Legislation that would prohibit gambling on the internet while preserving account wagering passed the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. The Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, with language virtually identical to that of the Senate bill passed the previous fall (the so-called Kyl bill), was set to be considered by the full House. American Horse Council president Jay Hickey and regional track executives discussed the pending legislation and the future of account wagering in interviews with Tim Capps and Lucy Acton.
Pennsylvanian Betty Moran won the Aintree Grand National with Papillon.
Trained by Ted Walsh in Ireland, and ridden by Walsh's 20-year-old son, top Irish jump jockey Ruby Walsh, Papillon made the lead in the final stages of the 41⁄2-mile, 30-fence race and held on to win.
"It compares with [Creme Fraiche's] Belmont win," said Moran, who had a 30-year connection with Walsh. Her son Michael worked in Ireland for Ted's father Ruby, and Moran bought Papillon on something of a lark.
"I don't really have horses to race in Ireland, but the Walshes are friends and Ted called me six years ago and told me he had a nice looking 'chaser type and asked if I wanted to have a horse in his yard," Moran said. "I said, 'Sure we'll try it.' "
Moran became just the ninth American owner to win the world's most famous steeplechase.
The Carolina Cup in Camden, S.C., set an American steeplechase attendance record with 71,000. Pennsylvania-bred Invest West was declared the winner of the featured $100,000 Carolina Cup-G1 for owner/breeder George Strawbridge Jr. after Campanile, who won in a hand ride, was disqualified and placed third for interference. The Janet Elliot trainee was then disqualified from purse money when stewards ruled that Jonathan Kiser did not properly weigh in with the clerk of scales.
The region lost two iconic horsepeople-- Sonny Hine and Sara Bosley Secor.
Hine, 69, was a second-generation trainer, his father Arthur Hine having conditioned horses on the Maryland/West Virginia circuit. Sonny began working at Charles Town in the late 1940s after graduating high school, became a full time trainer in 1957, was based in Maryland for three decades, and eventually settled on the New Jersey/Florida circuit. The best of his champions and stakes winners was Horse of the Year Skip Away. (Hine and Skip Away were inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame in 2003 and 2004, respectively.)
Secor, 80, a longtime master of the Elkridge-Harford Hunt Club, was a lifelong Maryland horsewoman who nurtured the talents of many young people in the Thoroughbred world at her Inverness Farm. She also played a central role in one of Maryland's equine heroes -- the inimitable Chase Me, a foal of 1929 who went from foxhunter and show horse to undefeated stakes winner and challenger of champion Equipoise.
Chase Me got his early training from Secor, who taught him not only the skills necessary for success in the hunt field and show ring, but also such tricks as shaking hands, playing dead and stealing handkerchiefs from pockets. His story was used in the 1935 Broadway hit play Three Men on a Horse, later made into a Warner Brothers movie.
