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After a gutty score at Saturday's Old Dominion Hounds steeplechase at Ben Venue Farm, 2011 looks like a breakout year for Kinross Farm’s Sand Box Rules -- though things didn’t start out that way.
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Call it a country mouse visiting the big city. But she brought a piece of it home to Rappahannock. Foxcliffe Hickory Wind, bred and owned by Scott and Ceil Dove of Flint Hill, is the first Scottish Deerhound to win Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show in New York City....
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A Flint Hill-based Scottish Deerhound clinched the top prize Tuesday night at the second-longest-running sports event in the U.S. — the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in New York City. Foxcliffe Hickory Wind, bred and owned by Scott and Ceil Dove and otherwise known as Hickory, is the first Scottish Deerhound to win the...
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Two of Virginia’s oldest foxhunt clubs, the Old Dominion Hounds and the Rappahannock Hunt, are considering a merger, according to hunt officials. Through an agreement between ODH joint-masters Gus Forbush and Margret “Douglas” Wise and RH joint-masters Gus Edwards and Oliver Brown, the two groups will join forces for the 2010-2011 hunt season, combining...
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An amateur steeplechase jockey was in critical condition following a spill at Saturday’s Blue Ridge Fall Races in Berryville. Jake Chalfin, 32, underwent more than eight hours of surgery at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore Saturday night and Sunday morning to stabilize four fractures to his cervical and thoracic vertebrae. From Chalfin’s own Facebook report,...
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David Semmes squinted as the horses raced around the final bend at Thornton Hill Farm Saturday. His fists clenched and unclenched as he silently willed his horse to take the lead. As Semmes looked up the long homestretch, it was almost like he was peering back in time. Jockey Jacob Roberts unleashed the talented...
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Schooling event Sept. 19 The Old Dominion Hounds Pony Club will host a dressage show and combined test Sept. 19 at Windsor Lodge in Flint Hill. Any dressage test can be ridden, and the combined test divisions range from first timers to training level. Information is at ODHPonyClub.com. Fall colors ride The annual Flint...
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A farm accident a month ago nearly claimed the life of longtime Virginia horsewoman Tinker Lyman. A benefit auction and dinner is planned Sunday, June 27 near Culpeper, a party Lyman says she expects to attend. “I'm thankful for the chance,” she said in a recent interview. “I'm completely humbled by the outpouring of...
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With more divergent storylines than a Shakespearean drama, the 2010 Virginia Gold Cup turned out one part Dick Francis mystery, one part “My Friend Flicka,” with a side order of The Keystone Cops.
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esides capturing the featured Gold Cup race, rider Paddy Young also scored Saturday with steeplethon winner The Whacker. Young, riding for owner Robert Kinsley and champion trainer Tom Voss, said the second-season jumper was “a bit surprised” with the variety of fences he found on the unique course that combines timber, brush, a stone wall,...
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Steeplechase riders are a notably tough lot. They “play through the pain” regularly, ignoring bumps and bruises that would send most pro athletes limping to the sidelines. While there is an attending physician at each meet, the jockey colony has no ready team of full-time physical therapists or team doctors as in the NFL....
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Gregg Ryan said the thought came to him Saturday morning that it was time to retire. America’s all-time leading amateur steeplechase jockey, Ryan, 50, was feeling fit and healthy as he kissed his wife and toddler son goodbye, then pulled out of his Middleburg driveway for the 45-minute drive to the Old Dominion Hounds...
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Ceil Dove said she recognized at once, the minute the puppy was born at her Flint Hill farm, that she was something special. Four years later, she’s been proven correct on an international stage. Monday at the prestigious Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show at Madison Square Garden in New York, Dove’s Scottish Deerhound Ch....
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At the tender age of four, she’s already a standout champion. She has that natural presence of a pageant regular. Winner of every possible prize at the local and regional level, she batted her unbelievably long eyelashes alluringly at a cluster of admiring visitors on a recent Sunday, wordlessly acknowledging that, yes, it’s a...
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