In hunt country, race, party for land tax benefits

At this year's Radnor Hunt Races Saturday, as each year for the past 20 of its 84-year history, preppy spring wear, steeplechasing horses, fancy tailgaters and Scout volunteers were enlisted in a fund-raiser for a cause near and dear to local landowners' hearts and wallets: the Brandywine Conservancy, a Chadds Ford institution that works to preserve fields, streams, and hillsides in Chester, Delaware, and New Castle Counties by helping arrange nondevelopment agreements in exchange for income- and real-estate-tax benefits.

More than 15,000 people crowded the sloping grounds of the Radnor Hunt Club in a part of Chester County's Willistown Township thick with horse farms and conservation tax easements, for the 84th edition of the races.

The event was expected to gross $700,000, of which $200,000 was paid out to winning riders, and $300,000 covered tents, security, and other expenses, yielding $200,000 for the conservancy, said Carol Griffin, who headed the conservancy's efforts in support of the show.

"We are the beneficiaries of this incredible tradition that supports open-space programs," said Virginia A. Logan, who left a 25-year career at Sunoco and took the top job at the Brandywine Conservancy in 2011.

-- More in my story in Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer

» READ MORE:  here.