By Betsy Burke Parker

Admit it, we’re as attracted to shiny things as magpies and chipmunks.

A trophy – silver, pewter, gold, bronze, even a prized logo Yeti cup – is a tangible, durable reminder of a particular achievement and serves as evidence of merit.

Trophies are awarded in sports for everything from youth to professional level athletics.

The word trophy derives from the Greek tropaion. It originally referred to “winning” standards or other loots of war victory including human captives and body parts such as a scalp or the head of an enemy captured in battle.

Thankfully, in this way anyway, we’ve evolved.

The oldest sports trophies in the world are the Carlisle Bells, for a race still run at the Carlisle racecourse in Cumbria, England. It dates to 1559 and was first awarded by Elizabeth I.

Trophies, and sometimes purse money, were handed out, and prized, when racing in the American colony was first recorded in 1665 on New York’s Long Island plain. The first important race in the Virginia colony was in 1752 in the Tidewater region near Gloucester.

According to the National Steeplechase Museum, the first steeplechase race in the U.S. was held near Washington D.C. in 1834. The National Steeplechase and Hunt Association in Fair Hill, Maryland was founded in 1895, a year after the first running of the Maryland Hunt Cup. The Hunt Cup is considered America’s oldest steeplechase. (Photo, above, of the 1974 Maryland Hunt Cup trophies. ©Douglas Lees)

Take a look at the history – some old, some new, of some of this week’s trophies and others on the circuit.

The owner of the winner of Saturday’s Queen’s Cup headliner, the Queen’s Cup novice stake, will receive an original Scott Penegar bronze, two ‘chasers in mid-flight over a hurdle.

This is no one-off, grip-grab-giveback thing.

The 8 by 16 inch bronze is a keeper.

Queen’s Cup founders and co-chairs, Bill and Carrington Price, contracted with Penegar to keep the unique resin mold in which he produced the original bronze for next year and beyond.

By Margaret Worrall. Reprinted and updated with permission from the April 2014 "Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred."

"Mrs. Redmond C. Stewart provided the second Challenge Cup, an exact reproduction

in gold of the first trophy, created by Baltimore silversmith S. Kirk & Sons. The trophy was retired after just four runnings of the race, by Stuart S. Janney Jr. aboard his Winton in 1947." ©Bert Morgan

Let’s play a little Thoroughbred Jeopardy and see what you know about one of the world’s most difficult steeplechase races.

The category is Maryland Hunt Cup Challenge Cups, and don’t forget that each answer must be in the form of a question.

Challenge Cups for $200: “The Challenge Cup will be held by the owner of the winning horse each year and will become the permanent possession of the owner winning the Maryland Hunt Cup three times, not necessarily with the same horse nor by successive wins.”

❓❓What are the conditions to take possession of the Maryland Hunt Cup Challenge Cup?

Challenge Cups for $400: Seven.

❓❓How many Challenge Cups have been awarded in the 125 runnings of the Maryland Hunt Cup?

Challenge Cups for $600: Mrs. E. Read Beard, 1940; Stuart S. Janney Jr., 1947; Mrs. W.J. Clothier, 1952; Mrs. M.C. Stephenson, 1966; Redmond C. Stewart Jr., 1978; Mrs. Miles Valentine, 1983; Irvin L. Crawford II, 2019.

❓❓Which owners received permanent possession of a Challenge Cup and in what years?

Challenge Cups for $800: Mrs. E. Read Beard.

❓❓Who is the only owner to retire a Challenge Cup in three consecutive years, 1938, 1939 and 1940 (with the great Blockade)?

Daily Double (this could be a tricky, so be careful with your wager): Garry Owen, Princeton, Blockade, Winton, Pine Pep, Jay Trump, Mountain Dew, Cancottage and Senior Senator.

❓❓What horses have won the Maryland Hunt Cup three times since 1894.

If you have a Maryland Hunt Cup program from anytime after 1983 lying around, you could have responded to these Jeopardy clues. The information is all there. However some study of Maryland Hunt Cup Challenge Cups would be an aid before risking all in Final Jeopardy or some other battle of timber wits.

Read the rest of the story HERE in Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred.

(TGSF note: Armata Stables could potentially retire the current Challenge Cup this Saturday if their 2-time winner, Vintage Vinnie, emerges victorious again.)

"Mrs. W.J. Clothier’s Pine Pep retired the third Challenge Cup (center) with eventual Hall of Fame member D. Michael Smithwick as pilot for the 1949, 1950 and 1952 runnings. The fourth Maryland Hunt Cup tankard on display is from husband William J. Clothier’s 1917 winner Brosseau." ©Winants Bros.

Leslie Young shows off the new NSA year-end awards. ©Tod Marks

Steeplechase horsewoman Meriwether Morris contracted with artist and sculptor Peggy Kauffman to create the year-end title prizes for the National Steeplechase Association. Kauffman casts seven each year, in what she calls a simple casting in the old-world style of a horse jumping.  

Kauffman is a professional portrait artist and animalier who works in bronze sculpture and pastel painting. Her anatomical knowledge and ability to render the unique essence of her subject is hallmark of her work, mostly what she calls representational impressionism.

Kauffman received a BA in Fine Arts from Bennett College in Millbrook, New York and studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.

She considers Paul Brown, preeminent horse artist, the greatest influence on her work.

1991 Virginia Gold Cup presentation: Alicia Murphy, trainer on the left, Sanna Neilson winning rider of Joe's O.K. on the right, Oliver Keelan obscured. ©Douglas Lees

Winning the May 6 Virginia Gold Cup timber classic is a cash grab – $60,000 to the victor, but possession of the golden trophy (for a year) is pretty priceless.

It used to take just three wins to take permanent ownership of the prize, but after several valuable trophies were retired, the Gold Cup committee raised the bar to five.

Eight gold cups (most of them, literally, golden cups) have been retired.

1st 🏆 - The first Virginia Gold Cup trophy was purchased in 1922 by the race founders for $1,000.

Retired by – Katherine Hitt (1922, 1923, 1925)

The trophy was given back to the Gold Cup as a perpetual trophy (meaning, it can never be retired but, instead, is used as a prop for win photos but never goes home with the winning owner.)

2nd 🏆 - Trophy made in England in 1802. Purchased in 1926 by Robert Winmill and donated to the Gold Cup.

Retired by – Mary Pingree (1930, 1933, 1934)

3rd 🏆 - Trophy purchased and donated by Mary Pingree.

Retired by – Mrs. Frank Gould (1937, 1938, 1940)

4th 🏆 - Trophy crafted by a Moscow silversmith in 1795.

Retired by – Christopher Greer Jr. (1941, 1946, 1953)

5th 🏆 - Trophy made of gold nuggets from the 1849 California gold rush. Found in a London pawn shop in the late 1940s, later purchased by the Gold Cup Association.

Retired by – Zeke Ferguson (1965, 1966, 1967)

6th 🏆 - Trophy, gold-plated silver cup made in 1796 England.

Retired by – Dr. Joseph Rogers (1972, 1982, 1984)

7th 🏆 - Trophy made in London in 1900 and was the prize for the 1903 English Grand National at Aintree.

Retired by – Ann Stern (1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998)

7th 🏆 - Trophy was a simple six-sided golden vase.

Retired by – Irv Naylor (2002, 2007, 2009, 2016, 2017)

Current challenge trophy – A gold loving cup donated by Warrenton’s Celeste Vella.

In the 2017 Virginia Gold Cup, Ebanour retired the trophy for Irv Naylor - Diane Naylor receiving the trophy. ©Douglas Lees

The waist-high International Gold Cup trophy took a winding route to its present home in The Plains, Virginia. (Douglas Lees photo, right, of jockey Hadden Frost with the International Gold Cup trophy after winning with Doc Cebu in 2018)

The first time the ornate King of Spain cup was offered as a prize was a 1930 race at the old Grasslands Downs in Brentwood, Tennessee. The ‘chase was run over a 4¼ mile course of natural brush hedges similar to England’s Grand National at Aintree.

CORRECTION: The sharp eyes of lifelong steeplechase horseman (and the writer's father) Charlie Burke, points out the writer made a small mistake in her reporting in the trophy history story: the first International Gold Cup was indeed at the old Grasslands track but it was not in Brentwood, Tennessee but rather in a town called Gallatin, northeast of Nashville. 

There was a training track in Brentwood, near the Iroquois course at Percy Warner Park. It was there, at the track called Maryland Farms (now a business park) that Charlie Burke won his first race, the Brentwood Derby for owner Guilford Dudley and trainer Alan Dufton. 

Burke says his wife, Dana Nichols Burke (clerk of the scales at Queens Cup) actually spied the error first, and they hastened to call the chagrined writer to correct the mis-reporting. 

Spain’s King Alfonso XIII, then one of the world’s most gallant riders and sportsmen, placed the spectacularly beautiful pedestal bowl in competition for the 1930 event.  

After the Tennessee meet folded in 1932, the trophy moved to the Rolling Rock course in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. The 1931 winner of the cup at Grasslands, General Richard King Mellon, had developed the Rolling Rock course, and so he just kept the trophy and designed a championship race for it when he heard of Grasslands’ closure.

Mellon was a cousin of the late Upperville, Virginia philanthropist Paul Mellon.

The trophy shifted again when Rolling Rock shuttered in 1983, moving to the then-brand-new Great Meadow racecourse in The Plains, Virginia to anchor the very first meet held there on Oct. 20, 1984.

In keeping with the Great Meadow focus on championship timber racing, the International Gold Cup became a timber race.

Great Meadow had been built in 1983 as new home to the Virginia Gold Cup timber classic.

(From an AP report on Sept. 13, 2013)

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. (AP) — Five trophies were stolen from the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, including the silver Tiffany prize awarded to the winner of the 1903 Belmont Stakes, police said Friday.

Saratoga Springs police Lt. John Catone said the smash-and-grab burglary occurred around 11:30 p.m. Thursday at the museum, located across the street from Saratoga Racecourse.

The thief set off an alarm that alerted police to the break-in, Catone said. The burglar spent less than three minutes inside but managed to make off with five trophies by smashing their glass display cases located in two separate galleries, he said.

The stolen memorabilia includes the Belmont Stakes Trophy won by Africander and the Brighton Cup Trophy, both from 1903. The others are the 1905 Saratoga Special Trophy won at Saratoga in 1905 by Mohawk II, and two steeplechase trophies: the 1914 Brook Cup Handicap Steeplechase Trophy won at Belmont by Compliment and the 1923 Grand National Steeplechase Trophy won at Aintree in England by Sergeant Murphy. (pictured, above, photo courtesy of Pierre Manigault)

Museum officials said the Brook Cup, Saratoga Special and Brighton Cup trophies are made of gold, while the other three are silver, including the 248-ounce Grand National trophy. The 76-ounce Saratoga Special and 35-ounce Brighton Cup are 18-carat gold, the officials said, while the silver 1903 Belmont Trophy made by Tiffany features semiprecious stones.

“These trophies are irreplaceable,” said Christopher Dragone, director of the museum and Hall of Fame. “We are saddened by this unfortunate event and hopeful that the investigation leads to the apprehension of the individual or individuals who committed this crime and the return of the trophies.”

Museum spokesman Brien Bouyea said the value of the trophies hadn’t been determined yet. The museum is home to a vast collection of trophies, jockey silks, equine art, artifacts and other thoroughbred racing memorabilia dating back centuries. The Hall of Fame’s inductees include nearly 400 horses, jockeys and trainers.

The break-in comes nearly 10 months after 14 gold and silver trophies worth $300,000 were stolen from the Harness Racing Museum and Hall of Fame. Police said the trophies stolen in December included the 18-karat Memphis Gold Challenge Cup won in 1902 by a mare named Lou Dillon, one of the sport’s greatest trotters.

From TGSF's "Legends of Steeplechase" story about Temple Gwathmey, first released on June 11, 2020. Read the full article HERE.

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

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.

“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.

When Gwathmey died after a long illness, friend and partner (in 'chaser" Mr. Cotton) E.M. 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. (Douglas Lees photo, above)

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.

Bruton Street was awarded the Temple Gwathmey trophy last Saturday after their 2022 NSA champ, Snap Decision, won the 2023 running of the Grade 2 Temple Gwathmey. (Tod Marks photo, left)

2022 Queen's Cup Novice Stakes trophy presentation with the original Queen's Cup and a photo of the new bronze. The new bronze "keeper" trophy is, according to Bill Price, 16” long x 7" deep x 8” high. Its weight: 15.3 pounds. ©Tod Marks