Fair Hill – Hoping the rebirth of the historic facility is just the beginning
Discussing the renaissance plan for unique public-private partnership
There’s a world-class nature center, and camping, hiking, hunting and fishing along Big Elk Creek. The Cecil County Fair, the Festival in the Country and annual Scottish Games prop up each end of the events calendar.
There is a thriving training center, an elite-level three-day event and schooling shows in a variety of disciplines.
Miles of public trails lace the 5,600-acre facility, and riders from across the east coast flock to Fair Hill year-round to utilize what’s widely regarded as the nation’s most complete equestrian facility.
Eighty-five years of steeplechase meets have been held on the grounds that were initially custom-designed for racing.
Notably absent from the Fair Hill for the next 18 months is racing.
Don’t despair. It’s part of the master plan.
And when it comes back, it’s going to return bigger and better than ever, say equestrian professionals leading the renovation and expansion effort.
Join the conversation with Fair Hill Foundation president Jay Griswold and Maryland Horse Industry Board Executive Director Ross Peddicord to find out what’s in store for Maryland’s world-renowned horse park.
By Betsy Burke Parker
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Cheers for the winner of the last at the 85
th running of the
Fair Hill Races on Memorial Day weekend had barely stopped echoing through the grandstand when bulldozers and earth movers roared to life.
Under the theory that you’ve got to break some eggs to make an omelet, the
Fair Hill Equine Improvement Project got underway quite literally as soon as the races were over in May, a race against time to deconstruct, and reconstruct, much of the equestrian center at the 5,600-acre facility.
Crews got to work the next morning with
a long list in hand – reconfiguring the mile-long turf oval, modifying the three-day eventing cross-country course, and adding dressage and show jumping arenas on the infield with high-tech, all-weather footing suitable for a top level international championships, all the while remaining conscious of the park's mission "to promote the management of natural and cultural resources to ensure the continuing benefits for present and future generations."
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A rendering from the Maryland Stadium Authority shows the plans for the Fair Hill Equine Improvement Project.
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The unique public-private collaboration between Maryland state agencies and steeplechase, flat racing and eventing horsemen is – at a time when contraction is the norm – a welcome expansion.
“The first part of the multi-phase project is nearly complete,” Griswold says. “They expect to be finished sodding, completing the crossing areas on the racecourse and the cross-country by the first week of December. Phase 2 includes a new, bigger grandstand, tunnels under (Maryland State Route) 273 – there are currently bridges to get from the training center to the steeplechase course side.
“It’s a process.”
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Emily Wilson of Maryland's Department of Natural Resources weighs in on Fair Hill project
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The department is excited to be working with great partners in both the public and private sectors on this project to revitalize and update the existing, aging infrastructure in the Special Event Zone.
The improvements we're doing include an updated turf track and timber course with increased safety measures, additional competition arenas, and new cross-country course.
(The) property is steeped in equestrian tradition. The improvements will help us to consider hosting other events, or even expanding upon current events at the site - like utilizing more race days - so that Fair Hill can remain and grow as an economic engine for the area.
We are considering partnership options for operations and maintenance ... as the landowner of Fair Hill Natural Resources Management Area. We have a responsibility to ensure its success while maintaining the integrity of the landscape and our partnerships."
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A photo from the grandstands on November 13 shows the newly turfed and irrigated track with wider banked turns, plus two of the three arenas in the infield.
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Executive Director of Maryland’s Horse Industry Board, Ross Peddicord
(shown here with Griswold at the Fair Hill Races 85th Anniversary Gala) is a project cheerleader. “There are 16,000 horse farms in Maryland, contributing an annual economic impact exceeding a billion dollars,” Peddicord notes. “Marylanders have long yearned for a centralized state horse park. Because we already have two major venues at Fair Hill and the Prince George's Equestrian Center, each with different competition niches, it seemed prudent to make extensive renovations to bring them up to 21st century standards. Fair Hill jumped to the head of the list after it won the bid to host the new 5 Star.”
The
nearly-finished project includes three show arenas on the racecourse infield, an improved turf course with wider, more sweeping turns and all new turf – and a discrete turf training strip along the outside of the track, and a new CCI 5* cross-country course.
“The support of the Board of Public Works was a very big step toward sustaining the future of Fair Hill,” Griswold adds. “This is exciting for Maryland and all of our great partners who have been supporting this project from the beginning.”
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An aerial view of the track during the October The Dutta Corp. Fair Hill International Three Day Event gives a sense of the property on race day. The timber course (seen here in tan, without turf), which used to cut through the infield of the track, has been reconfigured to run on the inside of the second turn and then share the homestretch with the main track.
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For 85 years, Fair Hill has hosted a day or two of steeplechase racing, but, otherwise, the expansive turf course has been unused.
With the expansion project, that’s expected to change.
Griswold explains that Fair Hill already has approval from the
Maryland Racing Commission for up to eight days of racing, meaning the facility could add a week-long race festival, or a trio of long weekends of racing – or something similar – without further permits.
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A Douglas Lees photo from the 1970's, with crowds of people watching the
Fair Hill Races
. The Races were begun by William duPont, Jr. as a free community event and for many years were combined with the Cecil County Breeder's Fair - a cattle show in the morning, and racing in the afternoon. The Breeder's Fair now runs on a separate weekend.
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Sam Slater on the Project's Beginning
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Early in 2016... the USEF asked for bids to hold an additional (then) 4-star 3-Day event in the United States. A group was formed, as I recall largely under the direction of Ross Peddicord and others, to help Fair Hill bid for this.
The main reason for my involvement in the project was my affection for Fair Hill. My family had racehorses that ran there and I can remember going racing there at an early age. My sister Joy became the first woman to win a sanctioned timber race in the US when she won one at Fair Hill in 1976. My wife Lornie rode in the first 3-day event ever held at at Fair Hill when she was 14. And I was the TV liaison between the race meet and NBC Sports at the first Breeders Cup Steeplechase there in 1986. I was on the boards of both the FHI and the race meet, so I certainly had a lot of connections to the place.
We (the Fair Hill Foundation) had to raise, and have in the bank, $250,000 just to get things off the ground, and show the state we were serious. Luckily, the board of what was then the National Steeplechase Foundation (now the TGSF) was very accommodating, allowing us to raise the money through them since we had not received our 501(c)3 status yet.
The Fair Hill Foundation seems to be thriving under Jay’s leadership, and I wish them and the project all my best for the future."
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Sam and Joy Slater at the 2019 Far Hills Race Meeting.
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The Aintree link
Fair Hill’s historic turf racecourse, built in the late 1920s and modeled after
Aintree Racecourse
in England, was designed by William duPont, Jr. duPont designed two dozen racecourses across the east coast, including the Iroquois near Nashville, Montpelier in Virginia and Delaware Park.
Seen here is the infamous "Chinese Wall" on the Fair Hill course in 1937, courtesy of the NSA Archives.
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“Fair Hill has enormous other attributes as well with its spacious grounds, natural beauty and home to a number of field events that include a premier training center, steeplechase, carriage driving, endurance races, foxhunting and trail riding, not to mention three-day eventing on an international level,” Peddicord says. “It's a major world equestrian center waiting to happen.
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“(The board) has been extremely fortunate that first Sam Slater and then Jay Griswold... seized the initiative and stepped forward to head major private fundraising efforts through the Fair Hill Foundation. The state had the confidence to move forward because of Sam’s contributions and the reputation and respect that Jay and his family have earned through decades of service to Maryland.”
Griswold explains that the
Maryland Department of Natural Resources owns the entire Fair Hill property after William duPont, Jr.'s heirs sold it to the state. “They have fronted the entire cost of what we call Phase 1 of the project,” Griswold says. “This is a multi-year, public-private partnership.
“The DNR has been wonderful to work with, and the Stadium Authority – we never could have done this without them.”
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Chris Deremeik from the Maryland Stadium Authority talks to members of the Maryland Horse Industry Board in October.
The Maryland Stadium Authority was established by the General Assembly in 1986. The original mission was to build, manage and maintain quality facilities to retain major league baseball, and return NFL football to Maryland.
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Peddicord agrees that encouragement, through state funding, shows that Maryland is vested in the project. “We have had really exemplary public support from our current governor, legislative leaders, county government and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, which manages Fair Hill,” Peddicord says. “Everyone has pulled together to make this happen, recognizing the importance of the horse industry in preserving open space, creating jobs and enriching people's lives.
“The grounds will be ready to host the 5-star next October, followed by the return of steeplechase and (expansion of) turf racing. The new infield arenas (can) host major show jumping, dressage and hunter shows, and the irrigated one-mile turf course could host flat racing in the European manner.
“Now it's time has come.”
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Fun fact
With the 2020 Maryland 5* at Fair Hill, Maryland joins Kentucky as the only state in the nation to host a 5-star three-day event and a Triple Crown race.
(
Shannon Brinkman
photo of 2019 The Dutta Corp FHI CCI 4*-L winners Erin Sylvester and Paddy the Caddy)
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The Maryland 5* at Fair Hill
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The event is expected to generate millions of dollars in economic impact annually for Maryland and rural Cecil County.
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Jeff Newman was
named event CEO
as part of the Sport and Entertainment Corporation of Maryland.
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A “test event” - a CCI4*-S - is scheduled for April 2020, with the 5* planned scheduled for October 14-18, 2020.
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The Fair Hill Point-to-Point
All proceeds from the Fair Hill Point-to-Point benefit the
Fair Hill Nature Center
, an independent nature center whose work focuses on offering environmental education and outreach programs for professionals, students, and underserved members of the community. The Fair Hill Nature Center is housed in what used to be William du Pont, Jr.'s hunting lodge
(pictured, courtesy of the Fair Hill Nature Center)
.
The Fair Hill Point-to-Point is actively pursuing a temporary home for its 2020 races, and looks to return to Fair Hill in 2021.
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Kentucky Downs serves as a model
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With the expansion of Fair Hill’s turf course, officials expect to be able to offer a boutique all-turf race meet in 2021. The plan is similar to the historic development of a former steeplechase course in south central Kentucky.
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Built in 1990, Dueling Grounds was initially developed for world-class steeplechasing. The former Sandford Duncan farm, where the track was built on the Kentucky-Tennessee border, was site of numerous duels in the 1800s, because dueling was illegal in Tennessee but not in Kentucky.
Sam Houston took part in a duel on the site, though, fortunately, the “sport” ended in 1827.
Dueling Grounds held what remains the richest American steeplechase – the $750,000 Dueling Grounds International, but switched to flat racing only in 1992.
The name changed to
Kentucky Downs
in 1997. The track – less than an hour north of populous Nashville, allows for pari-mutuel wagering by a population eager to bet but living in a state without pari-mutuel. The track has a short turf festival meet in the fall, and operates as an off-track betting parlor the rest of the year.
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The 2019 numbers from Kentucky Downs are stunning, and suggest the Fair Hill race meet will be wildly popular with horsemen eager for more opportunities to race on the turf. More than $41.2 million was wagered on the five-day early autumn session’s 50 races. A record $11,520,380 was paid out to participating horse owners, with the $2.3 million in average daily purses the highest in the world outside Japan.
Kentucky Downs, in an arrangement with racing horsemen, transferred an additional $5 million in purses to Ellis Park to strengthen the racing product at the Henderson track and the entire Kentucky circuit.
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The Fair Hill Training Center
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The
Fair Hill Training Center
was established in the late 1970s, a vision of veterinarian and thoroughbred horseman Dr. John Fisher. Harford County attorney John Clark, owner of Rigbie Farm, had helped the State of Maryland purchase the Fair Hill property from the duPont family a few years prior. Clark brokered a deal between Fisher and Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources to lease the training center land.
Fisher secured investors George Strawbridge and the Gene Weymouth family, signing a 98-year lease for the 350 acres of land the training center sits on.
Governor Harry Hughes was a project booster, tying its development to the goal of making Fair Hill a regional thoroughbred hub. Offices of the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau, the National Steeplechase Association and Fasig-Tipton Midlantic were built by the property.
Construction began in 1983. The center operates as a horse condominium facility – barns are owned privately, with per-day fees for track maintenance, grounds maintenance, overall staffing and property insurance.
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Location drove Fair Hill’s instant success – the training center is a three-hour or less ship to Laurel, Pimlico, Charles Town, Delaware Park, Belmont, Aqueduct, Parx and Penn National, a little more than that to Virginia’s Colonial Downs.
Another driver of success is the “horse-centric” design to the complex. Barns are separated by woodlands and open space, each stable has turnout paddocks and the extensive Fair Hill trail system is available for trainers to use for cross-training. Horses can train on the turf on the steeplechase course on the south side of 273, and there are two all-weather tracks on the north side. There are fewer horses than at a racetrack, and though there are distinct training hours, the pace is more relaxed since there is no pressure to prepare the racing surface for afternoon racing on a daily basis.
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The Fair Hill Training Center lies just across the road from the new turf track, and features a mile dirt oval plus a 7/8th mile Tapeta track. Horse paths criss-cross the landscape, providing access from all the barns.
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Bruce Jackson’s state-of-the-art
Fair Hill Equine Therapy Center
offers the latest in technological equipment, designed to promote rapid recovery from injury.
The facility also brings in revenue from selling soiled straw bedding to local mushroom farmers.
Some 650 horses live on site, with more than 1,000 people employed directly, or indirectly, by the training center.
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