Betty Bird, champion horsewoman

Betty Bird had style and glamor.

She was also a horse trainer with few peers. Horses trained by her won important steeplechase races and horse shows over three decades as she boldly entered what was for many years strictly a man's world.

"Betty was a uniquely versatile horsewoman who trained flathorses, steeplechasers, showhorses and foxhunters at the highest level," her family said in an obituary.

"She was particularly respected for the intuitive combination of perseverance, discipline and sensitivity that enabled her to work successfully with temperamental horses."

Elizabeth C. Bird died Dec. 30 at age 81. She lived and worked near Unionville, Chester County.

In 1995, Anthony Edgeworth, internationally known for his portraits of prominent people, set out to capture Betty's essence with a camera. He caught her just as she popped a cigarette in her mouth, but her stubbornly flashing eyes and elegant coiffure made the photo.

In fact, it was cigarettes that messed up her chances for Olympic riding. In the early '50s, Herbert Tareyton cigarettes featured her in riding attire for a magazine advertising campaign. That compromised her amateur standing and kept her out of the Olympics.

But Betty gained an international reputation as a horse trainer, "known for her touch with difficult horses and her elegant personal style."

In 1954, she became the first woman to train a winner of the prestigious Maryland Hunt Cup with her horse Marchized.

Then there was Fort Devon, a horse many considered untrainable. Her training, working for the prominent Bosley family in Maryland, enabled the horse to become the two-time National Steeplechase Association timber champion in 1974 and 1975.

Fort Devon went on to win the Maryland Hunt Cup in 1976, and also starred as a top steeplechaser in England.

Betty loved elegant parties, at which she enjoyed holding forth about her many exploits in the world of race horses to captive audiences.

At one Hunt Ball she decided to buy The Clown, which would become her champion show horse. Still in her evening gown, she schooled the horse over fences that very night.

Over the years, as Betty competed successfully in the man's world of horse racing, she ran the stables of both R.K. Mellon in Ligonier, Pa., and William du Pont Jr. in Unionville. It was du Pont who had encouraged her to try to enter the Olympics.

Betty was a member of the Green Boundary Club in Aiken, S.C., and Mr. Stewart's Cheshire Fox Hounds in Unionville.

She is survived by her former husband, Charles S. Bird III. She was predeceased by a sister, Sarah Bosley Secor, and a brother, John Bosley III.

Services: A memorial service was held Saturday. She was buried in the cemetery of St. James Episcopal church in Monkton, Md.

Contributions may be made to the Cheshire Land Preservation Fund, Box 983, Unionville, Pa. 19375, or the National Steeplechase Foundation, 400 Fair Hill Drive, Elkton, Md. 21921. *