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by introducing some of the most important names in American racing — Whitney, Belmont, Clark and Widener, to name but a few. The prize money in steeplechasing was small ... but sportsmen kept it going.”
Richmond by this time had rebounded from the devastation of the Civil War, so time had arrived to consider sporting matters. In “The History of American Steeplechasing,” Winants tells of an Irish immigrant named Blacker who teamed with a Brit and several Virginians in 1887 to form what became the Deep Run Hunt. The club’s first steeplechase meet was held in 1895 at Blacker’s Chantilly estate. The Richmond NewsLeader reported that “the crowd went out [to Chantilly] in private turn-outs of all patterns, on the railroad train and by trolley cars. The grand stand was a mass of beauty, grace and gallantry.”
At the fall Deep Run meet in 1896, a half-mile flat race called the Cigar and Umbrella Race was carded: a box of cigars went to the winner. In his book, “The Deep Run Hunt Club,” writer Oliver Sands Jr. wrote that “the cigars are understandable. But just what the ‘umbrella’ part was — unless the riders were required to carry one — remains
See TRADITION, Page 26
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