2022 International Gold Cup

CLASH OF THE TITANS

Take your pick – headliner features a trio of Great Meadow veterans (and a three-pack of outsiders bent on upending the $75k classic)

By Betsy Burke Parker Special to the Fauquier timeS

Andi’amu has logged more miles around Great Meadow - 18.5 - than any horse since course specialist Sa luter in the 1990s.

The Pennsylvania veteran returns to The Plains for a sixth time this week, aiming to add a fall Gold Cup to the one he claimed this spring.

Andi’amu is morning-line favorite in the six-horse International Gold Cup. The headliner is carded sixth — of eight — races at the Oct. 22 meet.

A bay French-bred import, An di’amu won the 4-mile Virginia Gold Cup in May, a repeat of his 2019 Vir ginia cup win. He’d finished second in the 2019 International Gold Cup, 3 ½ miles over the same Great Mead

What: 39th International Gold Cup Races

When: Saturday, Oct. 22. 12 p.m. first post (of eight races)

Where: Great Meadow, The Plains Who: Nation’s top timber and hurdle steeplechasers

Remember: Tickets all require advance purchase

Details: vagoldcup.com

ow course. Andi’amu had won the first time he ran at Great Meadow, taking the cross-country steeplethon here in 2018.

“He loves the course, loves the (longer) distances,” trainer Leslie Young said, noting that Andi’amu was in good form this season after having “a bit” of a summer break.

Ballybristol’s colorbearer won his most recent start, the Genesee Hunt Cup in New York two weeks ago. It sets him up right for the Gold Cup, Young said. English amateur Fred die Procter gets the mount.

Listed on the morning line set by National Steeplechase Association racing secretary Bill Gallo at 2-1, Andi’amu tangles with five of the di vision’s best, including Storm Team. Sheila Williams’ Storm Team was favored in the International Gold Cup last year but went off course after two miles when two jockeys jumped the wrong fence starting the second loop of the Great Meadow oval. Storm Team was easy winner of the Shawan timber stake in Mary land in September, but he got beat Oct. 8 in the stake at Glenwood Park.

PHOTOS BY BETSY BURKE PARKER

Andi’amu, at right leading the pack on the way to winning the May Virginia Gold Cup, returns as favorite for the International Gold Cup Saturday.

Cracker Factory won over timber at the Old Dominion Hounds Point-to-Point in April.

Storm Team, no. 1, won the Shawan timber stake in September as his final Gold Cup prep.

Fat Chance Farm’s Flaming Sword finished third in the Virginia Gold Cup this May, and last May. Richard Valentine trains the Irish import.

GOLD CUP,

International Gold Cup: Sure bet to be a crowd pleaser

Limited ticket packages on sale for the 83rd running

The 83rd running for the International Gold Cup – the 39th run at Great Meadow near The Plains -- is scheduled this Saturday, Oct. 22.

Gates open at 10 a.m.; post time for the first –of eight – races is noon.

There are no general admission tickets again this year, with all tickets being sold only with

packages and tailgates. Box seating and tents are also available.

“The International Gold Cup has become the pre mier fall event in the state,” said Dr. Will Allison, co-chair of the event with Dr. Al Griffin. “It is just breathtaking to be there in person where you can hear the hoofbeats and see the horses and jockeys as well as the spectacular fall foliage around the area.”

Meet sponsors include Brown Advisory, the Vir ginia Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Associa tion, the Virginia Thoroughbred Association, Virgin

ia Equine Alliance and the Virginia Breeders Fund.

In addition to action on the racecourse, there are contests between races, including a hat con test with multiple divisions, a tailgating contest, Jack Russell Terrier races and more.

There is pari-mutuel wagering at teller kiosks located around the course, as well as at self-serve terminals on site. There are several internet wa gering sites that can be preset for online betting.

Ticket information, a betting guide, more pho tos and more details are at vagoldcup.com.

PHOTOS BY BETSY BURKE PARKER

The three-mile cross-country steeplethon is a real crowd favorite, run over a varied course of fences including hurdles, timber jumps, living hedges, this red-plank vertical and a wide water splash obstacle. That’s two-time race winner Bodes Well leading to win the spring steeplethon.

Trainer Doug Fout, center, and rider Barry Foley team with Four Virginia Gents’ Nathaniel Hawthorne in the steeplethon.

PHOTOS BY BETSY BURKE PARKER

The trainer-rider partnership of Kate and Bernie Dalton team with Ferguson starter Down Royal.

Winner of last spring’s steeplethon, Duc de Meran, right, won his Oct. 8 prep race.

TIDBITS

WATSON TO OPEN THE ACTION

Professional singer Alexandra Linn Desaulniers will sing the national anthem to open Saturday’s action at Gold Cup.

Desaulniers is based in Washington, D.C. She is an actress as well as a singer.

THE TELL-TALE TAILGATE: BEST OF THE BEST WILL BE JUDGED BY CELEBRITY PANEL

Competition isn’t limited to the racecourse at Great Meadow this Saturday. Railbirds get their chance in the annual tailgate contest, with a celebrity panel of judges to score displays for décor, menu, food and drink.

Anyone with a tailgate space is eligible for the free contest.

The fancy hat contest is another way for spectators to get in on the action.

Judging takes place in the winner’s circle at 3:50 p.m. Categories include most outrageous, most glamorous and best racing theme.

Details on hat and tailgate contest rules are at vagoldcup.com

HALL OF FAME FISHER IS A MEADOW MASTER

Inducted last year into the Racing Hall of Fame due in part to his successes at Great Meadow, trainer Jack Fisher arrives at the racecourse fully loaded for action Saturday. He saddles five maiden hurdlers, Ferguson co-favorite City Dreamer and Gold Cup second-choice Storm Team.

The hat contest is part of the pageantry of Gold Cup.

PHOTOS BY BETSY BURKE PARKER

Hall of Fame trainer Jack Fisher brings a vanload from his Maryland stable for Saturday’s Gold Cup.

Rich in lore, this Cup takes the prize

The knee-high International Gold Cup trophy took a long and wind ing route to its present home in The Plains.

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 nat ural brush hedges similar to England’s Grand National at Aintree.

Spain’s King Alfonso XIII, then one of the world’s most gallant rid

ers and sportsmen, placed the spec tacularly beautiful pedestal bowl in competition for the 1930 event.

After the Tennessee meet fold ed in 1932, the trophy moved to the Rolling Rock course in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. The 1931 winner of the cup at Grasslands, General Rich ard 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 Up perville philanthropist Paul Mellon.

The trophy shifted again when Rolling Rock shuttered in 1983, moving to Great Meadow to anchor the very first meet held at the thennew course 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 Vir ginia Gold Cup timber classic.

International Gold Cup trophy followed a surprising path to end up at Great Meadow

The striking International Gold Cup trophy has almost a century of history. Here, connections of 2021 winner Tomgarrow accept the classic prize.

PHOTO BY DOUGLAS LEES

Who was he?

The name David L. “Zeke” Ferguson is in scribed on a handsome sculpture and a clutch of silver trophies awarded to the winner of the hur dle stake bearing his name, but few active horse men and steeplechase fans remember who Fergu son was.

Ferguson was born in 1922 in Richmond. The longtime Fauquier businessman, horseman and sportsman became an equestrian and business standout in a number of different disciplines and industries.

Ferguson attended Hampden-Sydney College and served in the Army Air Forces during World War II.

After the war, he moved to Fauquier County and worked as a homebuilder and developer in the Washington, D.C. area from 1950 to 1980. His projects in Northern Virginia included the Poto mac Hills subdivision in McLean and a develop ment in Great Falls.

Later, he was owner of the Marshall Water Works, supplier of water to Marshall, for 20 years.

Ferguson was also a skilled polo player and served as circuit governor of the U.S. Polo Association.

In steeplechasing, he’s best remembered for his horse, Leeds Don, the first horse in history to win three consecutive Virginia Gold Cups – 1965, 1966 and 1967. The steeplechaser also won the na tional steeplechase timber title in 1965.

Leeds Don was conceived at the original Old Dominion Hounds kennels near Flint Hill and born at breeder Michael Hudoba’s Leeds Manor Farm in Hume.

Breeder Hudoba and his wife died in a boating accident on the Potomac River in 1984. Hudo ba was a journalist, columnist for Sports Afield magazine and wrote an outdoors column for the Washington Daily News. He was president of the National Press Club in 1970.

Ferguson was an avid foxhunter, serving as

joint-master of the Old Dominion Hounds 1980-1984.

He died of cancer in 1994 at age 71.

Widow Isabel Ferguson has awarded the Fer guson memorial trophy for the grade 2 hurdle stakes run since 1998. The trophy is a classic stee plechase sculpture created by the late Eve Fout, commissioned by the Ferguson family in 2007.

Hurdle stake namesake Zeke Ferguson was one of Fauquier’s best-known horsemen in the 1960s

PHOTO BY DOUGLAS LEES

Longtime Virginia and International Gold Cup co-chair Dr. Will Allison, left, visits with memorial race namesake Zeke Ferguson at a 1982 Virginia point-to-point. Allison was joint-master of the Warrenton Hunt; Ferguson was joint-master of the Old Dominion Hounds, two of three hunts kenneled in Fauquier.

Bet on it: Our Gold Cup picks

CUP, from

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Cracker Factory, who won the timber stake in a huge effort two weeks ago at Glenwood Park, was fourth in the Great Meadow stee plethon last October. Trainer Mark Beecher knows what it takes to bring a horse up for the Gold Cup, having ridden the 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015 International winners.

Fat Chance Farm’s Flaming Sword finished third behind An di’amu in the May Virginia cup and third in the International last Octo ber. Barry Foley gets the call on the Richard Valentine runner.

South Branch Equine homebred Master Seville stretches out to 3 ½ miles for the first time Saturday, but trainer Beecher said the Pennsylva nia-bred impressed winning at New York’s Genesee meet in September, and he feels like the added distance won’t be an issue. Rounding out the field is another timber novice, With outmoreado, representing owner Irv

Take a number (there’s lots)

PHOTO BY BETSY BURKE PARKER Friends as well as racecourse rivals, Tom Garner, left, and Graham Watters will tangle in seven of the eight races at Gold Cup Saturday.

Naylor and trainer Kathy Neilson.

The International Gold Cup runs as the sixth, of eight, races.

Post time for the feature is 2:55 p.m.

Co-feature on the program is the $75,000 Ferguson memorial hurdle stake. Complete entries are at na tionalsteeplechase.com. Past per formance and form are online at equibase.com.

• Saturday marks the 83rd running for the valuable International Gold Cup.

The ornate golden trophy was originally used in a race south of Nashville, Tennessee, then moved to the Rolling Rock Races in southeast Pennsylvania.

The International Gold Cup moved to the then-new Great Meadow racecourse in 1983 when the Rolling Rock course was lost to development.

• Run over timber since it was moved to The Plains, the International Gold Cup meet celebrates its 39th running this week.

• The $75,000 purse makes the International Gold Cup the richest fall