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By Betsy Parker
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
Series races take center stage at Saturday’s Rappahannock Hunt Point-to-Point, with the Seven Corners owner-rider timber race featured on the eight-race card.
Post time is 1 p.m. at the March 4 event, to be held at the Blue Rock Inn near Little Washington in Rappahannock County.
The owner-rider timber series provided fierce rivalry on the ‘05 calendar, with Loudoun rider Ken Shreve, Upperville’s Jim Whitner and Marylander Ben Swope swapping wins week to week throughout the season. The three return at Rappahannock, with Swope to ride 2005 runner-up Sportin’ GT, and Shreve to ride either last year’s series co-champion Bird on a Swing or the consistent Up and Over. Whitner will ride Gilded Son.
Sharing the spotlight at Saturday’s races will be the surprise marquis division, the foxhunters’ timber. Often less competitive — with strict series limitations to riders who have not won any other type of race, riding properly qualified hunters — this year’s foxhunters’ group could be a diamond in the rough.
Such a division is designed to boost steeplechasing from the “bottom up,” according to National Steeplechase Association president Jonathan Sheppard, both at the point-to-point and NSA sanctioned levels.
Virginia’s division shines strong this season, with a competitive group headed by young apprentice-amateur Teddy Mulligan and English import Richard Roberts. That pair finished one-two at
92.5%