Posts by National Steeplechase Association
Swore locks up novice crown with declarative score in $75,000 Aflac Supreme
©Tod Marks Stone Farm and Upland Flats Racing’s Swore, who captured the Grade 1 Lonesome Glory at Aqueduct in September, proved his mettle against less-experienced foes as much the best in the Aflac Supreme novice stakes, Saturday’s feature at the Pine Mountain, Ga., course. With Stephen Mulqueen riding for trainer Keri Brion, the six-year-old son…
Read MoreCool Jet, Jimmy P, and Little Trilby expected to fight it out for Lonesome Glory Award in $150,000 Colonial Cup
©Tod Marks The National Steeplechase Association has combined the Aiken Fall and Colonial Cup meets on the closing weekend of the season, a 12-race, $500,000 extravaganza in which several championships will be decided. First race post time both days is 1 p.m. There’s plenty of drama left in the 2025 NSA season as the jumpers…
Read MoreMontpelier & Pennsylvania Hunt Cup recap:
©Tod Marks Cool Jet crushes field in G3 Noel Laing and becomes season’s only three-time graded stakes winner Last weekend featured a trio of stakes races in Virginia and Pennsylvania headed by the Grade 3 $75,000 Noel Laing at Montpelier, which cast leading NSA owner Riverdee Stable in the spotlight once again. The race also…
Read MoreThree stakes on tap in weekend doubleheader
©Tod Marks The jumpers land in Virginia on Saturday, and Pennsylvania on Sunday as the National Steeplechase Association season steams toward the finish line in Camden, S.C., on Nov. 23. At the Montpelier Hunt Races, run on the front lawn of President James Madison’s historic home in Montpelier Station, Va., 53 horses have been entered…
Read MoreKeys Discount locks up timber title; Little Trilby surges late to take $100,000 Will Allison
©Tod Marks Racing returned to Virginia for the third of four times this fall, and on a picture-perfect autumn afternoon, one of the sport’s rising superstars cemented his place as a champion. At the International Gold Cup Races at Great Meadow Race Course in the Plains, Va., on Saturday, Dolly Fisher’s Keys Discount turned heads…
Read MoreKeys Discount goes for fifth straight; Large field to contest $100,000 Will Allison
©Tod Marks The second richest program on the National Steeplechase Association fall calendar takes place on Saturday at Great Meadow in The Plains, Va., with the 88th running of the International Gold Cup Races. Highlighting the eight-race $365,000 card is the $100,000 Grade 2 William H. Allison stakes, a handicap hurdle at 2 ⅛ miles,…
Read MoreA great day for the Irish
©Tod Marks In a display of utter dominance, the Irish contingent swept Saturday’s entire six-race Far Hills card. Trainer Gordon Elliott went five for five in the jump races and his main jockey, Jack Kennedy, was four for four. Kennedy would have made it a perfect five for five, but a rider change in the…
Read MoreTimber features top Geneseo, Middleburg
Three stakes – two over timber and a $50,000 hurdle event for three-year-old jumpers – highlight this Saturday’s National Steeplechase Association doubleheader in New York and Virginia – the one and only time two meets will share the same date on the fall calendar. At the Genesee Valley Hunt Races in Geneseo, N.Y., the only…
Read MoreNSA welcomes Keith O’Brien
©Tod Marks O’Brien, who has deep roots in the sport, will fill the role of assistant racing secretary, working alongside longtime director or racing and racing secretary Bill Gallo. A name familiar to many in the steeplechase community has been tapped for the newly created position of assistant racing secretary for the National Steeplechase Association,…
Read MoreKeys Discount stamps himself a star with third straight timber stakes score
©Tod Marks The National Steeplechase Association kicked off its fall calendar on Saturday with a six-race $160,000 card in Hunt Valley, Md., and the star of the show was a horse who rose out of obscurity at Shawan Downs exactly a year ago to become the sport’s most exciting timber runner. When Dolly Fisher’s 2023…
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