In which we tackle the owners for their input. (Some of their answers to our vexing questions may leave you humming a tune.)



Summer racing creeps closer, but we’re still in a lull. Listen in to our Take 5 with the Top 5, owners’ version, with a bonus interview with no. 6.  

By Betsy Burke Parker

Irv Naylor – whose silks are the same green, white and gold of the Hunt Cup flag, rode in the American timber classic four times and won three times as an owner, including with Withoutmoreado back in April.

While riding Hunt Cup hopeful Emerald Action (Ire) at the Maryland Grand National in 1999, Naylor was paralyzed in a fall. The dramatic life turn did nothing to dull Naylor’s fervor for ‘chasing: He attends almost every race his horses are in, watching from a motorized wheelchair and with the attentive company of wife, Diane.

Since 1999, he’s won three Eclipse Awards, six National Steeplechase Association owner crowns and is within reach of the all-time career earnings record of George Strawbridge’s Augustin Stable.

Temple Gwathmey Steeplechase Foundation: Let’s go back to the very beginning. Who was your favorite-ever horse? Maybe a childhood pony that started everything?

Irv Naylor: I grew up in Stevenson, Maryland, and yes, my first pony, Mr. Ken. He started it all.

And Probon who got me around the Maryland Hunt Cup (in 1988; they were fourth behind that year’s winner Freeman’s Hill with Billy Meister.)

TGSF: Your heroes as a kid? Your heroes now? Anybody that inspired you?

IN: (Hall of Fame rider-turned-trainer D. Michael) Mikey Smithwick. When I was first starting out in steeplechasing, I used to get up at the crack of dawn before going to work to ride out at Mikey’s barn. I learned a lot, and Mikey was integral in getting me into racing.

Before that, my mentor and inspiration was Ray Oliver, a teacher and wrestling coach at McDonogh School (in Owings Mill, Maryland; Naylor was class of 1954.)

Today’s hero? Two of them – (former British Prime Minister) Maggie Thatcher and (current president of Ukraine) Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

TGSF: What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever done? Anything from gallop down over the third in Glyndon to starting a business – you’ve done so much.  

IN: After the fact, of course, it had to be that fall at the Grand National. I was knocked out, but I could still realize it – “I ain’t moving.”

I remember the flight to shock trauma.

The other thing I’d say was starting my (first) business, with no money. My first desk was a card table.

I borrowed $10,000 from my mother and promptly paid her back from my first profits.

(Irv Naylor and Emerald Action before the start of the 1999 Grand National. Douglas Lees photo)

TGSF: Any team players you want to give a shout out?

IN: Obviously, all our trainers and barn staff and vets and blacksmiths and-and-and – literally, they’re a corps.

My caregivers. The Green Spring Valley Hounds. Oh, and my wife, Diane. Actually, add in there – she’s my hero, too.

TGSF: Your favorite part of the sport other than the winner’s circle?  

IN: That sums it up. The winner’s circle.

I think it’s important for people to realize exactly how hard it is to get a horse to a race, to get in the race, to run the race, to finish the race.

Much less to win the race.

(Tisa Della-Volpe photo of Kathy Neilson, Irv Naylor and (runner-up owner) Charlie Fenwick in the 2023 Maryland Hunt Cup winner's circle)

Which would you choose? Irv Naylor chose Tina Turner, Diane Naylor chose a reception with the Queen Mum. Diane says she even learned to curtsey in preparation for the formal gig in London.

TGSF: We asked the trainers and they had some fun responses – If you could go to, or could have gone to, any concert in history, which one? From real – say, the Grateful Dead first time at Red Rocks in 1978, to historic – Beethoven’s piano recital (No. 2, Opus 19) in 1795 at the Vienna concert hall.

IN: Ages and ages ago, we were in England and Tina Turner (who died May 24) was playing somewhere out in the countryside. I decided to go to that with (my English ‘chase trainer) Venetia Williams.

(My wife) Diane was in London, and was faced with the choice of going to see Tina Turner or going to a reception in London to meet the Queen Mother at Buckingham Palace.

She chose the Queen Mother.

One we both went to was (blind tenor) Andrea Bocelli in Washington, D.C. Beautiful performance.

TGSF: If you could have lunch with anyone in history, who would it be? And where would you take them?

IN: Right here, with my wife’s cooking, I’d invite (Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist) James Michener.

🥈 Riverdee creator, manager and chief syndicate member Sean Clancy was 1998 National Steeplechase Association champion rider: 23 wins from 101 starts

🥈 2000 retired on a winning note (Indispensable in the last race at Colonial Cup) “after too many concussions, and the fear that I’d be that old racetracker who had to keep getting on horses in his 60s, but shouldn’t.”

🥈 Lifetime totals (ponies, point-to-points, NSA): 1,178 rides, 175 wins, nearly $3 million in earnings

🥈 Syndicates are named after Riverdee, a horse Sean Clancy rode as a kid. "My father and I owned him, and I won two races on him."

TGSF: TGSF: Favorite horse? You’ve had hundreds!

Sean Clancy: I get asked that a lot, and I always struggle with it. I’ve offered various horses along the way, but I guess it comes down to (my) first, because if it wasn’t for the first, then there wouldn’t be a second, third, fourth…

Red Raven. Without him, there wouldn’t be a Riverdee, (or a) Student Dancer, Tostadero, Woody Boy Would, Atomistic, Victorian Hill, Rowdy, Good Night Shirt, Gibralfaro, City Dreamer, Cool Jet …

Red Raven was the fastest race pony in the land, and I was just fortunate he crossed my path in 1983. We won 10 races and finished second four times from 14 starts. Easy game!

That race pony, (actually, an undergrown thoroughbred twin who was 22 when he retired) changed my life. It was the first time I was good at anything. The first time I felt like I could do something. I knew it was all him, I was simply a passenger, but by God, he took me places.

A jet plane to a struggling kid.

TGSF: TGSF: Your heroes – in the sport or out of it?

SC: (Hall of Fame all-time sport leader) Joe Aitcheson was my hero growing up. He rented a room from us (Clancy’s father, Joe Clancy was a trainer) at Delaware Park for the summers. For me, it was like having Hank Aaron living above the kitchen.

He was kind, generous and patient with a track-rat kid.

He won 440 steeplechase races, a record which will never be broken.

When I was vying for my one and only title (NSA leading rider in 1998), he gave a sheet of yellow legal paper to (Maryland flat trainer) Tim Keefe to give to me. It was his hand-written notes, front and back, about riding races – everything from angling the last fence down the back at Fair Hill to keeping a tired horse in the bridle. It was an honor.

(Clancy says he’s kept that treasured piece of paper all these years: “It's packed away in a box somewhere in the attic as we renovate.”)

TGSF: TGSF: Where do you see American jump racing going? How about give your five-year vision.

SC: Hopefully continuing the rebound from (pandemic confusion in) 2020-’21 and regaining traction among thoroughbred racing.

I like seeing flat owners getting back involved in steeplechasing. I love the big days at Far Hills, Iroquois, the Gold Cups, that shows what the sport can be when it goes right. I love seeing the resurgence at Foxfield. (Photo of Ten Strike Racing's Dr. Marshall Gramm, brought into jump racing by Riverdee Stable. ©Race Track Industry Program/Veronica R. Branson)

My biggest concern is opportunity. A few years ago, I began counting the race meets and racetracks where I rode which don’t host steeplechasing anymore.

It was over 30. That’s scary.

If we still had Tanglewood, Stoneybrook, Hardscuffle, Marengo, St. James…you could find a spot for your horse. We need more races, more race meets to satisfy the owners involved and the horses involved.

Now, how do create more opportunities? Three sanctioned races at the Old Dominion Point-to-Point (in Virginia) this spring was a step, an example of what we can do when we pull together. The continued relationship with the Virginia Equine Alliance is huge.

Somehow, convincing race meets to avoid running on the same day – now, that one is tricky, but it's imperative for the long-term growth of our game.

We struggle, like plenty of sports, plenty of organizations, to balance the best interests of individuals with the best interests of the sport, that goes for horsemen and race meets.

Solve that and you win a prize.

Team Riverdee and Danielle Hodsdon after Mission Brief's win in the Paul Fout Maiden Hurdle at Middleburg Spring. ©Tod Marks

TGSF: Any Riverdee, or Clancy clan, team players that get a shout-out?

SC: As my son Miles said the other day, “Dad, you sure are more fun when the horses are winning.” (Wife) Annie and Miles deserve a lot of credit for riding the wave with me.

Beyond them, it’s all the partners, all the trainers, their teams, the jockeys, the volunteers at the race meets. It’s a long list.

Most of all, the horses.

TGSF: Any saying or phrase that you find yourself repeating? Given your multi-generational history in the sport, we bet there are plenty.

SC: “Son, it’s the game we play.”

My father, a former owner-trainer-rider has said this to me for most of my life.

When I’m upset or frustrated by things going awry – horses getting hurt, wrong ground, a rough trip – I hear him say it.

Basically, you signed up for it, deal with it.

The sport can bring you to your knees, but you must learn to roll with the ups and downs, accept it as part of your personality, that somehow you like the frustration.

TGSF: So, what’s your favorite part of this tough game?

SC: I love winning, we all do.

Beyond winning, I love the peacefulness of the horses. I don’t spend that much time with them anymore, but I enjoy seeing them when they’re relaxed, in their stalls, their paddocks, just being horses.

Seeing City Dreamer and Snap Decision roughhousing in the big front field at Jack Fisher’s (farm in Maryland), man, that’s fun.

I enjoy the barn after the races when they’re all safe and sound, job done (and almost like they’re saying) “let’s go home.”

TGSF: If you could attend any concert in history, etc. – which one?

SC: Woodstock (August 15-18, 1969 on Max Yasgur’s 300-acre dairy farm in rural Bethel, New York.) For the music, for the moment.

To tell Miles, “Yeah, I was there, it was like this…”

TGSF: If you could have lunch with anyone in history, who?

SC: My sister Michele. She died in 1974. Just to know her a little better.

TGSF: Flat racing, jump racing – compare, contrast.

SC: I play both and honestly don’t see or feel any difference.

It’s all the same sport to me.

I remember when New York (major track jump racing) was one sport – people did both, respected both, loved both.

When Sidney Watters Jr. trained flat and jump champions. When jump jockeys galloped the toughest horses for the best trainers – Bob Witham galloped Forego, Leo O’Brien galloped Hoist The Flag.

When Mrs. Ogden Phipps was leading steeplechase owner. When Aitcheson was up there with Cordero.

When everyone celebrated and commiserated at Esposito’s (the tavern a furlong from the Plainfield Avenue stable gate at Belmont Park.) OK, that was a little before my time, but I heard the stories.

I’m saddened by the divide between flat racing and steeplechasing. It’s all one sport. Play both. Enjoy both.

It’s a American ‘chasing power trio – Mike Hankin, Charlie Noell and Charlie Fenwick. Fenwick spoke for the partnership, observing that sharing-is-caring when it comes to syndicate ownership.

TGSF: You’ve played this game for generations, sometimes on your own, sometimes with partners. How is it different – better? – working as a team.  

Charlie Fenwick: The benefit of having partners in a horse is it is that it gives that partner an opportunity to own a better horse than he might be able to do by himself.

It’s fun to share the racing experience with friends.

It’s been my experience that the excitement of winning a race with 60 partners is very similar to the excitement of winning a race with a wholly owned horse, or with just a few partners.

It is always exciting to win a race.  

Most certainly I’ve developed some new and close friendships as a result of owning horses with others. In all of the partnerships I am involved in, I leave the decisions up to the trainer or syndicate manager.

Without a doubt, management of horses in a partnership can be tricky. There often is invariable second-guessing, and some syndicate participants are louder than others.

The manager, however, wants all the participants to come back for the next deal, so an effort will be made to treat everyone fairly – to a degree.  

Someone has to be in charge.

TGSF: We’re sure it leads to some …. um, lively conversations?

CF: The big thing with owning horses for me is that they be run where they belong.

And when I own the horse 100%, he’s gonna run where the trainer and I think he belongs.

But when you get into partnerships, that’s not always the case.

That’s just part of the package, (whether you’re) part of 50 or part of five to own a horse.

Having horses run where they belong is a lot of fun. It’s not a lot of fun going to a race where a horse does not belong.

(A partnership can be) a complicated conundrum, that’s for sure, but there’s always the chance to earn some purse money and buy a better horse.

English media magnate Malcolm Denmark owns Scaramanga, winner of the grade 1 Iroquois under Paul Townend for trainer Willie Mullins in his sole U.S. start. TGSF reached out to Denmark for this interview. We received no response but here’s his bio:

Malcolm Charles Denmark, born in July, 1955, created the London-based Mediaforce Group in 1984. The company was the first to insert advertising leaflets in newspapers.

His media portfolio includes several ad agencies, digital representation and newspaper publishing networks.

Mediaforce has offices in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Dublin, Birmingham, Gateshead, Liverpool and Enfield.

Denmark started owning racehorses in 1996, starting with former English champion rider-turned-trainer Mark Pitman and financing Pitman's purchase of Weathercock House, in Lambourn, from the trainer's mother Jenny in 1999.

His best horses have included Monsignor, who won twice at the Cheltenham Festival, and Punchestown winner Next Destination.

Read more about Malcolm Denmark HERE.

Upland Flats’ owner Patrick Lewis, 39, grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. He remembers his first track experiences at Kentucky Downs a half hour north of the city. Originally called Dueling Grounds, the pari-mutuel track was built for jump racing and hosted hurdles there the first several years in existence in the early 1990s.

“The idea of owning a racehorse was beyond what I was really thinking about until five or six years ago. I bought into some small pieces of horses but, fast forwarding to 2021, I spent a lot of time focusing on racing and I decided to claim a horse to be a jumper. (His first was West Newton, claimed with trainer Ricky Hendriks at Radnor in May, 2021. Lewis now has 28 horses running on the flat and over jumps.)

“My family grew up foxhunting so I grew up around steeplechase culture. I started going to the Iroquois as a kid.”

Upland Flats is Lewis’ 207-acre farm south of Nashville.

TGSF: You’ve said an unlikely Kentucky Derby winner drew you into the sport?

Patrick Lewis: Yes – that was Lil E Tee. That was the first race I vividly remember watching – everyone thought Arazi was a Secretariat type horse (morning-line favorite in the 1992 Kentucky Derby.) Lil E. Tee ran Arazi down. I love that story, because he was a $2,000 yearling and beat (the 1991 Eclipse champion 2-year-old.)

TGSF: Your heroes as a kid? Your heroes now?

PL: As a kid, my hero was Michael Jordan like so many kids my age because of his passion and will to win.

My heroes now are my own kids who amaze me every day. There is nothing that brings me more joy than watching them compete at sports or school. And they’re way smarter and more athletic than I ever was! (Patrick Lewis and wife Brianna have two boys, Connell and Gray, ages 6 and 4.)

TGSF: What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever done?

PL: Skiing backcountry in Washington State. First and last time!

TGSF: Thoughts on the state of the sport? Where do you see the jump racing in five years?

PL: I would like to continue to see fluidity between jump and flat owners as we have seen with the Wycoffs, Madaket and others who want to compete on both circuits.

I have been actively recruiting flat owners I know to come over to the ranks and to have more connectivity between our disciplines.

I love the history of our sport, but for us to truly thrive at the next level, it will take a collaboration with flat world.

(Still,) there is so much more of a homegrown feel with jump racing. The jockeys, assistants and trainers and even some owners do everything from mucking stalls to exercise riding. They know these horses inside and out and have such a cool sense of community.

But all that aside, in terms of intensity, racing is racing. I feel just as many butterflies in a jump race as I do for a flat race – except a flat race is 1:30 and jump races are 4 or 5 minutes! That’s a long time to be stressed.

TGSF: Any team players you want to give a shout out?

PL: I’ll just thank my wife for allowing me so much rope!

TGSF: We can tell you’re a little bit of a philosopher at heart. Give us some inspiring words on your favorite part of the sport.

PL: Hope and anticipation come with every new horse you buy. There is nothing like a dream born but unrealized.

TGSF: OK, now the classic softball – If you could have gone to any concert in history, which one would it have been?

PL: Led Zeppelin’s first American tour in 1968.

(It was the band’s first U.S. visit – they played Dec. 26 in Denver, with 31 tour stops through the Feb. 16, 1969 show at the Baltimore Civic Center.)

(Photo - Led Zeppelin at Chateau Marmont in San Francisco in January 1969. ©Herb Greene)

(Here’s our “Bonus Take 5/Top 5” since we couldn’t nab the Malcolm Denmark interview – meet no. 6, Leipers Fork Steeplechasers)

TGSF: We know Leipers Fork, the place, is a village near Franklin, Tennessee, not far from Percy Warner Park in Nashville where the Iroquois is held. Tell us about Leipers Fork, the steeplechase partnership.  

Mark George: LFS has two members – we are brothers-in-law. Me, Mark George, and my brother-in-law, Mark McMillan.

We love horses and the steeplechase circuit. We decided that we wanted to be more than a spectator and enjoy racing our own horses.

And it was a great opportunity for us to travel together with our spouses and enjoy the sport and visit charming communities along the circuit.

(Our trainer) Leslie Young was referred to us by (longtime steeplechase horsewoman and Leipers Fork neighbor) Dana Burke.

We are (both) from the town of Leipers Fork and decided to name our enterprise same.

TGSF: How’s it owning horses with someone else? A relative no less!

MG: It's more fun to do something you enjoy with people you enjoy being with. And two members supporting the enterprise financially allows you to have more horses and have more fun.

TGSF: Any arguments over the syndicate? Any arguments over anything?

MG: Mark and I get along very well. Of course, Mark owned, trained and rode in races when he was younger. (Mark McMillan was prominent on the old Midwest Hunt Race Association circuit in the 1970s and 1980s; his father, Brown McMillan, was a well-respected horseman and trainer based near Franklin, Tennessee.)

Mark brings a lot of knowledge to the partnership. He is a little more conservative and practical when it comes to expanding our stable of horses. I am a little more aggressive. So, we complement each other and produce a winning team.

We get along very well and make all decisions together regarding the horses.

TGSF: Most memorable horse racing moment – so far?

MG: Winning the ratings handicap with Fast Vision at Iroquois, 2022 was probably the most exciting win for me. When we chartered Leipers Fork Steeplechasers, this was our main objective – to win in our "hometown" with all our family and friends.

It was very exciting!

We've won bigger races with Tomgarrow (the stake at My Lady’s Manor in 2022 and 2023, the Radnor Hunt Cup last spring, the 2021 International Gold Cup), but winning at home was our initial mission and most exciting.

TGSF: Future plans? More horses? Summer trips? Saratoga?

MG: Our long-term goal is to win the feature at the Iroquois. We know it takes time to develop a stable of horses, (so) we are constantly adding new horses to improve our chances of winning.

We recently added High Definition to our stable with hopes (to get to the Iroquois next May.)

We have a few horses that we think are ready for Saratoga.

(Photo - recently acquired High Definition finished 6th in the Gr. 2 Belmont Gold Cup Stakes and will switch to jumps. ©Tod Marks)

Summer racing at Colonial Downs - 2 weeks and ticking! ©Coady Photography