Meet the team behind Manor runner Quality Choice – a tale that connects the dots from some of the deepest roots in jump racing to a first-generation steeplechase owner who looks at the sport as one piece in a bigger puzzle

First-gen steeplechase owner Dan Baker and multi-generational racing lifer, Irish import Mark Beecher reflect on the winding paths that are bringing together in the saddling enclosure at Saturday’s My Lady’s Manor races in Monkton, Maryland.

(Douglas Lees photo of the 2022 Grand National timber stakes winners circle - won by Holwood Stable's Road to Oz)

Dan Baker (©Tod Marks), who turned 73 on April 1, grew up in the Finger Lakes region of New York state, his closest frame of steeplechase reference being the Genesee Valley races south of Rochester. His father was a builder, not deeply involved with horses, but Baker did ride as a child.

He may not have been a horse kid, but he was a farm kid. On the family land, he “learned to do all sorts of things,” useful things that ended up serving him through the decades, Baker recalls, “like tearing an engine down and rebuilding it, putting up fence, painting barns.

“My policy was always if someone asked me if I could do something, I’d say yes.

“Then I’d figure out how to do it.

“I never liked to say no, and that’s always served me well.”

He studied history at Hobart College and earned his teachers’ certificate, but Baker had a classic case of post-university, 1970s wanderlust.

He took a gap year after school, loading up his Econoline van with hand tools and woodworking equipment so he could take jobs as he toured the nation in his version of the iconic, early ‘70s walkabout. “I had longer hair then,” Baker recalls the adventure with a laugh. “And a beard. It was a different time.”

A late winter blizzard changed the course of his life.

Baker had stopped in Steamboat Springs, Colorado to ski a few days, and when he got trapped there longer than he expected by a surprise blizzard, he settled in, found a job and got the golden opportunity to meet his future wife, Pat, a Vassar grad and Baltimore native who was doing her own ski bum-gap year stint.

It was magical, Baker recalls, only natural that they took the relationship back east after the ski season.

One of their first Maryland outings as a couple was the 1974 Maryland Hunt Cup.

It was Pat’s home meet, and the Tate family always attended.

Dan Baker was impressed, and that Maryland Hunt Cup left a huge impression on the young Baker.

“In those days, it was more like Woodstock,” Baker recalls, remembering the raucous crowd, bonfires, hillside parties veering almost out of control. The Hunt Cup committee has since, he stresses, reeled it in. “But it’s always been a lot of fun. I’ve only missed two Hunt Cups in the past 49 years.”

Attending the race – Paddy Neilson won on Burnmac – planted the kernel of an idea in Dan Baker’s head, a goal – though he acknowledges that he recognized how hard it would be to break into the world of steeplechase without having been born into it.

There was a brief delay in their steeplechase trajectory when, after they married in 1975 and settled in the Baltimore area, Dan Baker moved to England for a year, taking over an international project for father-in-law Bob Tate’s raised flooring company, tasked with setting up a modular system for computer and electric wires in an office building for Lloyd’s of London in England.

When they got back to Baltimore, the Bakers hunted with the Green Spring Valley Hounds and a farmers pack in the same territory, Mt. Carmel. Their first farm was next door to historic Sagamore in Glyndon (ancestral home of champion Native Dancer.)

They moved when a call to protect some imperiled land at the center of hunt country lured the Bakers to Upperco.

Conservationist/foxhunters had told Baker about three contiguous parcels located between Shawan Downs, the Grand National course, the Hunt Cup course and My Lady’s Manor. They were marked for as many as 11 subdivisions, something Baker says would have ruined a big piece of the territory.

Baker purchased the land and set about developing the 170 acres into a working farm. (photo, below, of Holwood Farm courtesy of Brigitte Frasier)

Holwood got its name after Baker’s first - sarcastic - choice fell flat. “I’d bought the land and was pulling together my plans. (Former huntsman for Mt. Carmel) Carl Shaffer was thrilled the land was protected. 

“The hunt wanted to buy us a sign for our new place to thank us, but it put me on the spot about what we’re gonna call it.

“I thought about it for about a second, and said how about Baker’s Acres.

“I was kidding, but you know Carl (who died in 2010) was a real gruff character. He hated that name – I was joking – and he grumped about it for a while then suggested we look on the deed for something historic.”

Baker discovered the property had been part of an original land patent called Holwood. The name suited Baker, and it appeased Shaffer.  

Baker was involved deeply in the Holwood project, hearkening back to the “can-do” mien from his youth. He had his hand in almost everything, and what he didn’t already know how to do, he figured out how to do. He installed the fencing, designed and put in the landscaping.

He helped his contractor, prominent steeplechase owner-breeder Bob Kinsley (pictured, ©Douglas Lees), from start to finish, together constructing what Baker calls a classic modern Maryland farmhouse; they designed it to look like it was “always there.”

Kinsley died in 2020, but Baker remembers working so intimately with the popular commercial builder and founder of South Branch Equine as his favorite part of the process. “Bob was such a wonderful guy,” Baker recalls. “Building this house was a joy, and as happy as we were when it was finished I was almost sorry it was done because it was so great to work with him.”

Baker bought and operated another Tate family business, Tate Engineering that Bob Tate’s father had established in 1924. Baker ran it for years, then his son, Alec took over a few years ago when his father retired, “again,” becoming the fourth generation to run the commercial mechanical supply business.

Start in steeplechase

When the Bakers at last got involved in racing, they decided to start at the start, buying a few broodmares and breeding for the commercial market. They had the land – their old farm on Belmont Road, and they enlisted a pro to help – bloodstock agent Don Litz.

But the timing was awful.

They bought in at the exact same time as oil-enriched sheikhs began raiding the American sales to buy bloodstock. Prices started to skyrocket.

The middle of the market fell apart, and the Bakers disbanded their broodmare band a few years later.

Their next foray into racing went much better, something they have learned to appreciate and enjoy to this day. About 20 years ago, Maryland trainer Billy Meister got them involved in jump racing with a useful timber horse, Beseennotheard, then with Maryland Hunt Cup-placed Mr. Liberator. A son of Awad Maryland-bred by Hall of Famer Sid Watters, Mr. Liberator won his first start for the Bakers – Brandywine in 2008, then finished fourth in the Grand National timber stake and third in the Hunt Cup.

Baker was sold on steeplechasing, at last fulfilling the vision he'd had at that first Hunt Cup.

“You know we’ve run some horses on the flat, but jump racing is just …” Baker searches for just the right words. “It’s just different. At the flat track, you go, you have to wade your way through a casino to get to the apron. Then you watch your race. It takes about two minutes.

“Then you leave.

“There’s nothing else.”

At the steeplechase meets, however, like that first Hunt Cup he’d attended way back in 1974, it’s more festive, more rural and more friendly. “It’s a whole day. I mean, I even go to the races just to watch my friends’ horses race if we don’t have something running.

“It’s fun. That’s one of the biggest selling points.”

The Bakers have have had plenty of success, winning races at Genesee Valley, the Grand National, My Lady's Manor and the Pennsylvania Hunt Cup; they've also won several won several Delaware Valley Point-to-Point Association year-end prizes.  

Mark Beecher has trained for the Bakers since 2014, and their shared vision of project management of each of their horses makes the relationship an easy partnership, as much friendship as owner-trainer-client bond, Beecher says.

“I don’t want to buy a horse that doesn’t have a potential second – third, career,” Baker offers. “For me it’s really important to deal with horses that have a good brain.

“Mark Beecher’s vision is the same.

“Between the two of them, Mark and (wife) Rebecca have the best eye to see what we’re looking for. They have a certain type, and they like certain bloodlines.”

Quality Choice (pictured above, with Mark Beecher ©Tod Marks) is by Quality Road, like Baker’s Road To Oz that won the Grand National stake last spring. “I love the type,” Baker says. “We tease Road To Oz about his big ears, but they’re both really nice horses. The Beechers have a way of choosing just the right sort of horse for the job.”

Mark Beecher, 37, has methodically risen to prominence on the U.S. steeplechase and flat racing circuit, though this isn’t a surprise, given his pedigree. (©Tod Marks)

He grew up on his family’s Loughnatousa in Ireland’s County Waterford. Father Tim – and the whole clan, are lifelong horsemen and women. Tim has bred, broke, trained, sold and competed show jumpers, show hunters, foxhunters and ‘chasers. Five of the six Beecher children are “green coats,” having represented – or still are representing – Ireland in international competition. Eldest brother Paul Beecher won the Hickstead Derby on a homebred among other prestigious classics, including a European grand prix two weeks ago. Brother Tadgh and sisters Diane and Fiona (married to British international showjumper Joe Whitaker) also compete, and Tim and Paul Beecher were joint-masters of the West Waterford Foxhounds on the Cork-Waterford border in southeast Ireland.

As a junior, second-youngest Mark won the European show jumping championship, twice, both times on homebreds.

“My own story would be very similar,” Mark Beecher says that sharing the lifestyle is pretty much a requirement for any working horseman, in any industry. The only difference in his story to David Walters; is that, actually, Mark Beecher himself wasn’t on hand for his first winner. Rebecca had taken My Afleet to Tryon since Mark had rides at the Manor that same day. “She took him down on her own, saddled him, won the race, drove him home.

“She’s amazing.”

These days, Rebecca Beecher is still helping run the shedrow, but you'll most likely find her with toddler Aine (pronounced ahn-ya), 3, beside her and son Owen, 8 months, strapped to her back. “You want to see someone multi-task, Rebecca can put anyone to shame,” Mark Beecher says. “We do everything ourselves, and she’s a big part of it.”

Though his heart lies with steeplechasing, some of Beecher’s biggest successes have come on the flat. Their best horse to date is Tommy Shelby (pictured ©Jim McCue), who Rebecca picked out at the Fasig-Tipton fall yearling sale at Timonium in 2018.

She paid $2,000.

To date, the Maryland-bred son of Super Ninety-Nine has won more than $232,000, most of it for the Beechers before the horse was claimed from them last year.

Another trainee, Gunslinger, was leading horse at Delaware Park last season, with four wins.

Mark Beecher riding Mrs. George L. Ohrstrom, Jr.'s Professor Maxwell to Maryland Hunt Cup victory in 2013. ©Douglas Lees

Read more about the Beecher operation in Ireland from this 2013 magazine report.

Writer Betsy Burke Parker visited the Beecher family's Loughnatousa for a

hunting and training holiday in 2013. Here is her report from the

life-changing experience.

AT THE BOTTOM OF A BOG. COOLISHEAL FIXTURE. CO. WATERFORD, IRELAND – Not one word of the shouted instruction could I understand though he was apparently speaking English. I thought could make out “back” and “on.” 

Too late, I realized “stay,” “get” and “kick” were the antecedents being hurled at me by one of my Beecher minders (not sure which one -- there were multiple Beechers out with us that day.)

When I stopped rolling a second later, the problem wasn't that I was hurt – the ground was soft. Or even scared – it was a slow-motion cartwheel. It was that I couldn't find purchase to stand and scurry after my errant horse. The uneven ground under my knees gave way when I went to push off, and sodden soil dissolved under my palms each time I went to press up. Blackberry stickers thick as a thumb gripped my breeches, conjoining me to the peat.  

No wonder McFly couldn't stick the landing off the steep bank.

It’s not an excuse for my fall. But it was definitely a reason. 

This was exactly what I'd signed up for. And exactly what I'd imagined. An American foxhunter buying a yard of ye auld sod.  

I was carrying out a lifelong pledge to go foxhunting in Ireland, and with two enthusiastic hunting friends in tow, we'd conspired to take it a giant's step further. This chilly, blustery, but sunny, November Wednesday afternoon here we were halfway around the world on a two-week immersion course into Ireland's equine culture, training and riding, a bit of the craic thrown in for good measure.

We decided to forgo the Emerald Isle of tourists. Instead we embraced Ireland's south-central horse country as temporary residents. Cead mile failte, hunters. One hundred thousand welcomes. Mind your footing. 

Loughnatousa in Co. Waterford, Ireland

Busman's holiday

We three – me, a lifelong foxhunter based in Virginia's Piedmont, Elizabeth, Virginia native and former college equestrian now based in California, and Chris, a new rider starting his second hunt season in Virginia – had called in a couple favors to train and lodge at Tim and Marian Beecher's Loughnatousa in Co. Waterford. Theirs is a private breeding, show jumping and foxhunting sales yard, and the plan was for us to just “join the family.” We'd stay in the house, work in the barn, ride out whatever horse – they have 100, have lessons, take young horses to a show, go hunting. We were ready to unravel the mystery of Eire's equestrian set.  

We'd considered the Irish tourists' sampler, because after all it's an embarrassment of historical riches here. We could hit capital Dublin, gorgeous Tipperary, the sweeping Dingle Peninsula, maybe drive the Hobbit-esque Ring of Kerry. But when we'd chatted about what we hoped to accomplish (repetitive practice for Chris, galloping and jumping for me, riding cross-country for Elizabeth) we realized immersion therapy as the Rx. 

We met up at Washington Dulles (Elizabeth started at LAX) and caught a flight to Dublin. We rented a car (Elizabeth was our driver; I was the designated back-seat shrieker – “Stay left! Stay left!”, and he-of-international-data-plan Chris was navigator. We nosed south towards Munster on the showery morning we arrived, skies slate gray and pregnant with rain. 

It was quiet in the car – we were all jet-lagged, and silent in private excitement or nerves. Irish foxhunting is legendary for huge “fly” fences and gaping ditch-and-banks. We weren't sure what we'd find, how we'd feel when faced with a big jump, where we'd place our balance to negotiate the sharply up, steeply down drains, or, as Elizabeth asked more than once on the three-hour drive southwest, why we were so sure this was a good idea in the first place. 

“Are they forward?” I was in the back seat asking, once I was sure driver Elizabeth had her bearings. “Or are they 'back?' I can't tell from the photos.” I was studying a shot from our host's sales Web site. The lead pic was of the infamous Irish Bank at Hickstead, the rider – their son – perfectly centered sliding down the nearly perpendicular, 20-foot slope winning last year with a homebred. (pictured, ©Horse and Hound) The next shot down was of a big-eared, doe-eyed gray leaping a thorny drain in the hunt field. The photographs make my heart flutter and I'm still a little wide-eyed as we pull into the stone stable yard, a tumble of old white plaster buildings surrounding an American-style center aisle barn. Gray ears poked out of all of them. 

Patriarch Tim Beecher greeted us. He's master of the West Waterford Hounds and a respected horse show trainer and teacher. Five of his six kids are “green coats,” having represented Ireland in international competition, and three other homebreds – horses – won championships at this summer's Royal Dublin Society Show. Sons Paul and Tadhg (say it “tiger,” without the -er) show, hunt and help Tim break and train the show and sales horses, athletic Irish part-breds for which Loughnatousa has become renowned. 

They sell horses – that's the business model – so almost everything in work is 3 or 4 years old. “You have an idea what they'll want to do,” said Paul, over in one of the older loose boxes saddling a horse. For our first lesson, I'd asked how they “tell” whether a young horse wants to be a show jumper or foxhunter, or what. “You can start to see it early,” Tim added, trilling the “earl” of early. “Jumping style, brains, movement. It shows when you start working a horse.” 

They led the 3-year-old to the indoor to “loose school” over jumps. The gray cantered round and round, with tack but without rider. “It encourages the young horse to think of his feet,” Tim was saying. Paul deftly changed a simple crossrail to a narrow parallel as the horse swapped directions, and leads. He methodically widened it every circuit of the track, saying the breadth “teaches a horse to measure for himself,” invaluable to a rider, international level or pony clubber. “They learn to do it without a rider,” Paul said, “then it's easier with.” Free-schooling isn't unique to Beechers', but we'd never seen it up-close, nor heard running commentary of the “how” and the “why” behind the “what.” 

Paul returned the youngster to his box – 14-by-14 with two-foot thick stone walls and a low, arched brick doorway. “It was the original house.” Paul explained the unusual stable construction, repurposed into four roomy stalls (two with bricked-over fireplaces.) The old homestead, now modernized and expanded, overlooks impossibly green open farmland. Ruler-straight hedgerows divide fields in the near view, with hundreds of acres of planted-pine rolling away to the west. Tiny Tallow nestles in a vale to the north. Ridiculously narrow single-lane roads radiate every direction. 

The rounded Knockmealdown Mountains ring the horizon, giving the region the uncanny feel of Virginia's Piedmont and Maryland's Hunt Valley. It felt wholly foreign, being here with everybody speaking a weird mix of native Gaelic and lilting Irish-English, but there's an underlying connection to home. 

Horse-speak is an international language.  

After a classic Irish supper (local lamb, peas, cooked carrots, roast potatoes and soda bread) we slumped into our beds. Next day it settled into familiar routine – quick breakfast then down to the yard for our assignments. Most mornings we'd do a couple sets for roadwork (we're assigned to the “older horses” – 4 and 5-year-olds, to give lead to the 3-year-olds.) Then we'd saddle “our” horses, young hunters Tim paired us with for lessons and hunting.  

Late fall in Ireland is often drippy and dreary, but Little Miss Sunshine – we soon dubbed Elizabeth, had smuggled sunny skies from California. “Can't believe this weather,” Marian would say as each morning dawned clear and dry. Temperatures were about like home – mid-40s and cool, not the legendary gale and north blow we'd worried about (and packed for.) We rode one morning in a windblown shower, but by the time we trotted home the sun had broken out dappling the mountains and a rainbow appeared horizon to horizon. 

I hoped it was a sign, a lucky clover for our second hunting engagement Saturday. The first hadn't gone so well – for me, anyway. Tim and Paul reassured me that “many” riders – Irish veterans even – fall on any given hunting day.  

It was nothing, they insisted. 

“You'll be alright,” Tim chanted in refrain when I'd worry aloud. Like most Irish, Tim Beecher has electric blue eyes – the eyes of a malamute, and a crafty, gleeful expression. “Remember what Paul'd told you” about sitting back but centered and forward-thinking. I considered the old saw about the two nations, separated by a common language. “Stay back. Stay way back. And kick on.” 

This time, I understood. 

It was the key to sticking tight over the drains, I learned that week. Light in the seat, heavy in the lower leg, rock forward going up the bank, as quickly back leaping down. “You'll get it next time.” 

I certainly hoped so. 

Time was ticking on our trip. But before we'd hunt a second time, we owed it to Ireland to take a look. 

Natural splendor

Ireland is a tiny island nation of incomparable natural beauty with rich cultural heritage. From the windswept cliffs of Mohr to ancient, but gritty urban Cahir, Ireland's character is weathered and warm, shaped by – not in spite of, wave after wave of invaders.  

The culture is porous and open, and four years out, most communities have chiefly rebounded from the 2009 collapse of the Celtic Tiger, a real estate bubble that leveled the economy. The Euro – $1.34 during our trip – means prices are steep.  

To explain the importance of the horse to the Irish, consider this: In the 1800s, Irish farmers began putting workhorses – sturdy but spare, together with athletic Thoroughbreds, producing a true cross combining the best of both. Racehorse speed and stamina married the steady nature and work ethic of the Irish Draught to produce what’s become a world-renowned sporthorse. 

Known today as Irish Sport Horses, the breed isn't exactly specific, more phenotype than bloodline, but the combo has proved wildly successful: gold medal three-day eventer Custom Made, show jumping champion Flexible and four of the top 10 at the 2012 Olympics were registered ISH.

It's a cross that works, Tim Beecher said, literally and figuratively. 

At Loughnatousa, we had plenty of time to observe the construction of the model. I noticed the deeply sloping shoulder on McFly (he’d inherited the good gaits of the thoroughbred.) Elizabeth loved the generous girth and strong loin on hers (jumping style that came from the cross.) And Chris was obsessed with the kind eye and big ear on his (generous and willing, from the draught.) 

Tim's eye has been honed by six decades of making and selling horses, and he guided our attention to the far more telling low-set hock (reach) and powerful quarters (scope.) It took a few days to hone my eye, but watching young stock school day after day we started to make the connection.  

Final exam

Our second day's hunting soon arrived, though I was uncharacteristically nervous as we offloaded the horses from the lorry at the Millstreet fixture. “Are there big drains?” I asked Tadgh in a voice a bit more high-pitched than necessary. 

Tadgh shot me a winning smile and took a page from his dad's playbook. “You're-alright.” It sort of became a single word and off we went. 

I zeroed in to a good one to follow: A fiery bay 12-hand pony with a kid of about 10. She had a determined look. McFly was on his toes, gazing at the open pastureland moving off from the meet. 

“Oh, (expletive)” Elizabeth exclaimed at the first jump. 

It wasn't a bottomless drain. Maybe it was worse. It was a rusty, slightly listing metal bar gate, tilting towards us rather than away. 

I felt my stomach tickle as Tim's refrain echoed in my brain: “Stay back. Kick on. Any time you feel like using your hands as an aid, use your legs instead.” 

It was a good takeaway and a pertinent tip for this day. 

As it turned out, the rusty gate was a mere appetizer. Jumps got bigger, banks got steeper and drains got wider as the day wore on. McFly floated over, the more trappy the test the more clever he became. Every time we'd cross an obstacle, my confidence increased exponentially. 

“Did you see that ditch?” Chris gasped as we pulled up breathless after a strong gallop back, and forth, and back again over a particularly daunting double ditch and bank. “it was like 15 feet deep.” 

I gulped. 

I hadn't noticed. There were foxes everywhere, hounds were on, my blood was up, and, today, I had Irish luck on my side. 

Mark Beecher's brother, Paul, whipper-in to the West Waterford Hounds and an international show jumper.

©Betsy Burke Parker