Huntsman Dennis Dowling and the Blue Ridge Hunt round a corner coming out of the woods earlier today at Pagebrook in Boyce, Virginia (Click on photo for larger version)
The Blue Ridge Hunt Met Today at Stonefield
Blue Ridge Hunt, Field Sports, Fox Hunting, Foxhunting, Virginia
60th Blue Ridge Hunt Point-to-Point Races
Blue Ridge Hunt, Corrections and Retractions, Horse Racing, Steeplechases, Virginia
photo: Karen L. Myers
Anna McKnight falls early in the 4th Race
Last year’s races encountered both a hailstorm and gusts of high wind powerful enough to knock over a porta-potty containing at the time a prominent local physician. Nature, by way of compensation, this year delivered a day that seemed like summer.
As the Winchester Star reports, close to 3000 spectators attended the Blue Ridge Hunt’s traditional Spring Races at Woodley Farm near Berryville.
The meet featured 9 races, flat and over timber, and attracted competitors from Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
The scariest moment came early in the 4th Race for the Clarke Courier Cup when Tap Tap, a nine-year-old bay gelding, mistimed his takeoff and stumbled over a hurdle, causing jockey Anna McKnight of Monkton, Maryland to come off.
The fall resulted in a broken wrist and a compressed vertebrae and McKnight needed to be taken to Winchester Medical Center, but happily is expected to make a full recovery, and will soon be resuming riding.
Earlier in the day, Sam Cockburn, who won in his first ride last weekend at Casanova, riding the 8 year-old chestnut gelding Old Fellow in the 2nd Race One Mile Seven Furlong Amateur/Novice Hurdle also suffered a fall, and he too suffered a broken wrist. Cockburn is expected to be sidelined from racing for four weeks.
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Correction 3/11: I had originally identified the rider who suffered the broken wrist as Anna McKnight, but my wife Karen assured me that I was wrong and that she had heard officials identifying the victim otherwise, so I re-wrote my posting.
Anna McKnight’s mother, Mrs. H. Turney McKnight, MFH of Maryland’s Elkridge-Harford Hunt, however, read the posting, and wrote a comment informing me that it was indeed her daughter who experienced the more serious injury last Saturday.
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Further correction, 3/11:
A commenter informs me that Sam Cockburn, the jockey who fell in the Second Race, contrary to the Winchester Star report, also fractured a wrist.
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My apologies for all the mistakes and confusion and best wishes to both riders for a speedy recovery.