Funnel cake. Foamy beer. Hot tips. Hotter afternoons. Long skinny trifecta tickets. Short exacta tickets. Sheila and I picking them up off the confetti-strewn blacktop, wish we still had them. Hunt meet bookies on the other side of the windows. Joey and his boys selling tip sheets and ruining the prices. The long, languid loop of the old timber course. The tight, tense hurdle course, four down the back – make sure you angle the last one – three up the straight. John Cushman scraping Winter Wonderland’s nose off the turf in the feature. Joe Aitcheson wrapping a saddle towel around his bloody wrist after a fall from Cultivating. Rockaround ripping around. Dad winning with Quixotic, Town and Country and Banner Route of yesteryear. Executive Stretch winning a maiden claimer, my UD college friends – shirts shed and ticket proud – jumping the rail and crashing the win photo. Chirkpar easily in the timber. Batchwood in a thriller for a triple. A triple at Fair Hill. Now that’s big.
Memorial Day at Fair Hill. A day to think of the bravest of the brave who served this country. No chance at a triple this year as we scratched Vintage Year (still a bit banged up from this fall at the Iroquois) and Mortal Sin (an abscess in a hind foot of all things). We sent out Serifos for a prep in the 2-mile flat race. Mission accomplished. Laurel Park maiden hurdle here we come.
Tuddenham Green returned to the winner’s circle for the first time since 2023 when he won the 110 handicap for Jack Fisher and Jamie Bargary. The British-bred started the season as a timber prospect and wound up winning a handicap hurdle at the end of the season. Sometimes you need to audible.
“That was perfect,” Bargary said. “Jumped great, big early, lost his position but I was always traveling. Got a great split going down the backside, I was really confident, then just waited to move.”
Funnel cake and foamy beer all around.
Fair Hill, as it should, closed the spring season. A wildly successful spring season. With Zabeel Champion leading the way, Riverdee has banked $515,600 this year. Last year, we won the title with $516,800. Still a long way to go.
