IT’S always fascinating to talk with somebody who has been successful in one equestrian discipline, challenges himself in another area on a different continent and become outstandingly successful at that also. Now, he has decided to step back from competitive riding and take up training.
That person is Waterford horseman Mark Beecher who is from a hunting and show jumping background. I talked with him from his present home in Maryland in the USA. Although I was aware of some of his successes abroad having seen him race riding, I didn’t realise the enormity of what he has achieved in just eight years as a jockey in the USA, and hunting and show jumping has contributed to that success.
Career highlights
Mark is a popular and respected figure in the American horse world, but also a very modest man. He has won every major jumps race worth winning in the USA, including the Maryland Hunt Cup (MHC) twice, which is one of the three great steeplechases in the world along with the Grand National and the Velka Pardubice.
In his last successful MHC, he rode for five fences without any irons over timber fences that you cannot brush through, and he was nursing a broken collar bone and fractured shoulder!
Mark has also won three International Gold Cups, two Virginia Gold Cups, one My Lady’s Manor, and he was National Steeplechase Association (NSA) Leading Amateur Rider twice, as well as sweeping the Maryland Steeplechase Association honours winning the Leading Timber Rider and Leading Amateur Riders Awards.
Hunting
Mark Beecher grew up on the family’s Loughnatousa Farm surrounded by over 100 horses and ponies. His father, Tim, trained winners on the track in Australia before coming home with his wife Marian to produce show jumpers, eventers, point-to-pointers and hunters.
They reared a family of talented riders who have excelled at all levels of the sport, including Paul winning the prestigious Hickstead Derby in 2012. It was a competitive environment from the start with brothers Paul and Tadgh, and sisters Diane and Fiona, who is married to British show jumper Joe Whitaker, part of the famous Whitaker dynasty.
Mark recalled: “If you were not performing on a particular horse, you could be jocked off by one of your siblings!”
Tim and his son Paul are joint-masters of the West Waterford Foxhounds. Tim recalled loading the truck every Saturday morning with ponies and horses and the whole family going hunting in those great days when Elsie Morgan was hunting the pack and her husband Tom was field-master.
What does Tim consider hunting gave his talented family from a young age? “Well, how lucky we are to have natural country to cross, as they learned to survive, communicate with their animals, put their leg on at a crucial time and develop confidence.”
Tim’s son Tadgh added that you learned not to make the same mistake twice, and not be afraid of a fall, and more importantly, learning how to fall safely. All their young horses are hunted as part of their education.
Mark was trained by his father as well as European and world eventing medal winner Rachel Bayliss. He made his presence felt from a young age in his first major show jumping competition as a nine-year-old winning the Millstreet 128cms Derby, an event that had national television coverage, on his pony Loughnatousa Jack. He was following in his brother Paul’s footsteps as he had won the previous year on The Kerryman.
Mark followed that with an illustrious junior show jumping career, competing at home and abroad and winning European championship medals in both Spain and Sweden on Loughnatousa Gold Touch and Lougnatousa Andy.
Mark was a tough competitor in the show jumping ring, and continued competing successfully until, at the age of 25, he decided that he would take a break from show jumping, mainly because as soon as he had made a nice horse, it had to be sold as the farm was a breeding and production operation.
Race riding
Mark answered a call from family friend, Alfie Buller of Scarva House Stud in Co Down who is well known in eventing circles, as was his father Bill, an Olympian, and Alfie’s wife Vina was an international showjumper.
Alfie had 30 young thoroughbreds to break and Mark obliged. It was not long before he was asked to ride in point-to-points, winning 15 races in a short time and also a winner on the course, launching his career in racing.
He then received an invitation in April 2010 from George Mahoney of Rosbrian Farms to ride Rendered in his first race in the USA at the Loudoun point-to-point, and it was a winning debut. He only planned to be in America for two weeks and ride in a few races, but he liked what he saw and came back home and applied for his visa and has been there since.
There was no stopping Mark from there as his career as a jockey took off, proving that although over six feet tall, his talents as a show jumper were ideally suited to becoming a successful jockey over the solid timber fences. What is more, he relished the responsibility of the big occasion.
In his first year he rode 27 winners, five seconds and six thirds. Mark has had a commendable career strike rate from total starts of 22% firsts, 22% seconds and 11% thirds. He won five National Steeplechase titles and 12 Maryland Steeplechase titles.
In 2010, he had his first run over the famous Maryland Hunt Cup on Sportsman Hall’s Private Attack coming second, which prepped the horse to win the following year with Blythe Millar Davies up.
2011 saw him winning the International Gold Cup in Virginia on Incomplete for Robert Kinsley, a race that attracts up to 60,000 spectators, and the same year he earned the titles of Leading Apprentice Rider and High Weight Timber Rider.
The following year, in 2012, Mark rode in 68 races, and it was the start of his great partnership with Michael Wharton’s Grinding Speed winning three races and second twice out of six races, including the International Gold Cup Timber Stakes. He was Leading Apprentice Rider again for the second time, and MSA titles of Leading Timber Rider, Overall Leading Rider and Leading Amateur rider.
Mark Beecher and Grinding Speed
Momentous
2013 was a momentous year for Mark linking up with Professor Maxwell, coming second at Mr Stewart’s Cheshire Hounds Point-to-Point and then onto the 117th running of the famous Maryland Hunt Cup, considered the most challenging jumps race in the USA over four miles and 22 vertical solid timber fences, some nearly five feet high with no take-off line.
Mark went into the race with a broken collar bone and a fractured shoulder suffered just two weeks earlier. He started well but mid-way he got bumped and lost both stirrups taking the next five fences without irons.
Fortunately I was taking photos at the daunting 13th fence to witness this remarkable feat of horsemanship, and the large crowd gasped in disbelief of how Mark was so balanced leading the field, and he finished the job by being first across the line. It is still talked about when Mark’s name crops up.
But what part did hunting and show jumping play in his survival? “We rode a lot bareback and even show jumping without stirrups when I was young, and then hunting teaches you survival and balance. It may not look the prettiest at times, but it works,” he said.
Mark swept the Maryland rider titles again in 2014, ‘15 and ‘16 and the National Steeplechase Association Leading Rider Amateur title in 2015 and 2017.
2015 was the year he also won the Maryland Hunt Cup again for the second time on Raven’s Choice which he had won on in the previous year’s Grand National. He nearly fell at the 12th fence, but again Mark showed his skills as a horseman managing to somehow collect the horse and keep him on his feet.
The only big jumps race that eluded Mark was the Pennsylvania Hunt Cup. So, thinking about retirement from the saddle, he prepared to add this elusive trophy to his cabinet.
The race is held on Michael and Ann (Kelly) Moran’s farm. Ann, a former joint-master of the Cheshire Hounds, is from Bective in Co Meath, and has won the race herself twice. Her mother-in-law was Betty Moran, the owner of Aintree winner Papillon in 2000, trained by Ted Walsh and ridden by his son Ruby.
So in November 2018, Mark closed the book on his riding career as one of the most successful jumps jockeys in America by winning the Pennsylvania Hunt Cup on the Todd Wyatt-trained Biedermeier.
Mark Beecher winner of The Maryland Hunt Cup despite a broken collar bone and fractured shoulder, with his wife Rebecca and his faparents Tim and Marian \ Noel Mullins
Wonderful horseman
Recently I asked US Olympic eventing rider Boyd Martin how he rated Mark as a horseman. “Mark and I started riding together when we were in Aiken in the winter, where he was race riding and I was campaigning my eventers,” Boyd told The Irish Field. “He came cross-country schooling with me, giving me advice on galloping fences out of stride, conserving horse’s energy, and making them more efficient on the cross-country phase.
“He also gave me a good understanding on being in the most efficient galloping position. It’s awesome bouncing ideas off him on horses’ fitness and techniques on making my event horses quicker. He is a wonderful horseman, a brilliant rider, and a great trainer, and has a fantastic open mind to improving himself at his own game.”
When Boyd invited Mark to a George Morris Clinic at his and his wife Silva’s Windurra Farm with fellow Olympians Phillip Dutton and Matt Brown, veteran coach and former US show jumping chef d‘equipe Morris remarked when he saw Mark on horseback: “Just look at that position!”
Michael Wharton, owner of Grinding Speed, the three-time winner of the International Gold Cup ridden by Mark, said: “Mark Beecher is the finest rider of his generation, and we are lucky to have the gift of his talents here in the USA.”
Ivan Dowling, who is huntsman of the Cheshire Hounds and trained Where The Beef, partnered by Mark to win the New Jersey Hunt Cup, commented: “The description of horseman is thrown about quite a bit, but there is no doubt that Mark is the standard, as he has proven successful in every equestrian discipline that he has chosen to participate in.”
Retirement
I asked Mark why he retired from race riding. “I won all the big races in America over a period of eight years, and some more than once, so now I would now like to win all those races again but this time as a trainer,” he said.
Not forgetting his roots, Mark and his wife Rebecca have named their stable Port Lairge Stables, and have started investing in their present string, buying good horses and many of their patrons are owners that Mark rode for on the track.
Mark’s first winner as a trainer was My Afleet who will convert to racing over timber fences, but he has already career earnings of $380,000. One of his stars is the French-bred Invocation, previously trained by Alan King in the UK who has won three races already, including a race on International Gold Cup Day with Sean McDermott up.
Other horses in training are Rocket Star Red who will be aimed at the American Grand National, and if that goes well, he will go on to the Maryland Hunt Cup. Cracker Factory, who won four races over hurdles in the UK, will be aimed at the bigger hurdle races, and he was third already on his first run in the USA.
A real success story which shows the Beecher’s judgement in buying horses is Tommy Shelby, by Super Ninety Nine, who is their main runner on the flat, trained by Rebecca’s father Henry Walters at Pimlico. He was purchased by Rebecca for only $2,000 and has already won $156,000!
Mark and Rebecca hunt their racehorses, as they say they enjoy mixing with other horses, it educates them, brings them forward and teaches them to be brave. Their local pack is the Elkridge-Harford Foxhounds in Maryland, one of the top packs in the country.
Like steeplechasing in Ireland, the origins of the Maryland Hunt Cup race was in the hunting field when, in 1894, members of the Elkridge challenged the members of the local Green Spring Valley Hunt to a race over four miles of natural hunt country. It was confined to amateurs, with no commercial activities allowed, and to this day a long list of hunting and racing patrons sponsor the race.
It is the race that all jumps racing owners, trainers and jockeys want to win, and many horsemen from the USA and Europe have tried, but it takes a special horse to win it. The Beecher’s also hunt with the Green Spring Valley as one of their patrons is former joint-master George Mahoney who was also at one time a master of the United Hunt in Cork.
Ambitions
Mark’s ambitions in dealing in horses is linked to the family Loughnatousa Farm which produces a string of top class show jumpers, eventers, hunters and thoroughbreds that they have been supplying clients in America for a number of years.
Mark and Rebecca, based in the heart of racing, eventing and hunting country, are able to match clients with the most suitable horse. But he caters also for hunt followers who ride thoroughbreds, as he can select off the track horses with the right temperament that he can retrain as field hunters.
As Mark is recognised as such a stylish rider under many disciplines, he is in demand coaching. His clinics held in different parts of the USA are well attended, and he has a very easy style with students, so he tailors sessions according to their experience level. Furthermore, they benefit from his reservoir of knowledge of training and producing horses over the years.
Life in America has been good to Mark Beecher, but he has worked hard for his success on the race track, and now has moved seamlessly into training.
But he would admit that success also means meeting his wife Rebecca, and in 2020 they were blessed with a baby daughter Aine.
That is the best success yet!