Racing royalty Paul Mellon and Henry Clark were remembered after their deaths in February.
Clark, 95, inducted into the National Racing Hall of Fame in 1982, was instrumental in the legacy of the Christiana Stables of Jane duPont Lunger and her husband Harry, for whom he trained major stakes winners such as Obeah and Cyane.
Mellon, 91, was one of the foremost breeders and owners of his time. Racing greats were born at his iconic Rokeby in Upperville, Va., on a regular basis. Among the best were Hall of Famers Arts and Letters and Fort Marcy, champion Key to the Mint, Kentucky Derby winner Sea Hero, and Epsom Derby and Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe winner Mill Reef.
- Travis Dunkelberger, at age 21, set all-time racords at Charles Town in 1998, winning 251 races and becoming the first jockey to reach the seven-figure plateau in a single year when his mounts earned $1,082,274. That November, he won six races on a single card, equaling a one-day record shared by John Franklin Northcutt Jr., Orlando Moreno, Phil Grove and Wayne Barnett. From South Dakota, Dunkelberger arrived in West Virginia at 19 and noted, "It's worked out well for me so far."
Dunkelberger rode his final race Nov. 7, 2015, a victory in the My Sister Pearl Stakes aboard Red Hot Diva, his 3,932nd win from 17,922 rides, a 22 percent win rate.
- Audrey and Allen Murray's Norquestor was put down in January when foundering after months of treatment for a pulled suspensory, then a bone infection With consecutive years of progeny earnings in excess of $2 million from just five crops to race, the 13-year-old son of Conquistador Cielo who stood at Murmur Farm in Darlington, Md., was book to 50 mares at the time of his death.
For the Murrays, the loss left a void. "Not only as he important to us financially," said Mrs. Murray, "but we have lost a friend.
"Norquestor was always such a happy horse. And he was everything you could hope for in a stallion - a great temperament, vigorous, fertile and always a gentleman.
- The top five stallions in the region in 1998 were Maryland-based, and two earned major national distinction as well.
Top-ranked Polish Numbers ($3,459,020), whose grass-running offspring contributed $1,607,373 to the total, was fifth on the list of turf sires in North America, and Allen's Prospect ($3,140,610) sired 108 winners - the most of any sire in the nation.
Polish Numbers' seven stakes winners that year were led by Grade 1 winner and Maryland-bred Horse of the Year Tenski.
- The annual statistical review revealed the two richest runners of the previous year were Japan-based Virginia-breds - Seeking the Pearl ($854,414) and Tokio Perfect ($812,026). Seeking the Pearl surpassed $3.4 million in career earnings to overtake Paradise Creek and become the richest Virginia-bred of all time. She not only won in group company in Japan, but took the Prix Maurice de Gheest-G1 at Deauville in France. Forty Mid-Atlantic breds won graded/group stakes in 1998, and five were Grade/Group 1 winners.
