This Is Horse Racing

He's off to a fast start to the 2019 season with 15 wins through May to lead the standings, but there's plenty to Michael Mitchell's story including stops in his native England, Australia, New Zealand and now the United States.

In 1971, Kathy Kusner broke through as the first woman to ride the Maryland Hunt Cup. Eight years later, came Toinette Neilson (then Jackson), then Joy Slater (a winner in 1980 and 1981), then Liz McKnight (in 1986). We talked to Neilson, Slater and McKnight about what it was like.

We're talking Maryland Hunt Cup history with two of the best to ever win the great timber race, former jockeys Buzz Hannum and Paddy Neilson. Hannum won it twice on Morning Mac and once on the great Fort Devon. Neilson's success spanned decades with wins aboard Haffaday in 1968, Burnmac in 1974 and Uncle Merlin 1989.

Our conversation with Hall of Fame trainer Jonathan Sheppard continues, with more on the great Flatterer, future game-changing stallion Storm Cat and others.

Hall of Fame trainer Jonathan Sheppard has done about all there is to do in Thoroughbred racing – trained champions on the flat and over jumps, bred and owned major winners, been inducted into the Hall of Fame and on and on in a career that began with long ride from England on a cargo ship.

Guy Torsilieri is the co-chair of the Far Hills Races, president of the National Steeplechase Association and the man behind the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. If that's not enough to make you listen, you're in the wrong podcast. 

A Marylander who lives in California, Steve Hankin brings a diverse background in live sports video production to his new role with the National Steeplechase Association. His high-definition camera work hopes to set a new bar and open new opportunities for U.S. jump racing.

The good work of the like-minded National Steeplechase Foundation and Temple Gwathmey Fund gets a boost as the organizations merge to create the Temple Gwathmey Steeplechase Foundation. Board members Emily Day and Charlie Fenwick discuss the future. 

As far as we know, he's the only trainer ON EARTH to win races at 4 1/2 furlongs (at Charles Town) and 4 miles (in the Virginia Gold Cup) this year. Based in Virginia, English native Neil Morris is off to a great start to 2018 with Thoroughbreds of all types. He took some time to talk about his horses, his training philosophies and how he got here.

Jump jockey Jack Doyle has ridden horses all his life, and made a career of it in Ireland and England. He moved to the United States in 2014 and has found a spot near the top of the standings and leads the way in 2018. 

In this edition, we talk about Temple Gwathmey (the man) and the Temple Gwathmey (the race) with Ned and Temple Grassi, get an update on the National Steeplechase Foundation with Charlie Fenwick and check in on the Middleburg Spring Races with Doug Fout. 

Bill Gallo started working at the National Steeplechase Association in 1977 and has seen the sport go through a variety of cycles. He talks about the competitive race for the 2017 Eclipse Award, takes a look ahead at the 2018 season and even goes way back to his favorite jumper of all-time – a late-1970s underdog from the barn of Jonathan Sheppard.

When it comes to horses, Fair Hill is home to plenty – racing, eventing, showing, fox hunting and more. The iconic Maryland property hosted its first races more than 80 years ago, and it's back in the news again with plans to overhaul the outdoor event space into a world-class facility. Two of the people behind that effort, Terry Hasseltine and Ross Peddicord, sat down to talk about the progress.

Hadden Frost, whose father Jimmy Frost was a top jump jockey in the day, grew up in England riding ponies and took the experience all the way to careers on the flat, over jumps and in the show ring. He came over to the U.S. this spring, won a few timber races and nearly pulled off the Maryland Hunt Cup.

You know him as the guy behind 2014 steeplechase champion Demonstrative and some other stars to come off Whitewood Farm in Virginia. He grew up in a family with little or no horse background, but dove in and now operates one of the country's most successful stables.

An experienced jockey in his native Ireland, Sean McDermott is in his third full American season and got off to a big start to 2017 with two major stakes wins aboad Scorpiancer. And to think he started out riding a donkey and a horse named Flamenco Fury. We talk to him about horses, Ireland, America and what it's like to "get it right" in a race.

He's won six of the last seven National Steeplechase Association owners' championships, just missed passing $1 million in seasonal earnings in 2016, campaigned the last two steeplechase champions in Dawalan and Rawnaq, and started 2016 by retiring the Virginia Gold Cup trophy with Ebanour. Irv Naylor discussed his origins in the sport and more in early May at WYPR in Baltimore.

It was all supposed to be more newsworthy and challenging and amazing, really, as Nichols Canyon bid for the historic $500,000 TVV Capital Challenge linking Cheltenham's Stayers Hurdle with the Iroquois Steeplechase. This interview happened before the horse was injured while traveling, but Ruby Walsh is still a great listen.

Last year's Maryland Hunt Cup winner Senior Senator wasn't always a timber star. No, he used to be a badly behaved flat horse at Penn National who did nothing but drop jockeys and lose races. In advance of Saturday's Hunt Cup, trainer Joe Davies talks about how it all came to be and what makes the horse tick.

Jack Fisher got his Horse of a Lifetime when Good Night Shirt showed up in 2005. The big, raw Maryland-bred’s meteoric career wound up one of the best ever with eight Grade 1 wins and more than $1 million in earnings, joining McDynamo and Lonesome Glory in the seven-figure club. In August, Good Night Shirt will join the greats in the Thoroughbred racing's Hall of Fame. In an April 6 interview at WYPR in Baltimore, Fisher sat down to talk about his horse.

Turney McKnight has been an owner, a trainer, an amateur jockey and more. He won the 1982 Maryland Hunt Cup aboard Tong, a horse bred by his mother June. In 1978, McKnight became chairman of the My Lady's Manor Races in Monkton, Md. This year's race, run Saturday, April 15, will be McKnight's last as he retires from the post. In a conversation at WYPR radio (88.1) in Baltimore, McKnight reminisces about the early days, how he got into steeplechasing and where it all fits.