“The whirlwind of gray that blew past the finish of the 99th running of the Maryland Hunt Cup did not descend from the heavens. But it may well have seemed that way to those who were watching their most cherished fantasies turn into heart-stopping reality,” reported Margaret Worrall as Arcadia Stable’s Buck Jakes, ridden by Anne Moran, prevailed by a nose over Bachelors’ Hall’s Florida Law, with John Bosley aboard. Doug Croker’s Red and Gray finished third. Buck Jakes’ victory demolished, by three seconds, the race record of 8:33 3/5 established by *Ben Nevis II in 1978.

Irish native Moran became the fourth woman to win the Hunt Cup. “You can’t imagine what this means to me,” she said. “I’m the oldest woman (36), with the most children (3) and surely the first foreigner to ride a winner.”

• Revelstoke, the previous year’s Hunt Cup winner preparing to defend his title, was euthanized in March when striken by colitis-X following colic surgery. The 10-year-old son of Smarten, owned by Dolly Fisher and trained and ridden by son Jack, had won four of five sanctioned starts over timber, his lone defeat a second to Ivory Poacher in the 1993 Hunt Cup. Revelstoke was buried in his Hunt Cup blanket at Dr. John R.S. and Dolly Fisher’s Glenderro Farm in Gumtree, Pa.
  
  
• Louis “Paddy” Neilson III won the 1958 Grand National at Butler when he was 16, and in successive decades won aboard Landing Party (1969), Burnmac (1974) and The Guinea Man (1986). In 1995 he won aboard Tarsky. “I don’t have the vaguest idea what this proves,” said Neilson, 53, “except that I’m old and I don’t know when to quit.”
  
  
• Maryland Million founder Jim McKay received the Federico Tesio award given to “that individual whose positive contributions to the Maryland Thoroughbred industry either recently or cumulatively are deemed to be outstanding.”
  
  
• Foolish Pole, the first starter for Northview Stallion Station’s freshman sire Polish Numbers, was a winner at first asking in April at Keeneland. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson Fowler bred and raced the 2-year-old gelding trained by Buddy Raines.