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Saturday, April 26, 2014

Champions, Two-Time Winner Twill Do Square Off In Maryland Hunt Cup Today

(NSA) Merriefield Farm’s two timber champions and two-time winner Twill Do will line up Saturday, April 26, for the 118th running of the $75,000 Maryland Hunt Cup in Glyndon. The historic race, the finale of Maryland’s timber triple crown, attracted a full field for its four miles over daunting fences. Post time for the afternoon’s only race is 4 p.m.
TILL DO (LEFT) (Douglas Lees Photo)
Trainer Bruce Fenwick will saddle Merriefield’s reigning timber champion, Foyle, and the 2011 champion, Bon Caddo. Foyle, who surged to the 2013 title with back-to-back victories in the International Gold Cup and Pennsylvania Hunt Cup, tuned for the Hunt Cup with a game second-place finish, beaten a nose, in the $30,000 Grand National at Butler on April 19. Fenwick imported British amateur jockey Sam Waley-Cohen to ride.

Bon Caddo would be making his first 2014 start after being scratched from the My Lady’s Manor, first contest of the timber triple, on April 12. He finished fifth in last year’s Hunt Cup after a third in the My Lady’s Manor. James Slater will ride.

Lucy Goelet’s Twill Do will be attempting to retire the Hunt Cup trophy with his third victory. He won in 2010 and 2012 before finishing fourth last year. James Stierhoff, who rode Twill Do to his previous Hunt Cup victories, will be in the saddle for trainer William Meister.

Jack Fisher, who shared last year’s timber trainer title with Meister, will send out Arcadia Stable’s Delta Park. A solid second to Foyle in the Pennsylvania Hunt Cup, Delta Park opened the 2014 season with a third-place finish in the Grand National, the middle jewel of Maryland’s timber triple crown.

Mark Beecher, who rode Professor Maxwell to victory in last year’s Hunt Cup, assumes the mount on Delta Park.


Virginia-based trainer Neil Morris will saddle Kinross Farm’s Sand Box Rules, who ruled the John D. Schapiro Memorial amateur apprentice timber race at My Lady’s Manor. Diana Gillam again will ride.

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