We're celebrating the 100th running of the Middleburg Spring Races this week!
Remember to watch the live stream Saturday - find it on the
NSA's website
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Temple Gwathmey – The name, the legend
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You probably know the race,
but do you know the story behind it?
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The list is the Who’s Who of American steeplechasing: Neji, Amber Diver, Bon Nouvel, Top Bid, Shadow Brook, Zaccio, Flatterer, Census, Warm Spell, Lonesome Glory, Rawnaq, Scorpiancer.
Names crowding the enormous silver Tiffany’s cup for the historic Temple Gwathmey hurdle handicap are tribute to the importance of the race, started in 1924 in memory of one of steeplechasing’s early 20th century greats.
Today, Temple Gwathmey, the race, jockeys for attention from Temple Gwathmey, the foundation, Temple Gwathmey, the original ballad written by a great-grandson and Temple Gwathmey – senior and junior, steeplechase horsemen whose memorable name is still germane to the sporting conversation some 100 years later.
“I think my great grandfather Temple Gwathmey Sr. would be thrilled, really pleased to know his sport, his race, his foundation, are still going today,” says namesake and great-grandson Temple Grassi when asked what he thought Gwathmey would think of his ongoing “involvement” with American jump racing. “I think he’d be most pleased that the race, eventually, came full circle, from running in New York and Pennsylvania to running here, in his home state of Virginia.”
The Temple Gwathmey hurdle handicap is
carded at the 100th anniversary running of the
Middleburg Spring Races this Saturday, June 13. Postponed from April due to the coronavirus crisis, the meet is just one of two salvaged from the spring season, joining the rescheduled June 27 Virginia Gold Cup as the
“spring” 2020 circuit. “It isn’t 100 years for the Gwathmey, but it’s 100 years for Middleburg Spring, and we’re thrilled it’s going to happen.”
Before the horses go to post in Saturday’s Gwathmey, we wanted to make a scorecard for everything Gwathmey to keep the players straight.
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Start at the beginning. James Temple Gwathmey Sr.’s unusual middle and last names have rich history of their own, stretching back to 16th century England and Wales.
Gwathmey is a Welsh name said to be derived from, and Anglicized from “Gwalchmai.” In native Welsh, “Gwalch” means hawk, “mai” means field. Gwathmai is also a village on the northwest coast of Wales.
Temple, which is what most people called Temple Gwathmey, was the surname of 18th century ancestor Hannah Temple. Temple was born in 1726 in King William County, Virginia, but the Temple name traces back to Buckinghamshire and Warwickshire, England.
Hannah Temple made the famous link when she married Owen Gwathmey, also a King William resident but with family lineage tracing to Wales.
Hannah Temple Gwathmey mothered five children, including the first Temple Gwathmey in the mid-1700s.
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Son of Archibald and Annie Binford Gwathmey, Temple Gwathmey, Sr. was born March 8, 1867 in Norfolk. His father was a successful cotton merchant.
Gwathmey’s first job was to mark, weigh, sample and sort cotton, which he learned in Wilson, North Carolina in 1884. He joined the New York cotton exchange at age 21.
Gwathmey married the former Leila Gaines in 1892, daughter of Texas Chief Justice Reuben Reid Gaines.
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Gwathmey was also an avid horseman and sportsman. In the Mr. Cotton partnership with friend E.M. Weld, he won the 1904 American Grand National with St. Jude. He owned an English ’chaser that twice ran in the English Grand National. Phil May fell while leading at the 30th and last at Aintree in 1905, finishing ninth in 1906.
(
1906 Grand National Steeplechase
, by artist John Beer, below)
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Shoulda Woulda
Temple Gwathmey’s Phil May would have been the first American-owned horse to win the English Grand National, but he fell while leading at the last in the 1905 race.
The first American-bred to win the National was in 1908 with Rubio — bred in California by James Ben Ali Haggin. Haggin had sold Rubio at Newmarket in 1899. The first American-owned horse to win the race was Stephen Sanford (Saratoga’s Sanford Stakes is named for the family) in 1923. Sanford’s Sergeant Murphy, an Irish-bred, had an English trainer and rider.
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One of the largest stockbrokers in the world traces its origins to early 19th century Virginia and the wild world of cotton sales. Cotton trader Gwathmey & Co. began in Richmond in 1820.
In 1926, Gwathmey
merged with E.A. Pierce, the nation's largest broker at the time, which a decade later merged with Merrill Lynch.
Merrill Lynch was proud of the heritage, placing a plaque on their Washington, D.C. building trumpeting: “BUSINESS ORIGINALLY ESTABLISHED IN RICHMOND, VA. 1820.”
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E.M. Weld went on to build a tremendous thoroughbred breeding operation at historic
North Wales just west of Warrenton, Virginia. Weld purchased the expansive estate in 1914, adding a carriage house, stable complex, tenant houses, wings to the Colonial Revival-style mansion and English-style terraced lawns.
North Wales, which has belonged to Robert Winmill, Walter Chrysler, Michael Prentiss and, today, preservationist David Ford, was placed on the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.
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Gwathmey moved back to Virginia after his time in New York, developing a breeding program at a historic property a mile west of North Wales. He named it “
Canterbury” after the Gwathmey family estate in King and Queen County.
In a 1917 issue of “The Southern Planter,” a breathless report: “J.Temple Gwathmey’s Canterbury Stud Farm at Warrenton, Va., than whom there are few better informed breeders of thoroughbred horses in this country, reports five foals, all by his own stallion, imp(orted) Seahorse II.
“This New Zealand-bred son of Nelson and Moonga was a great racehorse in his native land, and later in England, where he was purchased by Mr. Gwathmey and brought to the U.S
“Winners from the chestnut stallion’s loins include the splendid fencer Wildship, now 8 years old and a victor for the third time consecutively of the North American Steeplechase at Saratoga.
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When Gwathmey died after a long illness at age 57 in 1924, Weld and other friends swiftly joined to fund a memorial steeplechase, the Temple Gwathmey handicap at Belmont Park. Weld commissioned a silver Tiffany trophy for the race; it’s still awarded today.
The seed money provided by Gwathmey’s well-heeled friends carries his legacy into the 21st century.
“The memorial foundation has done a lot of good in jump racing,” says Gwathmey great-grandson Ned Grassi. “It’s amazing that it’s still going, but … what a tribute to the endeavors of that great man who loved jump racing.”
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If little is known about James Temple Gwathmey, Sr., even less is known about his son, Temple Gwathmey, Jr. Born March 5, 1909, it’s for certain that the junior Gwathmey inherited his father’s passion for horses and horse racing.
He attended the historic
Lawrenceville School in west-central New Jersey because of their established equestrian program. Gwathmey didn’t go to college, instead jumping right into the steeplechase world in the late 1920s, just a few years after his father’s 1924 death.
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By all accounts, Gwathmey was an excellent rider and one of the top amateur jockeys of his day. He’s credited with helping start the Aiken Steeplechase in 1930, and rode in the inaugural Carolina Cup in 1931.
He wasn’t so lucky a few weeks later at the 1931 Llangollen Races near Upperville, Virginia, taking a hard spill over one of the enormous brush hedges.
Artist Paul Desmond Brown (1893-1958) was at the glamorous meet, sketching throughout the day to create the
1930s equivalent of a Facebook album to memorialize the action, including Gwathmey’s memorable fall in several sketches.
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Paul Brown sketch of Gun Boat and Gwathmey, Jr. The sketch reads "...He hooked his knees in to the fence and -- down he came and
how
. Luckily Gwathmey fell just clear of him as he crashed to earth."
©
Inaugural Llangollen race meeting 1931 sketches
by Paul Brown
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Gwathmey died a year later after taking a hard fall with Brown Ruler at the October, 1932 Monmouth County Hunt Races in New Jersey. He was just 23.
Gwathmey is buried at the Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond alongside many of his ancestors. He's keeping good company there: also buried at Hollywood are two U.S. presidents, James Monroe and John Tyler, as well as Confederate president Jefferson Davis. It is also the resting place of 25 Confederate generals, more than any other cemetery in the nation, including Gen. George Pickett and Gen. J.E.B. Stuart.
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“Our family had always known about Temple Gwathmey – senior and junior, and about the race,” says great-grandson Ned Grassi, 68.
(
Tod Marks
photo) “But since we’re not in the horse world, we barely understood what a big deal it was.”
Grassi moved to Monkton, Maryland in 1990 when he worked in financial sales in Baltimore. He’d gone to the Gilman School (and Princeton), and though many of his classmates were from hunting and racing clans, the direct Gwathmey family involvement with steeplechasing had died with Temple Gwathmey, Jr. in 1932.
“You know, Monkton is a sort of a tough place to live if you’re not into horses,” Grassi says. “I got involved in a funny way.
“I had this John Deere Gator, and one of my neighbors knew about it. I was asked to help out at the Grand National, then for Maryland Hunt Cup and My Lady’s Manor. Me and my Gator.
“I loved being part of it.
“It was harder for me to engage with the Middleburg Spring Races because of my involvement with the Grand National (run the same day.)”
Ned Grassi has been a member of the Middleburg Spring Races board since 2005. He sings a custom-crafted Temple Gwathmey ballad before post time every year similar to “My Old Kentucky Home” before the Derby or “New York, New York” before the Belmont.
Grassi now lives in Spring Island, South Carolina, near Beaufort. He’s sad not to be attending the races on Saturday, but he understands the pandemic changed everything. “We’re just thrilled the race meet is getting to run.”
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Ned Grassi with the Temple Gwathmey trophy in April of 2015.
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Temple Gwathmey, Jr. was handsome and dashing, one of the best steeplechase jockeys in the country by age 20. Though he died in 1932, he’d already made quite an impression on some of the circuit’s most eligible ladies.
Lois Salmon Duffey passed at age 96 in 2007. But a few years before she died, she recalled her brief association with Gwathmey.
“Lois Duffey lived near my parents’ place in Maryland,” says Temple Gwathmey, Sr.’s great-grandson, and namesake, Temple Grassi. “At a party about 20 years ago, they introduced me to her.
“I’d heard that Temple Gwathmey Jr. and Lois Duffey (then Lois Salmon) had been an item. When my mother introduced us, she teed it up. ‘Lois, this is Temple Grassi, the namesake of Temple Gwathmey. You remember him, don’t you?”
Duffey’s eyes lit up, Grassi says, at the 70-year-old memory.
“I had to ask her. I said, ‘Mrs. Duffey, What was life like with Temple Gwathmey back then?
“She looked at me with this faraway (gaze.) ‘There were a lot of horses and a lot of booze’.”
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Gwathmey, Jr. and Lois Salmon
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Duffey’s mark on steeplechasing
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She hunted in Virginia and New York. She married steeplechase jockey and farmer Harry Duffey in 1935.
Her father, Walter Salmon Sr., owned and operated Mereworth Farm in Kentucky and was one of the leading thoroughbred breeders and owners of the 20th century. He bred 1935 Horse of the Year Discovery, the maternal grandsire of Bold Ruler and Native Dancer.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, Duffey had ’chasers in training with Charlie Fenwick, Jr., including stakes winner Talkin’ Butter (who won the 1992 edition of the Temple Gwathmey Handicap, with Victoria Schlesinger aboard).
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Mr. Frisk at the 1990 English Grand National
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Ned Grassi is Temple Gwathmey, Sr.’s great-grandson. A few years ago, he combined his heritage with his proclivity for song and verse.
Grassi likes to sing, and he has a measured, self-assured baritone. “I like to sing folk songs and ballads,” Grassi says. “I love to just stand up and belt out a song.”
He lives near the Maryland Hunt Cup course, and since 2000, he’s written an original song to sing at the hunt ball held the night after the Hunt Cup.
“I write it that afternoon, right after the race,” he says, setting the song to a tune by the Kingston Trio.
About five years ago, he connected the dots at the Middleburg Spring Races and added a self-written tribute about his ancestor’s memorial race.
Grassi set the verse to the tune of Peter, Paul and Mary’s famed folk song, “
Stewball,” about a racehorse, taking Temple Gwathmey, Sr.’s life and distilling it to a 6-stanza ballad.
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Ned Grassi celebrating Derwins Prospector's 2017 Maryland Hunt Cup win at Frank Bonsal's Mantua Mills Farm.
©Douglas Lees
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Temple Gwathmey had a stable
And he raced in New York
He raced them where ever they had good sport
He was born in Virginia
After the Civil War
Then he traded with the Yankees
To even the score
They made him the Head of The Cotton Exchange
Where he found a partner and Weld was his name
They went back to Virginia
Where each had his stud
Mr. Cotton was running
And winning the cups
In 1905 over at Aintree
Phil May almost made it
What a sight to see
Temple Gwathmey Died a young man
But we still call his name
Now back in Virginia
From whence he came
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“The first time I went to the race, there at Glenwood Park, I hung around the stand and was watching and listening to everything as they were parading to the start in the Gwathmey. My heart started to pound, and the hair on my neck raised up.
“It was weird. Really exciting.”
Temple Gwathmey, Sr.’s namesake Temple Grassi says his family’s involvement with steeplechasing had been tangential, but now his brother Ned is on the Middleburg Spring Races board, and both brothers share winner’s circle duties to hand out the valuable Gwathmey cup.
(
Tod Marks
photo from the 2019 Temple Gwathmey Handicap of Temple Grassi and winning jockey Michael Mitchel)
“All I got was the name,” he says. “But, hell, it’s fun to be a celebrity one day a year. I don’t really have a middle name, but in late April, my name is Temple Gwathmey Grassi.”
Temple Grassi, 73, splits time between Chevy Chase, Maryland, and Northeast Harbor, Maine.
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He grew up near Baltimore and studied at the
Gilman School, one year ahead of eventual Temple Gwathmey Fund board chair Charlie Fenwick Jr.
He went to
Woodberry Forest in Orange, Virginia, and was a star end – offense and defense – on two undefeated teams his junior and senior years there.
He studied and played lacrosse at the
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, then returned to Gilman in 1969 to teach elementary school students. He taught in New York City for two years, then at
Landon School in Bethesda, Maryland for 23. He retired after 30 years of teaching in 2000.
“Elementary school is an important time in a child’s life,” he says. “I had a very simple philosophy that I tried to ingrain in my pupils. ‘There is a time for work and a time for play.’ Kids thrive on structure.
“There are many former students I still see that repeat this back to me. That’s how I’ve run my own life.”
When he taught in New York, Grassi joined the
Racquet and Tennis Club at 52nd and Park in midtown, learning to love
court tennis. He sought out the sport when he moved to Washington, D.C.
Grassi helped build
Prince’s Club in McLean, Virginia. The club was named for benefactor, court tennis player and ardent foxhunter (Orange County Hounds), the late Frederick Prince.
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Court tennis – ‘Sport for Sport’s Sake’
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Temple Grassi helped found the International Tennis Club, now part of the
Regency Sport and Health club in McLean, Virginia.
“Lawn tennis is to
court tennis as checkers is to chess,”
Grassi explained in a “Smithsonian” magazine article. “The attraction is that it is a strategic, esoteric, highly skilled game which combines tennis, squash, pool and backgammon rolled into one.”
One of Grassi’s daughters is the ladies court tennis champion in Boston; another daughter is court tennis champ in Philly. “I’m very proud of them,” Grassi says.
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The Temple Gwathmey Memorial hurdle handicap has bounced around the circuit. It was first run at Belmont Park in 1924, shifted to Aqueduct 1963-1967, back to Belmont, to the old Rolling Rock meet in Pennsylvania 1972-1975, then back to Belmont.
It moved to the Middleburg Spring Races in Virginia in 1989, brought by then-chairman the late Paul Fout and the late Tommy Beach.
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From the 1989 "American Steeplechasing: - The $50,000 Temple Gwathmey was run at the Middleburg Spring races for the first time in 1989. Henrietta Alexander's Ropes End, trained by Burley Cocks and ridden by Chuck Lawrence, won the prestigious stake, formerly held at Belmont Park.
©Douglas Lees
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“Paul Fout is the one who kept the flame alive,” says Ned Grassi, a Middleburg Spring board member and great-grandson of Temple Gwathmey.
Alfred Hunt was longtime chair of the Rolling Rock association, race committee member Turner Reuter said in a Middleburg Life story. “He and Paul Fout were great friends, and that’s how it was brought down here” to Virginia’s Glenwood Park, Reuter said.
First run in 1924, the race was created as a memorial to Temple Gwathmey, Sr., but it took on special meaning eight years later when his son James Temple Gwathmey, Jr. died after a fall at the 1932 Monmouth Hunt Races.
Usually carded as a handicap, the Gwathmey has been run at distances from 2 1/8 miles to 3 miles, depending on the course and the conditions.
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In 1972 the International Gold Cup and the Temple Gwathmey Handicap were combined, at the Rolling Rock races. Eventual Eclipse Award winner Soothsayer won the race for owner Marion du Pont Scott. Joe Aitcheson had the ride for trainer Peter Howe.
©Douglas Lees
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Middleburg Spring will feature 11 races, and eight of them have also-eligible lists. First post time is 12:30 p.m. at Glenwood Park, and the races will be run without spectators and under strict health and safety safeguards. Broadcasts of the races will be
available on the NSA website.
Middleburg’s traditional feature races, the Temple Gwathmey Handicap (Gr. 3) over hurdles and the Middleburg Hunt Cup over timber, each had one scratch. Jacqueline Ohrstrom’s Winner Massagot was scratched from the 2½-mile Temple Gwathmey, which features a clash of titans including 2017 Eclipse Award champion Scorpiancer and 2018 Eclipse winner Zanjabeel.
Here is the field for the 2020 Temple Gwathmey Handicap after the sole scratch. The horses’ handicap weights are in parentheses at the end of their profiles.
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Weight your turn: How it happens in handicapping
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National Steeplechase Association director of racing Bill Gallo says the historic Temple Gwathmey handicap has an incredible history.
His job as NSA handicapper since 1977 has been to make every horse finish at the same time. The Gwathmey has always been one of the nation's most interesting to handicap, he says.
“I remember the 1985 Gwathmey. Flatterer won carrying 170. Gateshead was second at 158.”
(The weights kept going up for the four-time champion – he won the 1986 National Hunt Cup at Radnor carrying 176, but got beat in a 1987 handicap at Middleburg Spring – not the Gwathmey, carrying 178.)
Handicaps were considered the top races a century ago, Gallo says today there’s more prestige in winning open, weight-for-age stakes, both on the flat and over jumps. “It lets the best horse win.”
To rate each nominee to a handicap (there are four on the NSA circuit,) Gallo looks at recent form and whether a horse has shown a particular affinity for that course. “It’s complicated and fascinating, but handicapping is based on simple logic.
“The system is useful, because a trainer might feel like they have a chance against a top horse like Flatterer because of the weight-break."
First, he identifies the highweight, then the lowweight. Gallo says the typical highweight in a handicap hurdle carries 158, unless a horse is extraordinary – like Flatterer, or five-time Eclipse winner Lonesome Glory.
The typical bottom weight is 140.
The old rule of thumb was to imagine “a pound, a length, a mile,” but Gallo says there’s no cookie cutter rule. “It’s not an exact science.”
Another type of “handicap,” ratings races have come to dominate U.S. steeplechasing undercards. Gallo calls them, essentially, overnight handicaps. All horses are rated by a ratings committee, assigned a “theoretical” weight, from 140 on down, and races are written for horses with particular ratings.
It’s a way to slot horses of equal ability, Gallo says.
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Surprising Soul. 2012 b. g., Perfect Soul (Ire)—Elusive Surprise, by Elusive Quality. Owner: Wendy W. Hendriks. Trainer: Ricky Hendriks. Jockey: Ross Geraghty. Breeder: Charles Fipke (Ont.) 2019 record: 4-1-1-0, $133,000. 2018 record: 3-2-1-0, $97,500. 2017 record: 7-3-0-1, $106,500. Won Belmont Park’s 2019 Lonesome Glory Handicap (Gr. 1) by 3¾ lengths, then was sixth in the Grand National (Gr. 1). Finished second in 2019 Calvin Houghland Iroquois (Gr 1) after fourth in Carolina Cup Handicap, his 2019 debut. Won Saratoga’s 2018 Michael G. Walsh Novice Stakes, then was second in Far Hills’ Foxbrook Champion Hurdle division. Opened 2018 with dominant victory in Radnor’s National Hunt Cup (Gr. 3). (152)
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Scorpiancer (Ire). 2009 b. g., Scorpion (Ire)—Janebailey, By Silver Patriarch. Owner: Bruton Street-US. Trainer: Jack Fisher. Jockey: Sean McDermott. Breeder: Mary O’Connor (Ire). 2019 record: 4-1-1-0, $177,000. 2018 record: No starts. 2017 record: 2-2-0-0, $150,000. Finished second in 2019 Grand National (Gr. 1). Won Calvin Houghland Iroquois (Gr. 1) for a second time in 2019 before fifth in Belmont’s Lonesome Glory Handicap (Gr. 1). Missed 2018 season and was pulled up in his first 2019 start, the Temple Gwathmey Handicap (Gr. 2). Claimed 2017 Eclipse Award with victories in Calvin Houghland Iroquois and Temple Gwathmey. Won Belmont Park’s 2016 Lonesome Glory Handicap (Gr. 1). (158)
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Iranistan. 2014 dk. b. or br. g., Einstein (Brz)—Miss Vindictive, by Stephen Got Even. Owner: Hudson River Stables. Trainer: Jonathan Sheppard. Jockey: Gerard Galligan. Breeder: Crossed Sabres Farm (Ky.) 2019 record: 2-0-0-0, $3,750. 2018 NSA record: 5-3-1-1, $145,000. Champion novice 2018. In first 2019 start, pulled up in Grand National (Gr. 1) after leading early, then was fourth in Aflac Supreme Hurdle for novices. Finished game second in Saratoga’s 2018 A. P. Smithwick Memorial (Gr. 1), then was third in New York Turf Writers Cup (Gr. 1), while favored in both. Won 2018 Marcellus Frost Champion Hurdle for novices by six lengths. Skipped maiden ranks and won allowance hurdles at Carolina Cup and Middleburg Spring to begin 2018 season. Scored maiden flat victory at Delaware Park in July 2018. (140)
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New Member (Ire). 2011 b. g., Alhaarth (Ire)—Sincere, by Buhhare. Owner: Armata Stables. Trainer: Jack Fisher. Jockey: Willie McCarthy. Breeder: Golden Garden Stud. 2019 record: No starts. 2018 NSA record: 4-1-0-2, $94,500. 2017 NSA record: 4-0-1-2, $28,500. Won Saratoga’s 2018 Jonathan Kiser Novice Stakes by 1 1/2 lengths, then was second in New York Turf Writers Cup Handicap (Gr. 1). Began 2018 with thirds in Carolina Cup and Queen’s Cup MPC ’Chase, then was sixth in Iroquois’ Marcellus Frost Champion Hurdle. Finished second in Belmont Park’s 2017 William Entenmann Novice Stakes after well-beaten third in Saratoga’s Michael G. Walsh Novice Stakes. Finished third in Far Hills’ Foxbrook Champion Hurdle. Had allowance and handicap wins in England in 2016. (140)
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Belisarius (Ire). 2011 b. g., Montjeu—Lasting Chance, by American Chance. Owner: Gary Barber, Brous Stable, and Wachtel Racing Stable. Trainer: Kate Dalton. Jockey: Bernie Dalton. Breeders: Lynch Bages Ltd. And Camas Park Stud (Ire). 2019 NSA record: 6-0-1-1, $28,500. 2018 NSA record: 6-2-1-2, $106,200. Finished third in Saratoga’s 2019 New York Turf Writers Cup (Gr. 1) after 10th in A. P. Smithwick Memorial (Gr. 1), then was seventh in Lonesome Glory Handicap (Gr. 1) and pulled up in Foxbrook Champion Hurdle. In 2019 debut, finished second in Temple Gwathmey Handicap (Gr. 2), then was ninth in Iroquois’ Marcellus Frost Champion Hurdle for novices. Won 2018 Foxbrook Champion Hurdle by 6¼ lengths. (140)
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Rashaan (Ire). 2012 ch. g., Manduro (Ger)—Red Halo (Ire), by Rainbow Quest. Owner: Bruton Street-US. Trainer: Leslie Young. Jockey: Thomas Garner. Breeder: The Aga Khan’s Studs (Ire). 2019 NSA record: 2-0-0-0, $3,000. No starts. Pulled up in 2019 Grand National (Gr. 1), then was fifth in David L. “Zeke” Ferguson Memorial Handicap (Gr. 2). Won the Keelings Irish Strawberry Hurdle in April and then was last of 18 in Galway’s Mervue Hurdle. (146)
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Amschel (GB). 2014 b. g., Nathaniel (Ire)—Darinza (Fr), by Dalakhani (Ire). Owner: Irvin S. Naylor. Trainer: Cyril Murphy. Jockey: Graham Watters. Breeder: Newsells Park Stud (GB). 2019 record: 2-1-0-0, $25,500. 2018 NSA record: 1-0-0-1, $12,500. Won 2019 Noel Laing Handicap after sixth-place finish in Far Hills’ Appleton Ratings Handicap. In only other U.S. start, finished third in division of Far Hills’ 2018 Foxbrook Champion Hurdle. Won three straight races in Ireland in 2018 before export. (142)
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Zanjabeel (GB). 2013 b. g., Aussie Rules—Grain Only, by Machiavellian. Owners: Rosbrian Farm and Meadow Run Farm. Trainer: Ricky Hendriks. Jockey: Darren Nagle. Breeder: Kirsten Rausing (GB). 2019 record: 1-0-0-0, $3,750. 2018 record: 4-2-2-0, $265,500. 2017 NSA record: 2-2-0-0, $120,000. In comeback race, finished fourth in 2019 David L. “Zeke” Ferguson Memorial Handicap (Gr. 2). Won 2018 Eclipse Award with victories in Lonesome Glory Handicap (Gr. 1) and Calvin Houghland Iroquois (Gr. 1). Finished second in Marion duPont Scott Colonial Cup (Gr. 1) and Temple Gwathmey Handicap (Gr. 2). Won Far Hills’ 2017 Foxbrook Champion Hurdle, his U.S. debut for former owners and trainer Gordon Elliott. For new owners, won Steeplechase at Callaway’s 2017 Aflac Supreme Hurdle. (154)
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Moscato (GB). 2011 gr. or ro. g., Hernando (Fr)—Alba Stella, by Nashwan. Owner: Bruton Street-US. Trainer: Jack Fisher. Jockey: Michael Mitchell. Breeder: Miss K. Rausing (GB). 2019 record: 4-1-0-2, $105,000. 2018 record: No starts. Novice champion of 2017 returned from a year on the sidelines and won the 2019 Temple Gwathmey Handicap (Gr. 2), then was third in Calvin Houghland Iroquois (Gr. 1), eighth in Belmont Park’s Lonesome Glory Handicap (Gr. 1), and third in Grand National (Gr. 1). Won Belmont’s 2017 William Entenmann Novice Stakes and Saratoga’s Michael G. Walsh Novice Stakes impressively after strong closing second in Jonathan Kiser Novice Stakes. (152)
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Steeplechase photographer Douglas Lees has a tangential link to the Gwathmey legend.
“One of my grandmother’s sisters, Lucy, married Lee Evans, Warrenton (Virginia) Hunt joint-master and trainer of steeplechase horses,” Lees says. One of his clients was Temple Gwathmey, Sr., who raced under the name Mr. Cotton in partnership with friend Edward M. Weld since he was president of the Cotton Exchange in New York.
Lucy, who also operated the Blue Parrot restaurant on what’s now the Warrenton bypass, and Lee Evans had no children, Lees says, so his grandmother inherited all the trophies.
“When I moved into (the family) house, I noticed a bunch of trophies, two of which had been made into lamps.” One of the inscriptions, Lees says, was for a win by Mr. Cotton’s horse Game Cock, trained and ridden by Lee Evans to win the 1906 Southern Steeplechase at the Washington Jockey Club.
Lees knew about the Mr. Cotton-Temple Gwathmey connection, and mentioned it to Gwathmey’s great grandson Ned Grassi at the Middleburg Spring Races about five years ago. Grassi found a jeweler to restore the silver cup from lamp to trophy, and it has been used in the Gwathmey presentation since 2016.
The other trophy-lamp was from the Meadow Brook Steeplechase at Belmont Park, Oct. 9, 1905. Lee Evans won that on Thomas Hitchcock’s Tom Cogon.
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The Southern Steeplechase trophy-lamp at Douglas Lees' house.
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The restored Southern Steeplechase trophy. The inscription reads "Washington Jockey Club; Spring Meeting 1906; Southern Steeplechase; Won by Lee Evans and Game Cock owned by Mr. Cotton
©Douglas Lees
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The combined mission is to “preserve and advance the sport through programs that promote education, health and safety along with the spirit of amateurism.”
The foundation has given grants to the Maryland, Virginia and Delaware Valley point-to-point associations, to the Land Preservation Trust to run the Maryland Junior Hunt Cup, to the Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center to run the steeplechase injury database, to the Jockeys Guild for helmet research and to Carolina Covers to produce tarps with ground lines and knee lines for the sets of national fences.
In support of amateur riders – the essence of the original Temple Gwathmey Fund formed in memory of amateur rider Temple Gwathmey, Sr., the Foundation pays a $500 bonus to the owner and trainer of a horse winning an NSA flat race ridden by an amateur apprentice.
In support of junior riders, the foundation has paid for domestic and international training camps, and had planned a series of developing rider flat races this spring.
A 501c3 non-profit, TGSF donations are tax deductible.
Among its charitable endeavors, the Temple Gwathmey Steeplechase Foundation provides support to race meets in staging their programs, improving race courses to enhance safety for horses and jockeys, and generating funds for the race meets’ charitable beneficiaries.
Jack Fisher is president of the executive committee, Emily Day, vice-president. Blair Wyatt serves as secretary, with Michael Hoffman treasurer.
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