Inside the Beltway

Eagle-eye Hume

Tens of thousands of Washingtonians were on hand Saturday for the 80th anniversary of the world famous Virginia Gold Cup steeplechase race at Great Meadow in The Plains.

Among them, Fox News Channel’s Washington managing editor and anchor Brit Hume — albeit, as in past years, the popular newscaster wasn’t mixing with the well-dressed crowd manning the fences.

Instead, Mr. Hume was high atop the race course serving as a placing judge. (In other words, it is up to him to determine which horse crosses the finish line first.)

“I am one of three placing judges, and we all stand in the judge’s stand at a position above the finish line — one guy stands in the front, one guy stands behind him, and the third behind him — and we all peer out over the finish line.

“And what we see goes,” assures Mr. Hume.

If it happens to be an extremely close race (several races are run at each Gold Cup), the placing judges can always resort to a state-of-the-art digital camera that shoots an amazing 2,000 frames per second.

“So we can’t go wrong. There’s no danger,” says Mr. Hume, sounding somewhat relieved.

After all, he reveals to this column, “a couple of years ago there was one particular race that we did not think was close enough to look at.”

“We knew the owner, who was well-liked, and with people gathered all around him, he was about to receive the prize. Suddenly, this guy above us [manning the camera] got our attention, saying ‘You guys had better come up here.’”

Mr. Hume and his fellow judges couldn’t believe their eyes. The horse they all agreed was the first to cross the finish line, he says, actually finished second “by a fraction of a nose.”

“It was one of those nose-up, nose-down deals,” Mr. Hume explains. “We were all just stunned. And we were wrong. So, ever since then, we are perfectly willing to check.”

According to race chairman Arthur W. Arundel and his son, John Arundel, “attendees often do a double-take when they see Hume standing on the steward’s stand with his … half-rim glasses, taking his job very, very seriously.”

Mr. Hume spends weekends at his farm in — we’re not making this up — Hume, Va., where his brother is the postmaster.

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