Page 27 - The Hunt - Spring/Summer 2023

Fair Hill is generally seen as one of best equine centers in the country, with a host of amenities inducing trainers to wait as long as possible before transporting their thoroughbreds to the racetrack. Among them is a fully staffed on-site equine medical facility and therapy center, in addition to gate-training capability.
Work at Fair Hill starts around 2:30 a.m., when the first grooming of the track by two harrow- pulling tractors takes place. “We open up
the track to the horses and riders at 6 a.m.,” Battaglini says.
Trainers determine which horses will do what training or exercise. Those who are away or haven’t yet arrived at the center may have
an assistant trainer oversee the action and report how things went. “Then we stop things at 7:30 to groom the track again,” she says.
At about the same time the track is being groomed, Sally Goswell arrives for the day’s work. A slightly built woman with shoulder-length hair and a fully engaged manner, Goswell is the manager of the training
center, a task she’s had since moving here in 1994 from Pimlico, where she and her husband trained horses. The training center is in its 30th year of a 90-year lease with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. It’s situated within the grounds of the Fair Hill Nature and Environment Center, a sprawling countryside of fields and woods that once belonged to the du Ponts and other industrial and business barons.
As she drives around the training center, Goswell explains that it operates as a form of condominium association—one that went through some harrowing days years ago when the barns could’ve been sold for a dollar each (had anyone been interested). But that was then.
Today, Fair Hill is generally seen as one of best equine centers in the country, with a host of amenities inducing trainers to wait as long as possible
continued on page 122
TheHuntMagazine.com 25