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A native of Baltimore, MD, Peter Winants grew up immersed in the world of horse sports. Following
his father’s death when Peter was five, his mother married
legendary horseman S. Bryce Wing. In 1938 Winants witnessed the
famous match race between Seabiscuit and War Admiral at Pimlico.
His early achievements included foxhunting with
the Elkridge-Harford Hunt, riding as an amateur steeplechase
jockey, Army service during WWII with another stint during the
Korean War, and attending Princeton University.
It was at Princeton that Winants met the late
George L. Ohrstrom, Jr., who would later become the owner of
The Chronicle of the Horse. This proved to be a fortuitous
friendship as Ohrstrom hired Mr. Winants in 1972 to serve as
editorial assistant. Three years later Peter was elevated to
editor/publisher. He served The Chronicle for 19 years,
retiring in 1991 at the age of 65.
Winants career in journalism began with his love
for photography, bolstered by his talent for capturing the
action of the racetrack, both flat and steeplechase. His
coverage of Jay Trump, 1965’s winner of the English Grand
National and the Maryland Hunt Cup, resulted in an expansion of
his career into print journalism. From freelancing for The
Maryland Horse he went on to write the first of his four
books, Jay Trump: A Steeplechasing Saga in 1966. Six
years later he began his nearly 20 year career at The
Chronicle of the Horse.
Retirement simply meant more time to channel his energy
and talents into other pursuits, all focused on bringing the
world of horse sports to a wider audience. He joined the Museum
of Hounds & Hunting Advisory Board and was instrumental in many
of the key decisions that have allowed the Museum to remain a
widely appreciated repository of the art and artifacts of
mounted hunting in North America. The Museum benefitted greatly
from his deep knowledge of sporting art as well as his charming
manner and the wide respect he enjoyed throughout the racing and
hunting communities.
He served on the board of the National Sporting
Library in Middleburg and was the driving force in the efforts
to construct a new building for the library.
He also found time to pen more books.
Flatterer: A Story of a Steeplechase Champion, was published
in 1988. Three more followed during his retirement years:
Steeplechasing: The Complete History of the Sport in North
America (2000), Foxhunting with Melvin Poe (2002),
and The Sporting Art of Franklin B. Voss (2005).
Winants’ and his wife Rosemary Margaret were
married in 1956 and had four children and six grandchildren. Two
of Winants’s sons, Peter Junior and Garet “Woods” Winants,
became amateur steeplechase jockeys. Following Margaret’s death
in 2002, Peter married Mary Weeden Winants in 2003. They shared
Sunnyside Farm in Rectortown, Virginia, until his death in 2009.
Peter Winants is widely remembered as a gentle,
erudite, and gracious man, one who was always encouraging of
others, a man who accomplished much, yet was never boastful of
his achievements. He will be missed by many, quite deeply by his
fellow Museum members who admired and respected him beyond
measure.
by J. Harris Anderson
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