The Middleburg Spring Races

Photos by Focal Point Creative

The 97th Annual Middleburg Spring Races were held April 22 at Glenwood Race Course. Despite a lack of cooperation on the weather front, the rain did not dampen the enthusiasm for the region’s oldest and most celebrated steeplechase event.

It was in 1911 that famed Middleburg sportsman Daniel Cox Sands organized the first race. The following year, the National Steeplechase and Hunt Association sanctioned the event. This was more than a decade before the first running of the Gold Cup in Warrenton, Virginia.

Sands oversaw the event until his death in 1963. Others have kept the event alive through the years that followed. Today, trustees David Quanbeck and F. Turner Reuter manage the Spring Races, but it is a small army of volunteers who make the event a reality.

Middleburg Life was on hand this year to capture a few of the moments that make the Middleburg Spring Races such a popular event. ML