Page 35 - The Hunt - Summer 2023

YOUNG When Teddy Davies was a young boy, he was a regular at equestrian races, where he’d watch
his mom ride. As the ponies galloped by during one race, Blythe Miller Davies asked her son if that was what he wanted to do. “I was nervous,
but I did really want to do it,” recalls Davies. “I said yes. Then we got ponies.”
Now at the top of his game, the talented 19-year-old jockey still battles nerves before big races. But with each start, the adrenaline takes hold and wins out. “That’s why I started, and it’s what I like,” Davies says. “Sometimes that’s nice. It shows I’m still vested and concerned about how I’ll perform.”
AND
Davies won the Maryland Hunt Cup in 2022, setting
a course record of eight minutes, 15 seconds on Vintage Vinnie. As part of the National Steeplechase Association’s season, he’s ridden locally at the Cheshire Hunt Races, Winterthur Point-to-Point, Willowdale Steeplechase and the Radnor Hunt Races. Come Nov. 5, the hope is that he’ll be in Unionville competing in the Pennsylvania Hunt Cup as the season draws to a close.
HUNGRY
Unionville is home to his “pop-pop,” F. Bruce Miller, the rider and trainer who produced 3,700 starters, more than 560 winners and over $10 million in earnings. Teddy once had a triple win at Willowdale with his grandfather in attendance. “It would be ideal if that could happen again, and I’d love to see him come to another race,” Davies says, knowing his grandfather’s health is fading.
In April, Davies broke his collarbone at the Grand National in Butler, Maryland, where he and his horse, Our Friend, fell together in the first race. The break was so severe that he was unable to defend his Maryland Hunt Cup title later that month. The injury has kept him out of
Red-hot jockey Teddy Davies has racing—and winning—in his blood.
By J.F. Pirro
Photos by Jim Graham competition for at least six weeks, and it may sideline him for the season—though he could return to racing by the fall. The Maryland Hunt Cup began in 1894 as a challenge
between two Maryland hunt clubs over which had the better horses. It’s since become American’s most renowned jump race. Though an all-amateur field by design, it remains the ultimate accomplishment in American steeplechasing.
In 2011, Davies’ mother came out of retirement to win the Maryland Hunt Cup. His father, trainer Joe Davies, won it three times as a rider, so the immediate family has five Hunt Cup titles as jockeys. From Dunmore Farm in Monkton, Maryland, the Davies had trained the last six consecutive Hunt Cup champions until this year’s turn of events.
TheHuntMagazine.com 33