FAIR HILL ISSUE 20_Jerkins feature.qxd 16/04/2011 01:34 Page 2
FAIR HILL
The 300-acre, 17 barn, two-track training facility has had its ups and downs during its 28-year history, but it is now regarded as one of the country’s most thriving Thoroughbred establishments. And that’s down to the people who have worked there for many years. By Joe Clancey
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ALLY Goswell’s Blackberry rings approximately every 45 seconds as she drives her clattering blue Hyundai station wagon on the rough dirt roads. Call topics range from wood chips to sand to deliveries to problems with the racetrack’s top gap. “The chips will be here in half an hour, I’ll get someone to meet the driver, the sand has to be moved into the maintenance shed, some of those guys can help shovel while they’re waiting and the top gap has always been the top gap but we’ll look at it,” she says, sometimes into the phone, sometimes not. All the while, her yellow Labrador Retriever Woody lounges in the backseat. Across the way, Goswell’s husband Mike moves the dogs (cones, not Labs) off the dirt track and another morning of hyperactivity slides into an afternoon of hyperactivity for the manager of Fair Hill Training Center in Cecil County, Maryland. The training center has ridden a recent wave of success to its spot as one of
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