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About Terry Conway

For the past fifteen years I’ve been a contributing writer to a variety of national & regional magazines. Currently my work appears in Blood- Horse magazine, Long Island Boating World magazine, The Hunt Magazine and Pennsylvania Equestrian as well as daily newspapers including the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Delaware County Times.  I am a regular contributor to JustSayGo and GallaghersTravels and SeeTheSouth -- topflight travel websites - and have contributed travel articles to IFWTWA.com -- the International Food, Wine & Travel Writers Association website. 

While many of my articles have spotlighted the world of art and special travel destinations, many folks ask, why horse racing? Well, it was America’s first sport. Andrew Jackson kept a stable when he was in the White House (1829-1837). Only four sportswriters have won the Pulitzer Prize and all of them wrote at one time or another about horseracing. It is all about chasing dreams, the fiercest rivalries, the wildest flukes and larger-than-life personalities, equine and human. The stories are personal, often laced with humor. And, unlike most professional athletes when you show up, the horse’s connections are pleased to talk with you.

Bio RanchCreekRide

I have been a regular contributor to The Blood-Horse magazine since 2003 and I am a racing correspondent to ESPN.com, where I focus on historical racing stories as I do for America’s Best Racing, the website of the Jockey Club and National Thoroughbred Racing Association.  My work has also appeared on these prominent racing websites: PaulickReport.com and Equidaily.com. I cover racing for the award-winning Pennsylvania Equestrian publication, wrote a Sunday column on racing for several years for the Chester County (Pa.) daily newspaper and cover racing and the horse world for The Hunt magazine in the mid-Atlantic region.

I represented clients for nearly a decade in the areas of marketing and publicity such as the Kahunaville restaurant chain, Baldwin’s Book Barn and Thoroughbred Charities of America. In a former life I was the editor, publisher and owner of Life Sports Magazine.

Smarty XmasCard

My wife Jane, our toller retriever Smarty and I live in the historic neighborhood of Wawaset Park in Wilmington, Del. A century ago it was the state fairgrounds, home to a top-tier standardbred racetrack. Today, the grand old track can be visualized on a stroll along a pair of crescent-shaped roads that together circle the inside of the park. A couple of hitching posts still remain and occasionally, a time-worn horse shoe is dug up. Life sure does turn circles.

 

Photos of Terry, Riding in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, and Smarty on the homepage - by Jane Conway.

 

 

Derby's 1st Winner Boasted Philly Connections Print E-mail

Philadelphia Inquirer
May 3, 2013
 
PAINQ 2McGrathH. P. McGrath was a barroom brawler who worked his way up from crooked dice games in his native Kentucky to owning posh gambling parlors in New Orleans and New York City. Cashing in his enormous profits, McGrath returned to Lexington, Ky. as a member of the landed gentry in 1867. He built his lordly estate McGrathiana on the crest of a hill a few miles outside town. Breeding, racing, and wagering on top-flight thoroughbreds would dominate the rest of his life.

Henry Price McGrath also gained immortality. His pint-size blood red colt Aristides will forever be remembered in racing history as the first Kentucky Derby winner.

The burly Irishman named the colt to honor his good friend Philadelphian Aristides J. Welch who established Erdenheim Stud shortly after the close of the Civil War. A few furlongs from the village of Chestnut Hill, its barns, boxes and paddocks were the home of many of the greatest thoroughbreds on both sides of the Atlantic in the late nineteenth century.PAINQ 1Welch

A purser in the Navy and a prominent contractor, Welch earned early notoriety as a signer of the bond to release Jefferson Davis after the Civil War. Few American horsemen could match Welch’s commercial breeding success.  An English stakes winner, Leamington (Aristide’s sire) was the driving force behind Welch’s prominence after his purchase in 1872.  The nearly black stallion already had produced some of the sport’s grandest stars-- Longfellow, Littleton and Lynchburg-- while at stud in Kentucky. Still, it was Welch’s astute broodmare selections that would propel Leamington to leading sire in North America titles in 1875, 1877, 1878 and 1881.

 
Winterthur's Map Quest: Tracking Early America Print E-mail

Delaware County Times
May 3, 2013
 
These days a map tends to be viewed as a dry, dusty piece of parchment.  With a GPS at our fingertips, a map might simply be looked at as ancient navigational tool.

In actuality, maps of early America were conversation pieces, works of art and crucial tools in identifying lifestyles of the times in which they were drawn. They became the social glue that bound a young nation into a community and shaped its identity.Maps 3

Winterthur Museum’s new major exhibition “Common Destinations: Maps in the American Experience” offers a fascinating voyage through two centuries that included colonial wars, nation building and industrialization. The exhibition runs through January 5, 2014.

While other map exhibitions have focused largely on great mapmakers or on decorative aspects of maps, curator Dr. Martin Bruckner took aim at the “social life of maps.” He collaborated with Linda Eaton, Winterthur’s director of collections.

Then, as today, America took pride in building unity out of diversity, and maps helped a fledgling nation forge common bonds and foster good citizenship,” noted Bru¨ckner, an associate professor of English at the University of Delaware who conceived “Common Destinations.”

“Visitors will see how men used maps at home and abroad. How women and children engaged with maps to nurture family ties. Maps would bind a people of strangers into a community during times of change and development."

 
Mighty Dunes Do Their Job Print E-mail

The Hunt Website
May 2013

When hurricane Sandy slammed into the Jersey coast in late October, three factors -- astronomical high tide, direct hurricane impact, and fully developed seas -- set the stage for historic flooding. It was a worst-case scenario that came true.SH003

In the wake of devastation rendered by the super-storm the lesson learned should be: start building those living, mini-mountains of sand.

In north Jersey entire beaches and towns are gone. A sea of debris remains. Further south it is a different story. Summer destinations such as Long Beach Island, Ship Bottoms, Surf City, Avalon and Stone Harbor had instituted beach replenishment for years and sand dunes were built high and wide. Those communities were spared the worst damage.

Humans cannot control the sea, but they can adjust to it.

 
Mastery of Munnings: Middleburg, VA Exhibit Print E-mail

America’s Best Racing
The Jockey Club Website
www.followhorseracing.com
May 2013

The path Sir Alfred Munnings travelled to artistic greatness commenced with a simple carriage ride with his father.  In his memoir the young lad described the thrill:  Munnings1

“I can see the mare’s pricked up ears in front of us, and the short, silky, silver mane in the breeze.  I can hear the hooves on the road, the jingle of the silver-mounted harness and the sound of the wheels as we bowled along.”

The leading light of English sporting art in the 20th century, Munnings captured the sensation of light and bright colors as stunningly as he captured the spirit of horses. Among his stable of discerning patrons were George V and Elizabeth II of England and American royalty Paul Mellon and John Hay Whitney.

In his autobiography, ''An Artist's Life,'' Munnings wrote: “The horse is one of the greater miracles of nature. Although horses have given me much trouble and many sleepless nights, they have been my supporters and friends. They have been my destiny.''  

 
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