to translate his thoughts into an executable plan. I trusted him implicitly.
“There was nothing he didn’t see about your riding, and he’d tell you it all, bad and good.
“Walking a course with him was partly a geometry class, part mean girls and all how to win.”
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Matt McCarron
Rode nearly 500 winners of nearly $4.5 million from more than 2000 flat, point-to-point and NSA starts from 1991-present. He’s currently representing the U.S. in the Fegentri international amateur series. (
Tod Marks
photo from 2004)
“Donnie was very instrumental early in my career. I rode my first race for him in 1993 at Montpelier, and … he’s been a great teacher.
“I never paid too much attention to his brusque manner because he was just doing his job. (He) constantly had to deal with us prima-donna jockeys, as well as all the trainers and race officials.”
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Bethany Baumgardner
Rode more than 20 winners from more than 200 flat, point-to-point and NSA starts from 2012-present. She’s currently representing the U.S. in the Fegentri international amateur series.
Baumgardner became the first American lady rider ever to win the Champ de Mars, the finale of the Longines Fegentri Ladies Championship in Mauritius. (Photo courtesy of ARCA)
“I became the first American to win a race in Mauritius, … (even though) I didn’t even know where it was until I agreed to ride there. It’s a tiny island country in the middle of the Indian Ocean, very beautiful, great racing.
“Donnie was a pivotal person in opening countless doors for me far and wide, especially improving my riding with access to more racing on a much wider scale than just jump racing in America. I’m forever grateful for his support of racing.”
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Will O’Keefe
Virginia Steeplechase Hall of Fame 2007, Virginia Point-to-Point Association Man of the Year 1986, Virginia Thoroughbred Association Steeplechase honor 1986 and 1989, Yves Henry Lifetime Achievement Award 2011. (
Tod Marks
photo)
“Donnie has taken the (point-to-point and Virginia Steeplechase Association) to a new level of professionalism. He’s given a huge amount of time and energy to steeplechase racing.”
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Duncan Patterson
Delaware Racing Commission chairman since 1988 (longest-serving commission chair in the U.S.,) former steeplechase trainer-rider. (
Tod Marks
photo)
“The thing I admire about him the most is if you ask him to do it, he’ll do it. You know, so many people disappoint you and don’t get it done, but you can count on Donnie. What he tells you, you can take that to the bank.
“A long time ago, when I was a steward (and Yovanovich was a race chair), he and I did not get along that well. But when we started to work closely together (first through ARCA,) I started to appreciate that directness. There’s no B.S.
“I respect everything he’s done for racing.”
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Reynolds Cowles
Two-term NSA board member, current chair of the safety committee and equine medical director. Past president of the American Association of Equine Practitioners and the Virginia Thoroughbred Association. 1967 Oklahoma State vet graduate, semi-retired owner of Blue Ridge Equine in Earlysville, Virginia. (
Tod Marks
photo)
“I first met Donnie 30 years ago, and we got to be good friends (on a) vet, trainer, client basis. It was a natural bond. He’s an excellent horseman, has (the horses’) well-being in the forefront of his mind at all time, almost to a fault.
“(Veterinarian Dr.) Willie McCormick, Donnie and I (and, later, Dr. Nat White) started accumulating steeplechase data on breakdowns and fatalities in the late ’90s at the Virginia meets. The data was essentially the start of the NSA safety committee.
“Donnie tells it like it is. I know he sometimes comes off as caustic or critical, but it’s always through concern for the horses.
“There’s a caring attitude underneath.”
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Don and jockey/owner Annie Yaeger unsaddle Mischief after a win at the 2012 Warrenton Hunt Point to Point Races. Yovanovich picked up training duties for Mischief in 2012, from Tom Voss.
Douglas Lees photo
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An Update from NSA President Al Griffin, Jr.
Dear NSA constituency,
It seems that every hour brings a need to reassess and re-direct our efforts as it pertains to steeplechase racing in the current pandemic climate. Added to the volatility of our situation, it seems that Social Media can help you and hurt you, often both in the same day. I therefore wanted to bring you up to date as to where we are now and where we hope to go given the severe limitations continuing to be imposed on gatherings of more than 10 people and the variations from state to state.
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