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By Betsy Burke Parker

Saturday’s Montpelier Hunt Races stand alone on the American circuit for two reasons – it’s the only race meet contested on a presidential front lawn (Tod Marks photo, left, of the Montpelier mansion, still pink stucco from Marion du Pont Scott's day; it has now been returned to plain red brick as when President James Madison was there.), and the historic course features the only remaining living jumps used in a hurdle race. Though the Willowdale course in Unionville has live hedges, that’s part of a timber course, and both steeplethon courses – Virginia’s Glenwood Park and Great Meadow – have a number of live jumps, but those cross-country-style races are also classified as “timber.”

Montpelier’s course is living privet hedge; Willowdale uses arborvitae; Glenwood Park uses arborvitae and yew. A lot goes into keeping bushes alive when they’re planted – as several course managers lamented, too close together, on a berm that drains too fast and torturing them with horses crashing through them.

We wanted to know more about how this stand-alone “hurdle” stake fits into the circuit, so we called a round-table conversation, drawing in race chairs, trainers, riders, course managers and more to find out all the answers. Listen in to their lively discussion.

Temple Gwathmey Steeplechase Foundation: What does it take for a horse to excel over the slightly different “look” and “feel” of the Montpelier living hurdles?

Trainer, former jockey Cyril Murphy won the last running of the Laing, with Amschel in 2019 (Douglas Lees photo, right). He also saddled Irv Naylor’s Decoy Daddy to win in 2013 and 2014 (the horse also won in 2010 and 2011, second in 2012, for different trainers also for Naylor):

Amschel is brave, well, brave enough, but in a race like the Noel Laing, you’d rather be a follower than a leader. The jumps are just different enough to make most horses stand back a little over the first few.

They look just enough different – wider across the top, taller than a standard national fence.

The biggest part of a horse doing well there is that smart horses figure out fast they don’t have to jump (quite the same as a national fence.)”

Trainer Jack Fisher sends out Gill Johnston’s Brianbakescookies Saturday:

To jump those fences, I look for a very brave horse. (But) I don’t want one to jump it like a timber horse. They need to get down into it and don’t jump very high.”

Trainer Keri Brion saddles Hudson River’s Iranistan:

Once a horse realizes he can brush through, … it’s more about the distance and the (rolling) course – 2 ½ miles. I’d say a brave, smart jumper that likes a stamina test excels the most.”

Temple Gwathmey Steeplechase Foundation: Did you do special schooling leading up to the Laing?

Leslie Young saddles Bruton Street’s Presence of Mind and highweight Redicean for Sharon Sheppard:

It's funny. I won this race with Andi'amu (2015) and Mercoeur (2017). Both are superb jumpers.

Andi is careful as they come, and as you know, Andi ended up a champion timber horse.

But (to excel over the natural brush), they need to figure out quickly they can brush through the Montpelier hedges and not jump up and over.

The ones who figure that out quickly are the ones who win.

We’re lucky Virginia Korrell who works for me has a row of Montpelier-type fences her parents, Brian and Wis, planted 20-plus years ago.

We took ours there to school this week, just wanted the two – especially Presence of Mind who in England last ran over ‘chase fences – to learn they can brush through.

They schooled nicely. I’m happy with how they’re both coming into the race.”

Trainer and former jockey Ricky Hendriks saddles Chosen Mate – winner over fences at the 2020 Cheltenham Festival:

I did school Chosen Mate over natural hedges this week at Brian Korrell’s on the other side of Unionville.

I did the same thing this spring with Officer Sydney before he won (a timber race over, partially, natural, living hedges) at Willowdale.

I remember Strawberry Hill (at the old Virginia State Fairgrounds in Richmond) had living fences when I very first started riding, and I do remember they jumped just a little different.”

I remember what Ricky said about the old Strawberry Hill natural hedges. They weren't much to jump, I think.

And you remember that St. James meet out in Chicago -- they had natural hedges, too. It was a real different course, more like an eventing course and NSA (then NSHA) didn't like that and wouldn't give them a sanction. But it was a beautiful course, I remember that about it."

I did not. Iranistan will see them first when he’s out there.

But I doubt he’ll care. He might be careful over the first few – he’s a smart horse and he’ll figure it out quick.”

The year I ran Inti (fourth in 2014 behind the Murphy-trained Decoy Daddy,) I brought him down to Julie Gomena’s farm in Virginia to school over her natural hedges. She’d planted those to school her young horses jumping the first time.

It helped him learn the Montpelier jumps were just a little different than the national fence.

Amschel hasn’t schooled since (finishing third in the grade 1 American Grand National at) Far Hills. I figure he’ll hopefully be taking a lead from someone else Saturday.”

TGSF: What’s it like to ride a race on the American President’s front lawn?

It’s a fun course to ride around, a very rolling course and you’re always turning.

When you pass the big house, you’ve got to remind yourself to be patient (since there’s) still a half-mile to run. That’s an awful lot of racing to do.

Then you have to cut that corner into the chute to the line.

You need to be patient to go ‘round there.”

TGSF: Have you had a horse that was completely obsessed with the Laing course? One that totally loved it? Or maybe the opposite – horses that surprised you with their apparent displeasure?

Trainer Ricky Hendriks won the Laing as rider in 1988 on Lord Forli for Betty Bird, and in 1990 on OJ River for Patty Miller:

Honestly, you just never know which horses will shine over the Laing. Those two – Lord Forli and OJ River, they just loved it. Ate it up.

But, later, I ran two horses I thought couldn’t get beat, and they hated it. Swansea Mile (sixth in 2016) had won over hurdles and run a bunch over the ‘chase fences in England and Ireland, but he just hated the Montpelier jumps. And Detroit Blues (ran over hurdles and ‘chase in England; sixth in the 2018 Laing) was a real spooky type. He didn’t like it when the brush sort of ‘shakes’ as they brushed through. He didn’t like it at all.

On the other hand, Tres Touche (winner in 2002 and 2004) was a real straightforward front-runner. He liked the course.

You just don’t know ‘til you know.”

Absolutely loving it? That would be Decoy Daddy (who won in 2010, ‘11, ‘13 and ‘14.) There was a horse who’d been running over (the bigger, stiffer, stuffed hedges in Europe) fences. He was smart, real smart, and he was quick across the national fence, but these jumps at Montpelier just suited his style. You need a horse that’ll attack the jumps, and he had a high cruising speed that took him to the front. He set his own tempo but that would take him to the lead.

There’s a white kickboard on the (earthen bank) berm that helps a horse ‘set’ to the jump, but the majority of horses don’t jump over them fully, they brush through.

When I was riding races, I rode Tom Voss’s Anofferyoucantrefuse (pulled up in the 2002 Laing.) He was a big, front-running sort of horse, and turns out, he absolutely hated the course.”

Speedy Smithwick partnered Martie Sanger’s Uncle Edwin, Virginia-bred by his mother, the late Dot Smithwick, to victory in the 1982, 1985 and 1986 Iroquois, second in 1984 and fourth in 1987. Uncle Edwin made his last start in the 1987 Laing - pulled up after leading with now-circuit starter Graham Alcock:

It was a lot of just good jumping, but, more than that, remember, the Iroquois is a three-mile race.

It’s distance, too.

Uncle Edwin was just a good horse, period. He was the type you could ask him to save something on that Iroquois course for “heartbreak hill” for coming up the home straight. And that last turn down in the bottom, that took a handy sort of horse.

The (natural) jumps were just part of the equation.

I know the jumps there had a problem with consistency. The first year I went down there, I remember the hedges were in good shape, but the next time, they were pretty rough and there were dried balls of dirt they’d kick up. Then another year, the hedges had suffered and they stuffed them with cut cedar.

Those good, experienced horses like Edwin would learn how they could jump with a little less effort and get away with it.”

TGSF: Montpelier is the only American “hurdle” course with living hedges these days, after Iroquois pulled out their live brush in 2003 and went with national fences. But several timber courses, and the steeplethon courses, have living jumps. And, then there used to be stuffed brush in wooden brush boxes. Discuss.

Dixon Stroud, longtime race chair at Pennsylvania’s Willowdale meet, and a former amateur jump jock – he won the 1969 Iroquois on Jesse and Margaret Henley’s Blockbuster:

I liked those fences at Nashville – not sure what they were made of. They were loose, but thick enough the horses did jump them. I never rode at Montpelier.

I always loved the appearance of natural hedges, and I don’t like the metal frame of the national fence, so it was two-fold why we put in living jumps at Willowdale – aesthetics and safety.

We used a type of arborvitae, and we learned you had to be real careful trimming them because they can get stalky in the middle, plus deer were eating them.

We replaced the original (cultivar) with Green Giant. It’s not growing very fast, but I think it will be a better jump in the end.

I want to make our hurdle course out of living hedges, maybe for next year, I hope.”

Charlie Burke, former amateur rider and one-time Iroquois course chair, a meet held at Percy Warner Park near Nashville:

Previous to (full course) irrigation, we had a hell of a time keeping the living hedges alive, but that was a long-time tradition that was very important to (former race president, the late) Calvin Houghland, so we kept the living hedges for so many years.

We started with privet planted on earth mounds, and then we went with euonymus. The swing in climate, uncertain rainfall year to year and early-on lack of care ended with a bad fence which the horses could run through.

When I started race riding in 1963, there were only two brush races at the Iroquois, so jumping over them on race-day it didn’t affect the (hedges) so much. When they added more hurdle races, they went to adding small bushy cedar limbs layered into the jump. This was not satisfactory because it pulled out once a horse hit it.

To make a better living brush course, it takes three things – sunshine, water and money. But in the end (in 2003), we eventually just pulled out the hedges and went to national fences.

I liked stuffed brush the best, overall. The brush course at Rolling Rock was stiff, I remember it was biggest on the circuit. I rode over it only twice, but on a really great jumping mare. It was a thrill to come down to those huge stiff fences.”

Hall of Fame jockey Jerry Fishback won the Noel Laing in 1971 on Tingle Creek and in 1974 on Speed Kills, and won the Rolling Rock Hunt Cup four times in the ‘60s and ‘70s:

The natural fences have a bigger look to them, but once a horse runs a few times over them, they figure out … that they’re a little softer so the next fence they jump a little more bold, and get ‘down’ more into them.

The first few they’ll jump real big because they do look a little different, but they make a little mistake and they learn to skip through them. Horses are smart, you know.”

TGSF: What type of hedge is best for steeplechase fences?

Longtime Glenwood Park course manager and Montpelier consultant and course manager Bryon Pope:

Arborvitae is what we’ve got at Glenwood Park. There used to be several jumps (made from) yew, but now there’s just the one fence made out of yew (on the Alfred Hunt course just before the hairpin turn in the infield.)

Living hedges require year-round care, and they’re very particular about the type of soil they’re in. They don’t like the wind, they don’t like dry soil at all, so, basically, they don’t like anything about Glenwood.

But I’ve learned to work around it.

On the arborvitae, you can only cut back a small amount each year, and they have a finite lifespan, so the trick is to keep the (main stem) from getting too thick because when horses hit them, they tend to snap off and won’t regenerate.

At Montpelier, the hedges are privet. When I got involved (around 2006), they were treating them like they were boxwood – which they’re not, which is why they weren’t thriving. Arborvitae we cut back once a year; the privet you cut back three or four times a year because, pruned correctly, it’ll live forever.

As far as I know, the privet at Montpelier is the same hedges as in the first place when Marion du Pont Scott put in the course.”

Doing research for this article, we found a landscape plant sales catalog with an almost contrived association – an actual arborvitae cultivar actually named “Steeplechase.”

The sales pitch goes like this:

“An improvement over the popular ‘Green Giant’ with denser foliage, 'Steeplechase' is a superb, dense, broadly pyramidal shrub with fine textured, rich green foliage.

Ideal as a hedge or screen as well as a specimen. Narrow enough to run in gaps between driveways and in side yards.

A superior choice to enclose outdoor living spaces for year around privacy.

Well suited to a wind protection screen and may be useful in mitigating traffic noise as sound barrier.

An upright grower to 20 ft tall, 8 ft wide.”

(*Ed. Note: Notice the one thing that “Steeplechase” arborvitae does not claim is hardiness against dozens of 1,000-pound horses swishing through the bushes at 35 miles per hour.)

TGSF: What are the common problems with living hedges? They look great – such aesthetics – but they must be a maintenance nightmare?

Bryon Pope: 

Privet tolerates the abuse of lots of horses jumping through them better than arborvitae, but the Montpelier privet got a case of leaf rust last year, so we had to deal with that.

The arborvitae is prone to bagworms, so we have to keep after that (with spray and hand-picking.) The arborvitae isn’t as good about coming back quickly after the spring meet, so it takes a lot of maintenance to keep the course good for both meets (at Glenwood – Middleburg Spring and Virginia Fall.)

And deer just love arborvitae – bucks like to rub their antlers on them and really screw them up. The yew, too, the deer love to scrape on them.

I tend to think of these living hedges a little bit like sheep – they’re always trying to die on you. Your job is to keep them alive.”

All that careful management paid off, as the hedges looked fantastic at the Virginia Fall Races in October. Here, Bodes Well leads eventual winner New Member over a hedge. ©Tod Marks

The $40,000 Noel Laing stake runs over 2 ½ miles over the Montpelier estate natural hedges. The handicap attracted a talented group of six headed by Sharon Sheppard’s consistent performer Redicean, rated 158 with Tom Garner aboard.

Hudson River’s Iranistan carries 156, Armata’s Chosen Mate 154, 2019 race winner Amschel 152, and Bruton Street’s Presence of Mind and Gill Johnston’s Brianbakescookies drew in at 146.

The entire Montpelier card shows live on live-stream starting at 12:30 pm at nationalsteeplechase.com.