Amtree is longer, its jumps a little higher, but the Maryland Hunt Cup, No. 1 steeplechase in the U.S., has special hazards of its own. Instead of hedges which a horse can brush without falling and which, when the big field has crashed through them on the first circuit of the course, are considerably easier the second time around, the Maryland jumps are timber fences with the top rail securely nailed down. In a blue-green pocket of the hills a few miles outside of Baltimore, eight horses went to the post last week.
Unlike spectators at the Grand National who, if they are lucky, glimpse the field twice for a few seconds each time, the crowd in Worthington Valley, standing or sitting on the rolling slopes above the course, see the whole race in the valley below. Last week they saw the field take the jumps without mishap until Mullah went down at the eighth fence. They saw a tragedy when Trouble Maker, record-holder for the course, one of the best steeplechasers in the U. S. for the last five years, stumbled at the 17th fence and broke his neck. Stuart S. Janney Jr. on Mrs. W. Austin Wadsworth's big, chestnut 12-year-old, Hotspur II, was leading when Trouble Maker went down. Captain Kettle, ridden by Charles R. White, trying for his third Maryland Hunt Cup victory in a row, came up fast as the field went over the last two jumps. On the home stretch, down a lane between red fences to hold the crowd back, the two fought through one of the brilliant finishes for which the Maryland Hunt Cup is famed. When it was over, Hotspur II was still leading, by less than half a length. Fifteen lengths behind, the two other finishers straggled home—Mrs. Vadim Makaroff's Gigolo and Benjamin Leslie Behr's Outlaw.
The difference in setting between the greatest English steeplechase and its only rival in the U. S. symbolizes other distinctions which make the races, except for their importance to steeplechase enthusiasts, as dissimilar as possible. The Grand National, over dreary flats near Liverpool, is run for a purse of approximately £5,000. It settles a huge sweepstake and costs most of the 300,000 who watch it a shilling for the privilege. The Maryland Hunt Cup race, started in 1894 when two rival fox hunts decided to see which had the best horses, is for a silver cup which Captain Kettle would have retired last week if he had been a step faster. The race is ridden by amateurs, watched for nothing, by 20,000 of the people who make upper Virginia and Maryland the best fox hunting country in the U. S. Last week's crowd was the biggest and gayest since 1930.