Eclipse Award winner Smart Angle and classic winner Caveat, members of the powerful Ryehill Farm stable in the late 1970s and early 1980s, have been selected for induction into the Maryland Thoroughbred Hall of Fame for 2025 after a vote by a committee of Maryland racing industry members coordinated by the Maryland Horse Breeders Association and Maryland Racing Media Association.

The newest Hall of Fame members will be celebrated during a ceremony at the Timonium race meet, after the fifth race, on Friday, Aug. 29.

“Maryland-breds have always competed at the highest levels, and this year’s two inductees certainly embodied that tradition,” said Maryland Racing Media Association president Frank Vespe. “From Smart Angle’s four Grade 1 wins in two months to Caveat’s tremendous win in the Belmont, these two helped carry the banner for Maryland’s breeding industry during some of its most productive years.”

Smart Angle was Ryehill Farm’s first Eclipse Award winner when she was named champion 2-year-old filly of 1979. In her first dozen starts at 2 and 3, 11 in stakes at seven different tracks, Smart Angle won seven times and was never worse than third. Over a seven-race stretch during her championship season, trainer Woody Stephens sent out the daughter of Quadrangle to six stakes wins, including the Selima, Frizette, Matron and Spinaway, all Grade 1. She ran twice a month from July through October, and in her final start of the year that November, the Grade 2 Demoiselle, she battled Genuine Risk to the wire and missed winning by a nose. 

Jim and Eleanor Ryan purchased Smart Angle’s dam Smartaire 1972 at the Keeneland Fall Sales, spending $36,000 on the daughter of *Quibu and the Olympia mare Art Teacher. Smart Angle was the fourth foal bred by the Ryans out of Smartaire and followed graded stakes winners Quadratic (Smart Angle’s full brother) and Smarten (by Cyane). 

Smart Angle retired in January of her 4-year-old campaign with a record of seven wins, four seconds and a third in 17 starts, for earnings of $414,217. She went on to produce 13 winners from 14 starters, led by graded stakes-winning Maryland-bred champion Houston, a $2.9 million sales yearling by Seattle Slew.

The year after Smart Angle’s championship season came the birth of the Cannonade colt Caveat. Out of Cold Hearted (by The Axe II), the first runner to carry the Ryehill Farm silks to a stakes victory (in the 1977 Poinsettia at Hialeah), Caveat proved tough, durable and gritty. 

Also trained by Stephens and campaigned by Jim Ryan, August Belmont IV and Bob Kirkham, Caveat won the 1983 Belmont Stakes-G1 and was third in the Kentucky Derby-G1 despite rough trips in both. A stakes winner on both dirt and turf, he made 21 starts in less than a year while competing at 10 different tracks – from his first start as a 2-year-old at Belmont Park to his final start in the Belmont Stakes. Coverage in the Maryland Horse magazine noted, “Probably no other colt in America has thrived on a more demanding schedule. . . Caveat has had more than his share of difficulties. His past performances read like a war record, the words ‘bumped,’ ‘checked’ and ‘forced wide’ appearing often.”

The Belmont was a roughly run race. With Lafitt Pincay Jr. aboard, Caveat bounced off Belmont Park’s inside rail twice while making his winning move on the far turn, and drew off to defeat Slew o’ Gold by three and half lengths; others behind him in the 15-horse field included Maryland-bred Preakness winner Deputed Testamony. And he etched his name in the record books as the second of Stephens’ record five consecutive Belmont Stakes winners. Caveat exited the classic with an injury which forced his retirement. 

Retired to stud at Windfields Farm in Chesapeake City, Md., Caveat ranked not only as Maryland’s leading sire for a number of years, but was one of the best turf sires in the nation. His top runners included Grade 1 turf winners Awad and Ops Smile, Grade 1 Brooklyn Handicap winner Timely Warning, and Pennsylvania Derby-G2 winner Cefis. He was 15 when he died of an apparent heart attack in February 1995.

Ryehill Farm is now represented by four Hall of Fame members. Earlier inductees are four-time Grade 1 winner and multimillionaire Awad (2015) and Eclipse Award-winning champion 2-year-old filly of 1980, Heavenly Cause (2020).

“The two inductees to this year’s Hall of Fame represent some of the most important horse racing families in Maryland, both human and equine. The legacy of the great horses bred by the Ryans and Ryehill Farm lives on,” said Cricket Goodall, executive director of the Maryland horse Breeders Association, “and we are happy to recognize them.”

Under the collaboration of the Maryland Horse Breeders Association and Maryland Racing Media Association, the Hall of Fame was initiated in 2013 as a means of celebrating the excellence of state-bred Thoroughbred horses and debuted with an inaugural class of 12. There are now 38 members. Caveat and Smart Angle join MTHOF members Alma North, Awad, Ben’s Cat, Broad Brush, Caesar’s Wish, Challedon, Cigar, Concern, Conniver, Dave’s Friend, Deputed Testamony, Devil’s Bag, El Gran Senor, Find, Gallorette, Heavenly Cause, Jameela, J. O. Tobin, Kauai King, Little Bold John, Politely, Richard’s Kid, Safely Kept, Shine Again, Smoke Glacken, Social Outcast, Star de Naskra, Twixt, Vertex, What a Summer and Youth and steeplechasers Elkridge, Good Night Shirt, Jay Trump, Mountain Dew and Tuscalee. 

The newest honorees, with biographies, photos, videos and complete race records, will be showcased on-line at www.mdthoroughbredhalloffame.com.