American jump racing has Sheikh Mohammed to thank for already having one Flying Starter in Liza Hendriks; the Class of ‘25 includes two more – Daisy Fenwick and Harper McVey.



Meet the team.

By Betsy Burke Parker

Daisy Fenwick checks a lot of boxes. She’s part of the prestigious and pedigreed Fenwick clan and a graduate of Cornell. She owns timber stakes-winner Cracker Factory and rides out every day of the week for two NSA trainers.

She manages the social media pages for one of the American ‘chase circuit’s biggest meets and and has learned every inch - backside, trackside, frontside - of the Saratoga racecourse. Fenwick won the Laura Pickett Excellence in Horsemanship Award in 2016 and earned the Johnathan Kiser Memorial Scholarship.

Even with all the experience and education, Fenwick says she’s hungry for more.

And she’s headed back to school.

Racing school.  

How it happens

By all metrics, the Godolphin Flying Start application process is exhaustive. It requires a four-year degree with minimum grade requirements plus extensive industry experience (or a minimum of 10 years of management-level industry experience plus honors-level high school graduation.)

Applicants provide a cover letter, professional resume, three industry references, a video answering a provided racing question plus a hands-on horsemanship competency video.

Horsemanship can be demonstrated mounted – video clips of the applicant riding at walk, trot and canter, or competing in eventing, showing or racing, or unmounted – horse handling (tacking and longeing a horse or handling and “standing up” a mare or foal.)

From 1,500 applications each year, the Flying Start committee selects about 50 for personal interviews, with post-interview reading and assignments driving the final selection.

Twelve make the final cut.

Flying Start has quite the track record: from hundreds of program grads, 99% have been employed immediately after graduation, with 89% staying in racing.

Program director Clovagh Kavanagh (Anne M. Eberhardt photo) explains course components are carefully curated for wide exposure. Working hands on with quality horses and successful people across breeding, racing and bloodstock gives real world experience and an ability to adapt horse care and management to climate and environment as required, Kavanagh says.

Graduates have spread their knowledge worldwide, employed in racing in the UK, Dubai, France, Sweden, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, Brazil, China and South Africa.

And, of course, the U.S.

Class of 2020 - Meet Liza Hendriks

Liza Hendriks with National Steeplechase Association's Bill Gallo and The Saratoga Special's Joe Clancy, before the A.P. Smithwick hurdle stakes at Saratoga in 2021.

©Tod Marks / National Steeplechase Association

Liza Hendriks was in the Flying Start class of 2020. Daughter of race trainers Ricky Hendriks and Liz Merryman, Liza Hendriks graduated from the College of Charleston and worked on the broadcast and simulcast teams with the New York Racing Association.

She and fellow Flying Start grad Jack Carlino founded the Wanamaker’s online thoroughbred sales company, going strong with monthly catalogs in its third year this term.

Hendriks told the Paulick Report the things she learned, and the connections she made, at Flying Start made Wanamaker’s a natural.

It launched when Covid restrictions made online sales of everything became vogue – including thoroughbred racehorses and bloodstock. Wanamaker’s fills a niche in the thoroughbred world, Hendriks told the Paulick Report.

In an industry notoriously resistant to change, she explains education for both buyers and sellers has been paramount.

“It's been a slow process, but people are coming around to it,” she said. “I think COVID did help with ... moving people online. People buy everything else online, so why not buy horses online?”

Class of 2025 - Meet Daisy Fenwick

Part-owner with her grandmother Betty Fenwick of the steeplechase partnership The Hundred Acre Field (they own timber stakes-winner Cracker Factory), Daisy Fenwick was born into American steeplechasing. Her father, Peter Fenwick, and mother, Amy Fenwick, uncle Charlie, cousin Charlie III, granddad Cuppy - and more - are longtime industry insiders.

Now 23, Daisy Fenwick grew up in Reisterstown, Maryland. She was a top pony and junior race rider and “still rides a few on the flat,” including Cracker Factory in a couple turf spins this spring.  

She hunts with the Green Spring Valley and Mt. Carmel Hounds.

Fenwick’s first hands-on steeplechase industry job was as a young teen with trainer Cyril Murphy at Still Water Farm in Reisterstown, literally directly across Geist Road from The Hundred Acre Field. This season, Fenwick has been getting on a few sets for trainers Mark Beecher and Willie Dowling near the family farm.

Fenwick graduated from the McDonaugh School in Owings Mills, Maryland and earned a BS in ag science from Cornell. She rode on the intercollegiate show and polo teams.

She worked on several Cornell vet school research projects including helping with a new tieback surgery study.  

After Cornell graduation in 2022, Fenwick got a job that summer for the New York Racing Association in horsemen’s relations at Saratoga, in the fall at the Breeders’ Cup racing office and galloped horses for trainer Ian Wilkes.

A job for bloodstock agent Mike McMahon was the initial driver for applying for Flying Start: McMahon’s sister, Kate Galvin, is a program grad, and McMahon strongly encouraged Fenwick to go for it. 

Fenwick was thrilled to be selected, and says she's excited to begin. The course begins in Ireland on Aug. 14. They work through Christmas, including time at a stud farm, the Newmarket sales and the British racing school.

Students head home for Christmas then reconvene in Lexington, Kentucky after the holidays for breeding season. They go to Australia then Dubai, with the final semester back in Ireland.

When asked what she intends to do with the Godolphin certificate, Fenwick laughs. “That is a good question! I’d like to end up in racing, and this course is perfect (in that we) get to see a little bit of everything involved.

“I really liked working at the racetrack – customer service and taking care of the owners and horsemen’s needs might be something I’d pursue.

“I have no interest in being a trainer, but this course provides good connections, good experience and a lot more.

“I know some people go into Flying Start knowing what they want to do with it. Others do it to figure it out.”

Class of 2025 - Meet Harper McVey

Harper McVey, the NSA representative at the 2023 My Lady's Manor races.

©Douglas Lees

Harper McVey, 26, graduated from the Pratt Institute in New York in 2020 with a bachelors of fine arts degree in communications design with a focus in advertising and art. She joined the NSA two and a half years ago as assistant to the racing director, filling an opening created when former Gallo assistant Courtney Reid left NSA to pursue a career with the Breeders Cup. McVey's father, Joe, was assistant trainer to Dr. John R.S. Fisher (father of NSA champion trainer Jack Fisher).

She was born in Delaware and raised in Elkton, Maryland and West Orange, New Jersey. A lifelong rider, McVey worked at trainer Tom Proctor’s Fair Hill barn and has owned and retrained retired racehorses for after-racing careers.

“I was aware of Flying Start before I applied at the NSA, (but while) I was extremely interested in the opportunity, I felt that I needed more working experience in the thoroughbred industry to be accepted.

“As it turns out, I’m glad that I waited.

“During my two and a half years with the NSA, I learned a tremendous amount, and I have grown both personally and professionally.

“As assistant to the director of racing, I was able to manage a wide array of day-to-day operations in the racing office and experience the regulatory aspect of the thoroughbred industry in a unique and intimate way.

“I made a lot of valuable connections, including (and most importantly) Bill Gallo, who has been an invaluable mentor to me."

“He and Joe Clancy were instrumental in helping me get accepted into the Flying Start program.

“While it was my own decision to apply to the Flying Start program, Bill Gallo supported me completely and did everything in his power to help advance my career. For that, I am extremely grateful.

“Additionally, the NSA board of directors, committee members and all other staff are excited about my new opportunity as well, and it feels good to know that I have their support.

“I am not intimidated to be going to the ‘best of the best’ places in the thoroughbred industry – rather, I am excited to experience these new places and to learn about the industry from a global perspective, as I’ve only experienced racing in the United States thusfar.

“I look forward to expanding my knowledge of practices outside of those I’ve experienced, so that I can become a more well-rounded horseman and business professional.

“That being said, I do feel a bit of nerves about starting the program in general, but it’s a mix of nerves and excitement – anticipation, really.

“Once I get settled for the first phase in Ireland, I’m sure my nerves will quickly fade.”

Like Fenwick, McVey has mixed emotions about leaving home for so long, both citing their family, dogs and horses among the things they’ll miss most. “The beginning of the program marks the end of my time with the NSA, (so) I will also greatly miss working with Bill Gallo,” McVey adds. “I have the utmost respect for him and all that he does for the sport of steeplechasing. We have had a great working relationship, and that’s what I’ll miss the most about the NSA.

“Right now, I feel like the possibilities are endless for me (with regards to my future in racing), and I have so much to explore. I can’t put my finger on any particular job that I hope to get once I graduate from the program.”

Like Fenwick, McVey plans to absorb as much of the industry as she can and figure out her next move afterwards.

“It is an extreme honor to be accepted to such a prestigious program. I am looking forward to all the opportunities it will bring.”

Class of 2025 - Meet Claire Wilson

The other American headed to Flying Start next week, Claire Wilson is from Chattanooga. She grew up three-day eventing and majored in equine science and management at the University of Kentucky.

She worked at UK’s Maine Chance farm, a small thoroughbred breeding farm owned by the school and run by student workers and a small team of managers. She interned at the Paulick Report during school.

Wilson completed the Kentucky Equine Management Internship at Three Chimneys Farm and worked at Keeneland in the communications department and on the Breeders’ Cup notes team.

Wilson worked at Lane’s End for a foaling season and a yearling prep season, working as barn foreman for Geoff Mulcahy at the Thoroughbred Center.

She writes for the Paulick Report and helps manage their social media platforms.

Class of 2025 - Meet George Connolly

He’s not American, but the U.S. jumps circuit can make a small claim – amateur rider George Connolly spent the spring season at leading trainer Leslie Young’s yard in Pennsylvania before returning home to Ireland. The University College Dublin grad joins the Flying Start class of 2025, and says he’s “very excited, and very busy, at the minute, preparing to start.”

Flying Start turns 20

Godolphin Flying Start commemorated its 20th anniversary with a reunion and conference in County Kildare, Ireland on June 29. Over 100 graduates from across the globe attended.

Established in 2003, Godolphin Flying Start is the brainchild of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum of Dubai, long a global leader in breeding, racing and racecourse management.

Students receive the full course scholarship which includes fees, accommodation and a monthly allowance.

Flying Start is accredited by the University College Dublin, University of Kentucky, University of Arizona’s racing officials program and Kentucky Horseshoeing School.

The primary object of the program is to advance standards and knowledge in the management of thoroughbred horses by the establishment of a program to train and develop students who wish to pursue senior management careers in the thoroughbred business and to award successful students with qualification of their achievement.

National Steeplechase Association | Email Address | Website