With about a mile to go in Saturday’s 115^th Maryland Hunt Cup, eventual winner Private Attack’s chief challenge in the third and most cherished jewel of the state's steeplechase triple crown didn’t come from the rest of the field—it was boredom.

The attrition of the four-mile course’s grueling 22 jumps over Worthington Farms in Glyndon had whittled the 10 starters to just three survivors and Private Attack—winner of the Grand National the previous weekend—was in cruise mode far ahead of second-place runner, And The Eagle Flys.

Despite the huge lead, winning rider Blythe Miller Davies said the finish was no cakewalk.

“We already had been three miles before we even got to the 17^th (jump), so that’s a long way,” Davies said. “And he wasn’t so much tired as bored. Like, ‘What do you mean we have a mile to go and have how many more fences to jump?’ So it was hard for me to keep him focused … on his job at hand.”

Private Attack, trained by Alicia Murphy, took the 18^th jump with enthusiasm and the 19^th with a little less verve. But the lower fences closer to home posed a peculiar problem.

"They’re used to jumping six-foot fences and then they come to these little two-foot fences and he’s like, ‘You must be kidding,’” Davies said.

With the jockey’s coaxing, Private Attack, an enormous 1-4 pre-race favorite, coasted to the easy win in the $75,000 Hunt Cup before thousands of fans who had the fortune of perfect weather. And The Eagle Flys, ridden by William Meister, placed second. Volle Nolle, with Michael Traurig in the irons, finished third.

Among the horses who lost riders was even-money starter Incomplete who had Charlie Fenwick III leave the saddle at the 16th jump.

"I had a great round, my horse jumped very well, just made a sight mistake at the 16^th and he didn’t fall but I came off and he hit the fence pretty hard,” Fenwick said. “He couldn’t have gone any better up to that point.”

Fenwick pointed out that only about 23 percent of a Maryland Hunt Cup field finishes what is considered one of the toughest timber races in the world. That made Saturday's race a typical day when only three of 10 riders successfully finished the race. The other seven were thrown from their horses.

Meister, who made his 20^th start in the Maryland Hunt Cup, battled for the lead aboard And The Eagle Flys from the start but the smaller horse simply ran out gas.

"He’s a little tiny horse and he likes to keep his head down which is no fun when you’re jumping over these big fences,” Meister said. “But he jumps really well.”

Meister said that And The Eagle Flys began losing his wind at about the 14^th jump and that he tried to give the horse a breather. After the 16^th jump, Meister said he thought, “Dude, we can take second, all we have to do is get around here.”

For Davies, the Maryland Hunt Cup capped an extraordinary comeback year. When the racing season started, the 42-year-old mother of two had been in riding retirement for more than 8 1/2 years. And her last Maryland Hunt Cup ride was in 1991. When she won the Grand National the previous Saturday, it marked the first time she had won that race in two decades.

“I wasn’t sure I was fit enough that I should make the comeback but it’s pretty special,” she said.

The storybook ending would not have happened had Davies not clung to her mount over the daunting water jump where she lost a stirrup and had to struggle back into her tack.

“I was just so tired and not riding well by then and I just got up his neck and luckily, I got back,” Davies said.

By the end, it was simply a matter of keeping the 12-year-old gelding interested in making the final jumps.

“He wasn’t tired,” Davies said. “He was, ‘Well there’s nobody else with me, why do I want to go by myself?’”

The answer was waiting at the finish line.