On Friday, May 9, the Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority (MTROA) named Lisa Hostetter of Olney to the Maryland Jockey Club’s Board of Directors. Hostetter co-owns Northview Stallion Station and Sycamore Hall Farms, both in Chesapeake City. Northview began operations on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in 1989 and since then, its stallions have won Maryland Stallion of the Year for 28 consecutive years; Not for Love for 10 years and Great Notion every year since 2016.
For us, however, Northview’s best known horse is the international eventer Charmed Victory, a 2013 gelding by Flatter out of Sycamore Hall’s American Victory (Victory Gallop (CAN)).
Charmed Victory has contested 22 international competitions since 2020 and has finished in the top ten in four of them — two CCI3*s and two CCI4*s. His international career begin in 2020 with Pennsylvania-based Kaelen Speck. The pair completed 13 international completions together over the next three years.
American 5* eventer Erin Kanawa took over the ride in 2023 and rode Charmed Victory in the CCI3*-L at the 2023 running of the Maryland 5 Star at Fair Hill in October and in the CCI3*-S at the Maryland International Horse Trials in July 2024. At the national level, Kanawa and Charmed Victory have completed 9 competitions at Modified or above since Kanawa took over the ride.
Charmed Victory and Erin Kanawa over the CCI3* Crab Jump at the Maryland 5 Star at Fair Hill in 2023.
There is another Hostetter horse coming up the eventing ranks behind Charmed Victory. The 9-year-mare Jump for Sally (Jump Start x For Sally (MD) (Not for Love)) bred at Sycamore Hall Farms, last raced in 2019 with Tim Keefe as her trainer. Her eventing career started in 2020 under the guidance of Keefe’s daughter Ryan. Ryan took the mare to 2nd in the USEA’s Young Event Horse 5-Year-Old Qualifier at Loch Moy Farm in 2021, and then she and her sister Carlin both rode her up through Training until September of 2023.
Jump for Sally is now owned by Cathrin Weiss of Virginia, who is competing Sally locally in Maryland and Virginia.