On a rain-soaked course this past April, Elizabeth Scully came from behind on Shootist to finish second in the Maryland Hunt Cup – while, on the sidelines, her mother fingered beads.
“When she is riding, I pace back and forth saying the rosary,” said Fran Scully, who, along with her daughter, are parishioners of Sacred Heart in Glyndon. “Father Jerry (Francik), our pastor, has really helped me from being a basket case.”
The Hunt Cup, a four-mile, 22-fence steeplechase first run in 1894, is one of the most difficult races in the world, with solid timber fences up to 5 feet tall. Elizabeth, 26, has ridden it three times, most recently at trainer Todd McKenna’s request, racing against nine other horses.
An amateur steeplechase jockey, Scully’s career includes 79 starts, with 12 firsts, 14 seconds and 14 thirds, according to Equibase. She finished second in the Maryland Hunt Cup in 2023 and again this April. In 2024, she was a lost rider after falling from her horse at fence 12.
Her first win came on a horse trained by Cyril Murphy, for whom she still exercises horses. Murphy recalled her asking years ago if she could ride for him.
“I said ‘sure,’” Murphy said. Once she’d shown her ability, he let her ride – and “she won her first recognized win.”
“She is a very pleasant person to work with,” he said. “She’s no dummy. She is very competent in anything she does.”
A rider since age 6, she found the show ring boring and started pony racing at 10. By 12, the Hunt Cup had “really sparked something in her,” Fran said, recalling she told her daughter that if she trusted herself, the horse and the trainer, it was possible.
“The Hunt Cup is the biggest in the world. It is a huge event,” Fran said. “When you see how long and how hard the race is … not all horses finish.”
Faith has carried mother and daughter through the dangers of Elizabeth’s career as an amateur jockey.
“It is the thing that helps keep me grounded,” Elizabeth said. “I go to Mass every Sunday and I go to (eucharistic) adoration when I can.” She tries to stop at Sacred Heart’s chapel before every race. “It always seems like a good space to go,” she said. “When we run, it is dangerous. There’s high rates of speed, jumps.”
Her faith has its “ups and downs,” too, especially when racing doesn’t go well. “But I always come back to it,” she said.
It was after an injury sidelined her that she met Peggy Dryden, Sacred Heart’s director of communications and engagement. Encouraged by her mother to “focus out,” Elizabeth – a history major at Loyola University Maryland – helped Dryden research the parish’s 150th anniversary history and photo collection.
“She mentioned she did steeplechase,” Dryden said. “I had no idea. She’s very quiet and unassuming. She is a really good, kind person and a faithful Catholic.”
Dryden came to watch this year’s race.
“That was the most thrilling thing,” she said. “My heart was pounding watching her race. People fall. They get injured. She is this young woman and all these men. I never screamed so loud in my life. She almost won against this guy they brought in from Europe.”
Father Francik hasn’t seen Elizabeth race in person but has watched videos and learned the sport through her.
“Horse racing is hard,” he said. “The beating your body goes through. If you fall off if you’re jumping, you’re falling onto hard ground.”
He’s seen her pray in the chapel beforehand and calls her “very humble, low key and soft spoken,” adding with a chuckle, “a horse whisperer, you know?”
Racing has taken Elizabeth across Europe, representing the U.S. through the Temple Gwathmey Steeplechase Foundation.
“I found myself drawn to churches,” she said. “I enjoyed seeing churches in different countries and Sunday Mass. I went to many French Masses. I do not speak a word of French.”
She races mainly in Maryland, with some starts in Pennsylvania and Virginia, and isn’t sure how much longer she’ll keep going.
“The injuries and everything add up,” she said – both wrists broken, one twice requiring surgery, her humerus twice, her tibia, several fingers and toes and a compression fracture in her back. “Like any athlete, you have to get back up.”
For now, she works as an exercise rider, amateur jockey and part-time for the Baltimore Orioles.
“She is unbelievably talented,” Fran said. “I am super happy she is doing something she wanted to do and seeing it through.”
She owns one horse herself: Nacho, a 13-year-old Thoroughbred she calls “quirky,” boarded on Mantua Farm in Reisterstown, where she visits daily.
“Horses will always be part of my life,” she said. “They have taken me around the world. There is no better way to see the country than on the back of a horse.”
Email Katie V. Jones at kjones@CatholicReview.org
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