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BY BETSY BARKER
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
SPERRYVILLE — The James W. Fletcher memorial ownqp-rider timber race at Saturday’s Rappahannock Hunt Point-to-Point looked to be a good race on paper. Four evenly matched, experienced entrants ensured interesting copy.
But three of the four fell. A onehorse race is a non-starter as a story.
Never mind.
The ladies’ timber division is always hotly contested. A report on the Mount Salem race would fill the news hole yawing before the journalistic hand.
But ' /hen two riders fell off early in the 2 i/2-mile event, this time it was worse for story value: That was the entire field.
The Thornton Hill Farm course was in top shape, dried from early week rains but yielding. Timber fences were neatly garnished with cedars, and starts were orderly. No one factor could be attributed to the five fallen riders unless it may be the customized adage: racehorses happen.
“I don’t know what happened to everybody out there,” said Upperville’s Jim Whitner, who survived the war of attrition to win with Chatham Field. “I just stayed out of trouble. I saw Henry [Wood on Be Nimble] get quartered and fall. I just stayed up out of the way.” Eben Sutton and Bobby Kirk had fallen earlier, leaving Whitner alone on the lead.
“Jim rode really well,” said his trainer Peter Walsh, himself a professional jockey. “I saw how all the others fell — they just got hobbled and came off. It happens sometimes. But Jim kept it together.”
Chatham Field had to complete almost 1 1/2 miles of the 2 1/2-mile race alone, a difficult task for some horses. But the 8-year-old son of Sovereign Dancer, second to Be Nimble at Casanova Feb. 22, was an experienced winner over hurdles before converting to timber this season, and he looked happy to negotiate the second half of the course by himself.
The ladies’ timber was even more of a debacle. Scratched down to two starters, the race nonetheless appeared competitive, with thirdand fourth-placed horses from Casanova set to duke it out again. But Wood Whistle hobbled and lost
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