{"id":25532,"date":"2015-05-11T10:42:20","date_gmt":"2015-05-11T14:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=25532"},"modified":"2015-05-12T07:06:06","modified_gmt":"2015-05-12T11:06:06","slug":"willowdale-steeplechase-23-years-of-family-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=25532","title":{"rendered":"Willowdale Steeplechase &#8211; 23 years of family fun"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_10219\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/chescotimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/leah.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10219\" class=\"wp-image-10219 size-medium\" style=\"margin: 4px;\" src=\"http:\/\/chescotimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/leah-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"leah\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-10219\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steeplechase fans enjoy each other&#8217;s company and some great hats!<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><strong>By Kim Chiomento<\/strong><\/span>, <span style=\"font-size: 8pt;\"><em>News Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>EAST MARLBOROUGH\u00a0\u2013 Thousands of families attended the Willowdale Steeplechase Sunday \u2013 a regional Mother\u2019s Day tradition now celebrating its 23rd year. A\u00a0\u201cJames Bond\u201d themed tail gate competition, Jack Russell Terrier races, boutique shopping, kid friendly crafts and\u00a0of course, fantastic hats\u00a0were all a part of the fun.<\/p>\n<p>The world class Willowdale Steeplechase event also serves and important charitable purpose and has made a direct impact on\u00a0local organizations.\u00a0 \u00a0Funds raised annually have helped build a state-of-the-art facility for disabled children at\u00a0Quest Therapeutic Services, the Stroud\u00a0Water Research Center has been able to further their research and education efforts to protect\u00a0 fresh water systems; and the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine &#8211; New Bolton Center has better resources to train its students students and provide cutting-edge treatment for large animals that play a key role in our agriculture based state.<!--more--><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_10223\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/chescotimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/jrts.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10223\" class=\"wp-image-10223 size-medium\" style=\"margin: 4px;\" src=\"http:\/\/chescotimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/jrts-300x189.jpg\" alt=\"jrts\" width=\"300\" height=\"189\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-10223\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crowds gather for the always crazy Jack Russell Terrier races<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_10221\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/chescotimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/maria-hoola-hooping.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10221\" class=\"wp-image-10221 size-medium\" style=\"margin: 4px;\" src=\"http:\/\/chescotimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/maria-hoola-hooping-300x242.jpg\" alt=\"maria hoola hooping\" width=\"300\" height=\"242\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-10221\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mom still has it!<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Kids were everywhere and\u00a0spotted doing lots of fun things including &#8220;rounding-up&#8221; the spirted Jack Russell terriers at the end of the course, designing and &#8216;racing&#8217; their own stick ponies,\u00a0 meeting Quests&#8217; therapy horses, hoola-hooping, having lacrosse catches and playing tag.<\/p>\n<p>Families also slowed down, enjoyed the long awaited warm weather and beauty of the Chester County countryside; many did so\u00a0while tailgating with friends.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_25533\" style=\"width: 327px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/girlonpony.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-25533\" class=\"wp-image-25533 size-medium\" style=\"border: 2px solid #000000; margin: 4px;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/girlonpony-317x300.jpg\" alt=\"girlonpony\" width=\"317\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/girlonpony-317x300.jpg 317w, https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/girlonpony-150x142.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/girlonpony.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 317px) 100vw, 317px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-25533\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A young rider prepares for the pony races<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The Willowdale Steeplchase has grown to expect more than 10,000 attendees annually; and since its founding in 1993, has raised more than $300,000 for charities.\u00a0 For more information visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.willowdalesteeplechase.org\" target=\"_blank\">www.willowdalesteeplechase.org<\/a> and to check out more\u00a0race day photos visit the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TheTimesOfChesterCounty?ref=hl\"><em>Times of Chester County<\/em><\/a>\u00a0Facebook site.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Kim Chiomento, News Editor, The Times EAST MARLBOROUGH\u00a0\u2013 Thousands of families attended the Willowdale Steeplechase Sunday \u2013 a regional Mother\u2019s Day tradition now celebrating its 23rd year. A\u00a0\u201cJames Bond\u201d themed tail gate competition, Jack Russell Terrier races, boutique shopping, kid friendly crafts and\u00a0of course, fantastic hats\u00a0were all a part of the fun. The world [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[1220,220,90,1252,24,1250],"class_list":["post-25532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-featured","tag-hats","tag-horses","tag-kennett-square","tag-tailgating","tag-unionville","tag-willowdale-steeplechase"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25532"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25537,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25532\/revisions\/25537"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}