Foxhunters are known for being able to handle just about anything, and this fall Sharon Presutti showed that she can master it all.

She topped all comers in three competitions associated with the Genesee Valley Hunt, Geneseo, N.Y., this season. Presutti and her 14-year-old Thoroughbred, Miami Thunder, showcased their versatility by winning two unusual races–the old-fashioned point-to-point and the whiskey relay–and a competition for equine accuracy and obedience called the Master’s Cup.

The challenging point-to-point requires a very fit horse, a quick mind, and intimate knowledge of the hunting country for the more than five-mile tear through woods, corn, bogs, pastures, plough, livestock, ditches, and creeks. This 119-year-old cross-country race has no set route, just checkpoints and a finish line that are described to the runners right before the race.

In the whiskey relay, three-member teams circumnavigate a half-mile route throughthe woods and polish off a flask of good Kentucky bourbon while they’re at it.

Finally, the Master’s Cup is designed by GVH Jt.-MFHs Martha and Austin Wadsworth, like their father before them, and includes a variety of tasks to test a horse’s ability and aptitude in the hunting field.

GVH Huntsman Marion Thorne and whip Travis Thorne often take home the honors for these competitions, but Presutti used a strat-egy of “join them and beat them” to establish her winning streak. Presutti’s game plan for the point-to-point on Nov. 6 was to stay with Marion and hope to pass her just before the finish.

Presutti has ridden in the point-to-point almost every year since the 1970s. She was “content to go for fun” until two years ago, when, she said, “I realized my horse had some speed and I thought maybe I could go for more.”

This speed may have come from his alleged sire. Although Presutti doesn’t have Miami’s registration papers, she thinks that he was sired by stakes winner Thunder Puddles.

Presutti doggedly pursued Marion, on last year’s winner Long Lake, but she wondered why she was the only one in Marion’s hip pocket. She didn’t realize that Marion and Travis (on Blue), had strategized beforehand to split up, in hopes that one of them would be able to shake their followers and come home free.

At the last checkpoint at Culvert Farm, the three of them and Meg Lloyd, on Fantine, came together and battled across two fields to the finish. Presutti passed the other three in the pony pasture, a bumpy swampy piece of bottomland, and was first over the double coops across Nation’s Road to the Triangle Lot.

But she opted to cross the middle of the lot, which took her through a deep swale, while the others followed the fence line farther east to avoid that terrain. Nonetheless, all four met up again before the finish line and Presutti’s horse bested the others by a length.

“He’s very fit, and I knew he was fit, so I asked and got an answer. It was very exciting!” said Presutti.

Presutti received the traditional Cary Trophy at the tea held at The Homestead, the ancestral home of the joint-masters. The trophy, a massive bronze sculpture of horse, rider and hound, was awarded by Thea Killeen whose family has hunted with Genesee Valley since the 19th century.

And She’s Off Again

Presutti was doubly proud, because she and her mount were the oldest horse and rider in the race, and because she has brought Miami, 14, along herself from a green 5-year-old.

The plain, brown 16.1-hand Thoroughbred had a crooked foot and had been left with board unpaid at a barn near Saratoga, N.Y., so he was an unknown quantity with questionable future soundness. Nevertheless, after a year of training in the back of the hunting field, he began his multi-faceted career as a fox-hunter, eventer, race horse, and sometimes Pony Club horse.

Going from the sublime to the slightly ridiculous, Presutti won again the following week, in the Nov. 13 whiskey relay, by joining forces with the two Thornes at Gail McGuire’s farm, the site of the Schoolhouse Races.

Each team member has to race their counterparts from the other teams over logs, bank jumps, and coops while downing their fair share of 8 ounces of whiskey, then hand off the whiskey flask to their waiting team member.

Despite the light-hearted tone of the day, this race tends to be hotly contested, especially in the woods as riders jockey for position before bursting over the last fence on the way to their hand-offs.

Travis Thorne, on K.C., took the first lap to open a substantial lead over the other three teams, then managed a smooth hand-off to Presutti, who maintained the lead. Marion Thorne took some time breaking from the line for her anchor lap as she tried to uncap the plastic flask, but she had a wide enough margin and Long Lake had enough speed to leave her closest contender well behind.

Celeste Boatwright, a member of the third-placed “Bikini Team,” declared, “I knew we were in trouble when I saw that the first-, second- and third-placed winners in the point-to-point were on the same team!”

Like A Pro

The culmination of Presutti’s winning ways was in the revered Master’s Cup, awarded to the regularly hunted horse that has accumulated the most points in GVH-sponsored competitions (horse trials, hunt cup race meet, and point-to-point) and performed well in a “task phase” that is held at the GVH kennels on the second Sunday in November.

The task phase consists of a variety of challenges related to hunting situations and etiquette. Although the horse trials had been cancelled for the first time in 50 years due to flooding, Presutti’s first-placed finish in the point-to-point and second place in the race meet’s foxhunters’ pace gave her horse the highest score entering the task phase, over seven others.

Balefully, Presutti pointed out, “I was second in the pace race because I didn’t have the heart to use my whip.

“But,” she continued with a twinkle, “I did use my whip in the point-to-point.”

In addition to a special course of riding created each year by the joint masters, other activities include using a hound whip on both sides of the horse to hit targets on the ground; dropping a rail to jump over a coop and replacing it; leading the horse over a barway; opening and closing a gate; backing into the woods and standing quietly to “make way”; and cantering away from the group of contenders to stand alone for 30 seconds in a small circle.

“It’s the longest 30 seconds of your life!” Presutti said with a laugh.

Miami Thunder, who was in contention last year too, performed all tasks like a professional and swept the competition by accumulating the most points in the task phase.

This achievement brought Presutti full circle, as she recalled a story of her earliest hunting days.

“I began hunting in the early 1970s but I didn’t know what I was doing. Mike Kelley [a well-respected professional horsewoman and devoted foxhunter who touched the lives of many riders before her death several years ago] knocked on my door and said, essentially, ‘The only thing that is saving you out there is your balance. You need to come ride with me.’ So I did–for years!

“Mike loved the Master’s Cup; she considered it the most important award the hunt gives. I carried her wire cutters to the win this year,” added Presutti.