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Special race series affords many
Virginia’s steeplechasing circuit works hard to resupply its jockey community by offering a series of flat races limited to “novice riders.” By definition, a novice rider has not won five races - sanctioned or point-to-point, on the flat or over fences, prior to Jan. 1, 1999. The rider may have won pony, junior, pair or old-fashioned races, but any other win disqualifies them from the novice series. Six of 12 Virginia point-to-points have carded restricted novice flat races; novice riders earning places in open jump races are awarded points towards their year-end tally.
The novice rider series is named for the late S.H.R. Fred, Middleburg horseman and father of local trainer Dorothy Smithwick. Smithwick regularly enters horses in the novice series, giving rides to young horsemen and women working at her Sunnybank Farm. At her large private Middleburg facility, Smithwick trains not only horses but riders on her extensive gallops, hence the farm’s nickname of “Camp Sunnybank.” Top riders who have worked with Smithwick include 1998 leading foxhunter rider Laurie McClary and third-placed Daniel Haney.
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