WEST GROVE, Pa.--McLane Hendriks, Eric Poretz and Annie Yeager, riding for Elkridge-Harford Hounds of Monkton, Md., won the Foxhall Farm Team Chase on March 24, just edging out Mr. Stewart's Cheshire Foxhounds' team of Eddie Keating, Sean McDermott and Skylar McKenna by 23 seconds, finishing in 11 minutes 34 seconds to Cheshire's 11:57..

Annie Yeager, McLane Hendriks and Eric Poretz with the impressive Foxhall Farms Team Trophy. Dixon Stroud is in the background.Another Elkridge-Harford team, Poretz, Colin W. Smith and Blair Wyatt was third, a mere two seconds back in 11:59.

Elkridge-Harford, in fact, dominated the day, with its teams finishing first, third, fourth and fifth, and Poretz rode on three of the, also finishing fourth.

Joe Davis is the moving spirit behind the Elkridge-Harford teams, putting the teams together and cheering them on..

Hendriks rode Our Town owned by Gerry L. Brewster, George Tydings and Richie Blue, Poretz rode Roll Forward, owned by Charles Noell and Yeager rode Derwin's Prospector, owned by Brewster and Adair Stifel.

"I want to thank Joe, and my Mom," said Hendriks. "My Mom shouted `Kick on!' as we were starting, and again, thank you Joe."

"Derwin's Prospector jumped like a dream," said Yeager.

"It was great we won," said Poretz. "It was a fun course."

The course began and ended on Dixon Stroud's property, and, after a sumptuous tea for the competitors, Stroud announced the winners and thanked the landholders, himself, his sister and Jonathan Sheppard, over whose land the course lay, for allowing their land to be torn up.

In fact, after what seems like a full year of rain, it was amazing how well the fields appeared to hold up.

 

YEAGER is back riding races after suffering a catastrophic fall two years ago at Willowdale in which she broke her back and her neck and sustained a very severe concussion.

"I started riding again last September after I got cleared to ride," said Yeager, who was an exercise rider for Sheppard at the time of her fall.

"I work in Baltimore now, as a marketing assistant at the Maryland Proton Treatment Center, a cancer center," said Yeager. "I miss being at Sheppard's. I worked there for three and a half or four years. But you can only gallop horses for so long."

Keating, McDermott and McKenna teamed up again to also place sixth, and teams from Green Spring Valley Hounds placed seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth, eleventh teamed with Mount Carmel and thirteenth, while Keating, McDermott and McKenna also finished twelfth for Cheshire.

The winners of the Full Cry Trophy for the team closest to the average time was the combined team of Cheshire/Elkridge-Harford made up of Teddy Davies on Classical Art, Gerard Galligan on King's Apollo and Parker Hendriks on Guts For Garters, who finished in 14:37.

The Green Spring Valley team of Galligan on Dr. K'eough, Sherlock Gillet on Blake and Michael Wharton on Grinding Speed placed second in 15:59 and the Cheshire team of Fiona Fox on Notable Contender, Anne Hamilton on Should Expect and Jen Steinberg on Arwen was third in 18:00.

Some very impressive horses competed in the team race, including Derwin's Prospector, 2017 Maryland Hunt Cup winner, Raven's Choice, 2015 Maryland Hunt Cup winner who was ridden by Blair Wyatt, Joshua G, who was second in the Maryland Hunt Cup last year and was ridden by Skylar McKenna and Maryland Hunt Cup veterans Prime Prospector, ridden by Colin Smith and Gas Can Ediie who was ridden by Bethany Baumgardner and Guts For Garters, top steeplechasers Pured It, King's Apollo and Grand Manon, Champion Timber Horse Grinding Speed and last year's Timber Horse of the Year Doc Cebu, ridden by Brett Owings.