Walking from the barn to the paddock at the Maryland Hunt Cup, Mark Beecher looked to his left at the third fence -- one of the most challenging obstacles in the racing world.
"Jesus, that's a big fence," said Beecher, who tried not to but stole a second glance while pondering his three runners in the $100,000 timber race at Worthington Farms near Glyndon April 26. "When I was riding, I didn't think they were that big at all. Now that I'm training, they look a lot bigger."
Therein lies one of the many rubs of the Maryland Hunt Cup, North America's oldest steeplechase. First run in 1894, the race makes jockeys talk themselves into thinking it's easy while forcing trainers to recognize how difficult it is.
Twice a winner as a jockey, Beecher won his first as a trainer when Road to Oz rallied from fourth with two fences remaining to catch 2023 winner Withoutmoreado (Ire) in the final yards of the 4-mile, 22-fence test. Ridden by Conor Tierney, owner Dan Baker's Maryland-bred scored by three-quarters of a length in 8:19.20 -- the third-fastest Hunt Cup in history. Beecher trainee Goodoldtimes (Ire) finished third for the second consecutive year, followed by early leader Monbeg Stream (Ire), 2024 winner Blackhall (Ire) and Beecher runner Rocket Star Red. Mr. Fine Threads fell at the 16th fence. Queens Empire (Ire) lost his jockey with a mistake at the eighth and Great Road fell at the second.
Beecher joined an exclusive group of Hunt Cup-winning jockeys to also accomplish the feat as trainers after retiring from the saddle. The Irishman turned Marylander felt the impact while fighting off tears -- some anyway -- afterward.
"I never, never cry in my life, I don't know, it just hits you hard," he said. "I've won it as a rider, but I think this just means so much more because you're with them every day as a trainer. I know everything about them, every little thing that went right for them to get here. I know what can go wrong and I know how much work it takes."
Beecher's work with Road to Oz began nearly six years ago.
Bred by Larry Johnson and trained by Mike Trombetta through seven starts (one win) on the flat, the son of Quality Road was claimed for $16,000 by Kieron Magee in May 2019. Five months and five races later, Magee dropped the gray gelding to $5,000 and Beecher and father-in-law Henry Walters won a four-way shake to land a steeplechase prospect.
Beecher got the 4-year-old home to Harford Hill Farm in Monkton, told himself, "This is a nice horse," and taught him to jump hurdles. Road to Oz emerged eight months later in a waiver maiden claimer at the Virginia Gold Cup. Beecher didn't think his horse could lose.
"Nothing will get this fella beat today," he said. Road to Oz apparently took it as a taunt, stumbled while making a move at the top of the stretch and lost jockey Sean McDermott. At Middleburg that October, Road to Oz lost a shoe and was pulled up.
Baker and Beecher talked things over at the end of the season.
"What do you think this guy is?" Baker asked.
"He'll break his maiden over hurdles," Beecher replied.
"Then what?"
"He'll make a nice timber horse."
Baker came up with one more question. "Why don't we just go right to timber now?"
And Road to Oz was a timber horse.
He won his debut at My Lady's Manor in April 2021 (the first timber winner for future champion jockey Graham Watters), finished third in stakes company at Middleburg in May, placed sixth in the Virginia Gold Cup and returned in November to win an allowance at the Pennsylvania Hunt Cup. He ran twice in 2022, highlighted by a win in the Maryland Grand National in April, but sat out the 2023 season with a tendon injury.
"It was a very small, bit of a tendon but I know a small tendon is like being a little bit pregnant," Beecher said. "We could have brought him back for a fall campaign in 2023. I just thought we should give him the time."
After a third in the Manor and a second in the Grand National last year, Beecher thought about the Hunt Cup but talked himself out of it.
"I've minded him and minded him and minded him, and even last year I asked myself, 'Should I come here?' " he said. "We just didn't have enough. I didn't think we had enough."
After jumping around stiff courses in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia, Road to Oz could have run. Beecher, who rode Professor Maxwell to victory in 2013 (after jumping several fences without stirrups) and partnered Raven's Choice to victory (by disqualification) in 2015, didn't see a finished product. When Beecher thinks about running a horse in the Hunt Cup, he asks a simple question: "Would I ride them?"
Last year the answer was no.
This year? Off another season of work, and thirds at Green Spring Point-to-Point and in the apprentice race at the Manor, Road to Oz was ready.
"I just took my time with him and just made sure it was the right time," said Beecher, who bypassed a more traditional Hunt Cup prep in the Manor itself or Grand National. "The year he won the Grand National, I ran him at Cheshire as a prep race and it took him about three weeks to get over it. He was fine physically; he was just tired. He came right for the Grand National and won it, but last year I didn't want to try the Hunt Cup after a race that close."
Count Beecher among the group of Maryland timber trainers who think horses need to try the Grand National before the Hunt Cup, but he doesn't necessarily feel like it must come in the same year. The races are a week apart, a schedule that can take a toll.
He gave his stifle a bit of whack at the Grand National last year, and I was thinking to myself I know he can jump the Grand National and I didn't need to go back there this year to prove that," Beecher said. "I looked at the Manor to get me to the Hunt Cup. Good trainers, if they have a plan, they work backward."
Beecher grew up in Ireland riding show horses and hunters -- he won a European show-jumping championship as a junior, twice -- and uses that background to put his steeplechasers through their paces.
"I have an old show-jump exercise I put them through, an exercise I've always done with the horses that go to the Hunt Cup," he said. "It's an easy five stride and distance exercise that allows the horse to use their own head to do it. One day I'll have it as a longer distance, and the next day I'll shorten it, but I'll ride it the same to get them to use their eye."
The goal is to teach horses to figure out jumping questions for themselves and not always rely on the rider.
"I don't even let the jockeys ride them," Beecher said. "I ride them myself because if it goes wrong, it's on me. It went right with him."
So did the race.
Run in memory of Perry Bolton, who won three times as an owner, and Janon Fisher III, who won three times as a jockey, the 2025 Hunt Cup attracted nine entrants. Blackhall and English amateur Charlie Marshall returned off their upset, the horse's only lifetime win, in 2024. He'd been beaten 95½ (don't forget the half) lengths a week earlier at Butler. A Hunt Cup upsetter with Tierney two years ago, Withoutmoreado partnered with top amateur Freddie Procter and came in off a fifth at Cheshire and a fourth in the Manor. Third last year, Goodoldtimes and 2021 Hunt Cup winner Dan Nevin returned off a late-running second in the Grand National. Supplemented by trainer Leslie Young, 2023 Grand National winner Monbeg Stream shook off some rust with a second (ahead of Road to Oz) at the Manor. Rocket Star Red made his fifth Hunt Cup try at 13. Maryland-bred Mr. Fine Threads teamed up with top English amateur Will Biddick. Hunt Cup rookies Queens Empire and Great Road completed the lineup.
A fractious Queens Empire and Virginia Korrell got left at the start as Monbeg Stream galloped to the front despite clipping a board at the first fence. Great Road fell at the second, but everyone else crossed Tufton Avenue and made it over the 4-foot-9 third as Monbeg Stream led Withoutmoreado, followed by Road to Oz, Goodoldtimes, Blackhall and Rocket Star Red. The field spread out after the sixth, another 4-foot-9 test, and Monbeg Stream built his advantage to 10 lengths by the eighth fence.
Withoutmoreado continued second with Road to Oz and Goodoldtimes handling third and fourth. Queens Empire mangled that fence, pitching Korrell over his head to the turf.
Two miles into the race, Monbeg Stream left from way back and flew the 12th. Withoutmoreado did the same. Behind them, four horses jumped in the same stride and broke two posts as the rails collapsed. Monbeg Stream wasn't quite as brave at the 13th, companion to the mighty third, but landed with a comfortable lead over Withoutmoreado, Blackhall and Road to Oz. Blackhall advanced to second over the 14th, inside Withoutmoreado. Jordan Canavan asked for and received a big leap from Monbeg Stream at the 16th -- an uphill, 4-foot-10 beast nearly 3 miles into the race. Mr. Fine Threads fell there while last of seven.
At that test and others around the sprawling course, Road to Oz simply jumped and galloped -- nothing spectacular, but nothing on the verge of trouble either.
"I was always very happy with my position," said Tierney. "He traveled so comfortably. He's such an easy ride. He just loves his job. He loves jumping, loves running. I just had to steer him around."
Monbeg Stream built his lead back to double digits approaching the 17th fence as the others bunched together as if to muster a rally. The leader finally showed a hint of tiredness with a twisting leap at the 19th, but turned the corner and steamed to the downhill 20th. Withoutmoreado took up the chase in second as Blackhall weakened and Road to Oz revved up.
The smallest fence on the course, the 21st at 2-foot-11, can catch horses off guard with a small creek on its landing side but all handled it well. Monbeg Stream spent the most time in the air and halfway to the 22nd and final fence had no answer for Withoutmoreado's challenge. Behind them, Road to Oz kept finding.
Withoutmoreado pricked his ears and sized up the last with a 2-length lead. He got in a little tight. Road to Oz met it longer and landed with more momentum. Head low, neck flat, he pulled even about halfway through the stretch and swept past as Tierney raised his right fist and punched the air. The first two were 15 lengths clear of Goodoldtimes, who had 2 lengths on a steadfast if worn out Monbeg Stream.
"I threw absolutely everything at him," said Tierney of the stretch run to catch a horse he used to ride. "I was always pretty sure when I jumped the last I was going to catch him because he's such a tough, honest horse. He'd try his heart out for you."
Days after the race, Beecher got a chance to watch the video replay and admired his horse's performance even more.
"He did it within himself," Beecher said. "He never looked under pressure jumping which is what really won him the race. I watched him shorten up to the 16th and he popped his shoulder like a show jumper. I remember the 16th just being a monster when I was riding. He looked like it was no problem."
Road to Oz won for the fourth time in 11 timber starts and pushed his steeplechase earnings to $119,600. As a Maryland-bred, the $60,000 Hunt Cup payday swelled an additional $13,500 to Baker (plus an identical breeder bonus to the Johnston estate). The payday meant more than money to Baker, who came to his first Hunt Cup as a teenager and attended the 1974 race with his future wife Pat. They foxhunted with Green Spring Valley and still ride out with the Mt. Carmel Hounds, own Holwood Farm in Upperco, Md., and enjoyed every second of the 2025 Hunt Cup.
"What a thrill," Dan Baker said. "He could have been second or third and we would have been so proud of him. He dug in to get past. He was trying. He gave us everything he had."
Teamwork
Before the race, Beecher nodded to Road to Oz's silken tail and spotless legs and gave credit to one person.
"Rebecca, she looks after this fellow like a pet dog," Beecher said of his wife. "She washes his legs every day with soap. Every day. I'm not saying all these horses today don't get great care, but I know the work she puts into it. It's so much. She's a big part of it, massively part of it. She looks after the horses and really looks after this guy. He gets that funk on his legs and if she's not there on top of it they'll blow up. I like to say that I'm in charge of everything on the horses, she's in charge of everything off them."
As the daughter of trainer Henry Walters, she grew up around flat horses and not so much steeplechase racing, but Rebecca skipped her senior prom at John Carroll High to attend the 2010 Maryland Hunt Cup.
Fifteen years later, she led up a winner.
Mark Beecher came to the United States to ride for owner George Mahoney in 2010 and won with his first mount -- Services Rendered in a three-runner foxhunters' timber at Virginia's Loudoun Point-to-Point. His rivals refused the first fence and Beecher rode "longer than John Wayne," but the win led to other opportunities, including the mount on Private Attack for trainer Alicia Murphy.
"I was an Irish jockey who won his first timber race, but if you'd have watched it you wouldn't have given me much of a chance," he said. "I finished second in the Grand National and Hunt Cup on Private Attack and I told myself, 'I've got to come back and try to win this race.' "
He came back in 2011, but Private Attack won the Hunt Cup with Blythe Miller Davies. Beecher came off Haddix at the sixth fence. More Fascination fell at the same fence in 2012 and Beecher questioned his decision making.
"It was the Hunt Cup that brought me back, I probably wouldn't have come back without it," he said. "But for the next two years if somebody mentioned the Hunt Cup to me, I might have taken their head off."
A year later, everything was different as Beecher won with Professor Maxwell despite all but falling off at the ninth fence and losing his stirrups for a few fences. Two years after that, the jockey hoisted another Hunt Cup when Raven's Choice was elevated to the win after Bethany Baumgardner's weight pad came loose on Imperial Way. Beecher stopped riding races in 2019, after 52 wins (at least one in pretty much every timber race of note) and partnerships with standouts Grinding Speed, Cornhusker (GB) and Mystic Strike in addition to his Hunt Cup winners.
Training came naturally. Training to win a Hunt Cup, maybe not so much.
"People asked me, 'Will you have Hunt Cup horses?' and I said no, not unless they come. That wasn't the vision when I went into training. I said I'd like to train winners, but not seek out Hunt Cup horses. If they're there, they'll come upon you. You just don't know. You can't run out and find them as such."
Road to Oz's owners, the Bakers, were an early client in 2015 with Sky Count. Beecher rode the timber horse to a win three years earlier, but took over his training and got two seasons out of him.
"He was injured, and we didn't think he'd ever come back to the races," Dan Baker said. "Mark wasn't really training at that point, but he said he'd take him on, and he did. Then he had an injury that ended his career."
Sky Count found another career as a foxhunting staff horse, and the Bakers have been part of the barn ever since with Road to Oz and veteran hurdler Decisive Triumph the main players now.
"They're great owners, they're fun people to train for and they understand that not everything's going to work out," said Beecher. "Sky Count taught me more than I ever wanted to know and Decisive Triumph is 12 years old and is harder than a coffin nail."
Road to Oz makes it easy, as easy as training a 10-year-old to pursue one goal can be.
"There's very little he doesn't do well," Beecher said. "He's an exceptional hunter, all the kids have been on him. He's really part of the barn. Some people's horses are a bit crazy or nuts, this fella is the opposite. To get him to do more is the challenge or the thing you have to work on."
The Beechers met at Ann Merryman's farm when he gave her a riding lesson. "I guess it went fine," Rebecca said. "He was a little direct, very direct."
Something stuck as they were married in 2018, have three children (Áine, 5; Owen, almost 3; and Lucy, 6 months), bought a farm in White Hall two-plus years ago and work at a growing racing/training business. The stable won a career-best 13 races in 2024 and was up to seven (from 25 starts through May 9) this year. Like Road to Oz, some horses come from claims or purchases off the flat, but a Beecher horse might just as likely be an Irish-bred or a Timonium sale purchase.
Winning a Hunt Cup with one packs a punch.
"It's something you dream about, winning one of the big races like that," Rebecca said. "It was pretty exciting. It means more almost with him because he was a cheap claimer and we started him. We've had him six years. You put so much time and effort into them. They end up being part of your family."
