The Brooklandwood racecourse turf

The Club House Turn at the 2000 Queen's Cup

Every spring either during the race day or shortly thereafter, I'm asked about our turf and how we get it so thick and lush, green and weed free. Many say our turf (turf type tall fescue) is better than most people's backyards.  Well the truth is we set aside and invest over $35,000 annually in turf improvements because healthy, lively turf and the ground underneath the turf (otherwise known as going) make for safer racing for both athletes - the horses and the jockeys. It's a team effort and it's a never ending job on everyone's part. Here are a few hints we're learned along the way.

First, TruGreen is a true partner and much of the credit of our healthy, lively, weed free turf goes to the staff at TruGreen in Charlotte. We've partnered with TruGreen since the very start of the Queen's Cup Steeplechase in 1995 when we asked for their help with our original racecourse we leased down in southern Union County.  TruGreen has Brooklandwood on their year-round plan treating the soil three times in the spring and twice during the fall. Bottom line - If you have thick, healthy grass, you'll almost never need to treat for weeds. TruGreen's GM Rick Balser and their turf supervisor Josh Jackson are dedicated to making Brooklandwood one of the best and safest racecourse on the circuit.

The Aerway aerator

Second, we aerate the turf with an Aerway aerator at least three times a year. The Aerway has deep, tough tines and with heavy weight on top, is able to push through and break-up the red clay sub-soils thus allowing air to get down to the root level where the health of turf begins. Aerating also helps cutting through the thatch which can build-up over time which if not kept in check, promotes disease.

Third, make sure your turf's soil is well balanced. Our red clays here in the Piedmont region of North Carolina is naturally acidic and testing your soil at least every three years gives you a gauge of when it's time to lime the soils. Too low or high in PH and you're throwing expensive fertilizer down the drain. Test your soils composition regularly. It's cheap and easy to do.

Fourth, we constantly cut the racecourse turf and do not allow it to get much above 5" in height. You've heard it before but keeping your blades sharp and cutting the grass with regularity with a high tip speed grooming mower makes all the difference in the world and allowing thatch to slowly build up keeping the soil and roots cool and moist. Ideally, you never want to cut more than 1" off the top which keeps the grass from clumping which can kill grass. When the spring weather breaks, it's not unusual that we're out there cutting the racecourse in late February or early March cutting off the damaged leaf tips which tells the grass it's time to come out of hibernation. Cutting your turf regularly is not only healthy for promoting thick grass but it also stresses the grass, in a good way, throwing energy down to the roots. Having direct sunlight on the racecourse all day and year-round helps move air and keeps down disease.

Looking up the stretch 4 weeks before race day

Fifth and finally, it's important to keep an eye out for disease and critters that are constantly attacking your turf. We've had several years of army worms, various kinds of grubs and sometimes both pests all at the same time decimating our turf. Usually, these critters attack in mid-to-late August and into September. We've had such a significant problem with grubs that we now spray MERIT as a preventative measure in early July when the June beetles and chafers are at full swing.

There are a number of other weekly and monthly chores we do during the course of the year, but these are the key elements to building successful, healthy turf with deep roots.

Once in a blue moon - Chapter One

The National Fence (Douglas Lees photo)

Once in a blue moon, we all have the opportunity to make a significant change to a community. This opportunity presented itself over three years ago when I considered building a new fence that our steeplechase horses raced over at speed. 

Since 1973, when Secretariat hit the scene as a three-year-old going on to win the Triple Crown, there isn’t anything I have not loved about horses, particularly the Thoroughbred. As an owner of steeplechase race horses since 1992, I have probably owned outright or in partnership over thirty race horses, most of them jumpers. So intrigued with this beautiful sport, my wife and I also founded the QUEEN’S CUP STEEPLECHASE in 1995, now considered by most horsemen to be one of the finest (and safest) steeplechase racecourses on the sanctioning body's National Steeplechase Association's (NSA) circuit. 

Safety has always been my mantra, though I am realistic to know that sometimes, horse and rider get hurt; sometime catastrophically. Riding horses in general, and race riding in particular, is by its very nature, a very dangerous sport. In the 22 years I have owned race horses, I have had a number of my own horses maimed and a couple suffered the ultimate fate while racing. Two exceptionally nice ones paid the ultimate price. Interestingly, both horses were talented jumpers but for whatever reason, decided to go long, landing squarely on top of the frame, both with devastating results. Over the past few years, I have had jockeys, owners and trainers share their stories of their favorite horses being lost or seriously injured due to the fence they competed over, not to mention the serious injuries some jockeys have received due to their mount taking a fall. 

The loss of horses and those stories were the impetus to investigating and eventually creating a new, state-of-the-art fence that would be more forgiving in the event of a jumping mishap yet lighter and easier to set up and move about. As part of my mission, it was clear that steeplechase racing here in the United States and some other parts of the world had lost the art of jumping. Fences were getting smaller and the pace of the race faster. This lead me to think - could an artificial fence with a bigger, fuller presentation allow jumping to get back in the game thereby slowing the pace of the race, in hopes for making safer racing? Many experts in the game believe this is the case and therefore, my friend and retired champion American jump jockey Jeff Teter and yours truly, along with my fence consultant and fence builder, Bill Watt of Watt Fences, Ltd. of North Yorkshire, England went down the path of investigating a new fence design along with a number of other interested NSA horsemen. 

SafTfence at Thornton Hill Races

Three years in the making and over one hundred thousands dollars invested in research, design and mistakes, March of 2010, we introduced the patent pending SafTfence™ plastic fence frame and birch branch system in a state-of-the-art, yet fully portable design. Since the system was designed from the ground up, the SafTfence "hedge" can be made as stiff or soft and tall or small as need be and is generally more forgiving to error of judgement by horse or rider. The fence’s presentation is as impressive to look at as it is to jump. Riders tell me the horse really looks at the fence and is less likely to take liberties with it.

The new fence was first presented to horsemen late March 2010 down in Camden to much fanfare and general acceptance by NSA horsemen. The fall of 2010, the SafTfence steeplechase hurdle was raced over at two non-sanctioned race meets in Virginia. We learned a lot from those two races along with the performance of the plastics from weather changes particularly from the 2010 hot fall to the sudden arrival of early winter. Months of errors, mistakes and a number of successes, the SafTfence hurdle would be ready for its debut at the upcoming 2011 Queen's Cup Steeplechase where the jockeys and their athletic thoroughbred steeds will be racing over the new SafTfence steeplechase fence in four jump races.

It really goes to prove that necessity really is the mother of invention and once in a blue moon, one can make a difference in small and one hopes, powerful ways creating safety for horse and rider alike. Check out my next post to see how it performed.

Losing a philonthropic visionary in American Steeplechasing

Nick Arundel, a "Virginia" Democrat

Tuesday morning, February 8, 2011, I lost a friend. That friend was Arthur W. "Nick" Arundel who died in his sleep at his beautiful Merry Oak Farm near The Plains, Virginia. I spent a lovely evening with Nick and his gracious wife Peggy at their farm last August having come up to the Plains to do some warranty work on the SafTfence hurdle that Nick so kindly bought from me as a show of support of my new fence.

I spoke to him the Sunday before his death as I heard he was under the weather. When I asked how he was, his response was "the horse will be fine, the horse will be fine". I wished him well and two days later, I received a phone call that he had passed away in his sleep.

Nick was a young 83 year-old gentleman farmer, publisher and visionary. Nick was also avid horseman and fox hunter too who won two of the most important and coveted timber races in America, the Maryland Hunt Cup and the Virginia Gold Cup, with a horse he owned. That horse who won him fame and glory was a handsome chestnut named SUGAR BEE who was an average hurdler but an exceptional timber horse. I had the good fortune of galloping SUGAR BEE on a daily basis when he was a hurdler and I was newly married 25 year old with no riding talent and out of work and between businesses. A couple of years later, little did I know or even suspect, the horse would put Nick in rare company as very few horses ever won both the Maryland Hunt Cup and the Virginia Gold Cup. SUGAR BEE and Charlie Fenwick, his trainer and jockey, did it, all with the support and enthusiasm only Nick could give. 

Nick sold me my first steeplechase horse BREAK CLEAN (aka Dunkin' Donuts) as a failed timber horse in January 1992. Charlie Fenwick, our trainer at the time, told me to buy BC from Nick because he thought the horse was priced right and would give us some fun without the risk of him being "bought" in a claiming race as he was an 8 year old gelding with 40 odd starts, both flat and over jumps. 

We bought him for $10,000, a reasonable price back then but with the proviso that the horse could not run over timber (that was safe because the horse hated it) and if the horse won two sanctioned jump races in 1992, we would owe Nick another $5,000. Charlie thought that was a safe bet as he hadn't shown much prior to that, though in fairness to the horse, he was was running above him competitive level. So away we went and by God, the horse won two jump races right out of the gate and I owed Nick another sweet $5k. That cemented our friendship for ever and me into the sport of American jump racing.

Over the years, I had many encounters with Nick, some in private, others at the annual NSA Race Chairman's meetings. He was always pleasant, upbeat and spent much of his time thinking out of the box, and so too did he in growing the Virginia and International Gold Cups into one of the premier equestrian events and steeplechase races in the USA. Some thought he was a nutty professor, others thought he was dumb as a fox but those that really knew him as a giving, thoughtful, generous and visionary entrepreneur, in every aspect and regard. Much of the Brooklandwood racecourse that we designed and built starting in 1997 was the result of listening, observing and copying some of Nick's designs at Great Meadow. I like to think we took the a little of the northern Virginia rolling horse countryside to the North Carolina Piedmont, and maybe, made it even better?

Nick owned 17 weekly newspapers, including publications in Culpeper, Prince William and Fairfax Counties. He also pioneered conservation programs in Virginia's horse country, including the 540 acres that is now home to the Great Meadow Field Events Center.

Arundel is survived by his wife of 53 years, Peggy, and five children

Remembering Dick Francis at the 3rd Annual Queen's Cup Steeplechase

My son Jamey texted me Sunday to share with me the passing of prolific mystery writer and retired twice champion steeplechase jockey, Dick Francis, who died at age 89 earlier that morning at his home in Grand Cayman.

This rather abrupt news immediately brought home fond memories of the third annual Queen's Cup Steeplechase in 1998 when one of American steeplechasing's deceased benefactors and retired amateur steeplechase rider, George Sloan, made all of the arrangements to invite Dick Francis and HRH Princess Anne to our little old race meet in very southern Union County! What an honor to have not one, but two VIP's, and not just any VIP's but the daughter of the Queen of England and the most famous mystery writer of our time and retired British steeplechase jockey, Dick Francis.

I'll save the story of entertaining HRH Anne for another time but I will tell you, Mr. Francis was an amazingly vivacious, very British gentleman who began his morning that day at 5:00 am in Lexington, KY to catch a private jet with HRH Anne, all courtesy of Skee and Gil Johnston of Coca Cola Enterprises.

At the age of 77, crippled from arthritis from the numerous falls and broken bones he sustained during his many years as a jump jockey, he made me feel quite comfortable the moment I met him. When we first met at the bottom of the plane at Lancaster's airport, as we climbed into the stretch limo, just me and HRH and Mr. Francis, to ease my uncomfortableness with the situation, I shared stories of how I first was introduced to his books while spending a summer in England as a young teenager. I also shared with the both of them how I aspired to be a jump jockey but never had the opportunity or talent to pursue those dreams. Starting the Queen's Cup was the next best thing. Having both of them at arm's length away, all alone in the limo was both exhilarating and down right scary. Oh my head was apounding.

We arranged through a local book store to have Mr. Francis book sign his latest entry 10 LB. PENALTY to any patron who cared to meet him. Expecting a light turn out, I took him down in a golf cart, showed him his seat and table underneath a 20'x 20' tent and some three hours later, he still had a line of Queen's Cup patrons waiting to meet him - his day just got longer and the poor man was totally whipped. Later that day, when I had the chance to sit down with Mr. Francis and HRH, he proclaimed that he had "writer's cramp" from all of the book signings but was quite and pleasantly pleased with the patron turn out, book signing and the racing that day.

He was right; racing was pretty good that afternoon and there was plenty of drama on the course as jockey Michael Traurig came a cropper in the third and was subsequently carted off in Carolina Medical Hospital's Medivac, but not before the helicopter took a wrong turn down NC Highway 601 and got lost in the process of trying to find our racecourse, holding up racing for over an hour. By the time of its untimely arrival, Michael was his old self (sharp, loud and combative), Her Royal Highness was getting rather impatient while Mr. Francis was just tired from having written personal notes in over 150 books! Michael was eventually airlifted back to Charlotte, against his will and was later released that evening, none the worse for wear.

At about half past four, the VIP entourage announced that it was time for their return back to their private jet, who would be making it's final leg to Atlanta that afternoon with flights back to England that evening. We rushed to the limo with the North and South Carolina Highway Patrol leading the charge back to Lancaster's airport. By then, my headache had turned into what felt like a migraine and I was almost pleased to see the two of them leave, as will be explained in the rest of the story on a future story about HRH. But what a day!

Several years later, I put in a call to Mr. Francis at his home in Grand Cayman, inviting him back to participate in the Tenth Anniversary Queen's Cup in 2005 in hopes of reliving the past. I left him a message on his answering machine on a Sunday and a couple of hours later, he called me back, remembered me as though I had seen him yesterday and kindly and graciously declined on account of his ailing health. He was none the less "honored" to be considered as honorary VIP of the Queen's Cup. I was even more honored that he returned my call, speaking with me for over fifteen minutes.

Well, that's just the kind of man he was; gracious, kind and a true gentleman. He was also one heck of a mystery writer and the world is better for having Mr. Francis provide hours of unadulterated fun and good reading to millions of readers throughout the world. I am better for having met the Gentleman of Steeplechase Racing.

Introducing Bill Price and his "Words of Wisdom"...or not

Lords and Ladies,

Welcome to the first post of "Royal Chatter". Our very own Bill Price, Race Chairman of the Queen's Cup Steeplechase, will be the voice of reason...hmmm

Be on the lookout 

• for race day info
• tailgating buzz
• fashion and
• Queen's Cup history

AND...anything and everything you ever wanted to know about a horse!!!