The eighth generation of the Steuart clan still lives at Dodon Farm and they still raise horses.

Steuart Pittman and three of his children have homes on the 550 acres in Harwood, just up the road from Roedown.

Though the land is not a featured focus of the annual races at Roedown the event is also a celebration of the land itself.

Families like the Pittmans, the Beggs and Clagetts have been able to keep swaths of open and wooded countryside from turning into tracts of townhouses.

If not for that, the Marlborough Hunt would not have the contiguous properties needed to continue to ride, and the area would not have one of the premier celebrations of spring.

The Pittmans, members of the fox-hunting Marlborough Hunt Club since Steuart Sr. joined 39 years ago, also help keep the sport going by allowing their property to be used for the hunt.

And the family is likely to stay on the land for years to come, a pleasing notion to Mr. Pittman, who will turn 89 in June.

"I grew up in New York. But my father and I would come here together. We'd spend time riding. It was our time together," he said Thursday.

Now his son, Steuart Jr., has built a reputable horse-training operation there. A daughter and her husband are starting a winery operation on the land. And a few years ago the property was put into preservation through the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation, so it will never be developed.

The Dodon tract has had its ups and downs over the centuries. It has grown, then shrunk, and now grown again under the stewardship of Mr. Pittman, and his father, and now another generation.

Nearly since the farm's inception, tobacco was the main crop although there were always horses. It was Mr. Pittman that gave up the sotweed crop when he turned to a cattle operation.

"Then my son got more involved and said we needed to turn to horses," he said. Mr. Pittman Jr. said he has 37 horses on the property, "in various stages of training,"

He trains horses for eventing, the grueling three-event horsemanship contest that combines dressage, show jumping and cross-country racing. He also has a horse-breeding operation and teaches lessons for those with their own horses.

During the Civil War, horses were raised and trained at Dodon then smuggled south for Confederate forces. Dodon was often raided by Union troops. Confederate Gen. George Hume Steuart was but one of the family who fought for the losing side.

Dodon itself was almost lost for a time. In 1890 two sisters left the then-300 acres to the Congregation of Marist Fathers of the Catholic Church. A mission was set up on the property that became Holy Family Church.

Members of the order thought a planned railroad would cut through the property and help ease potential followers' trips to the swamps of Southern Maryland. But it fell through and the order abandoned the property to the Redemptorists, then the Archdiocese of Baltimore, which tired of it. And it again fell to the Redemptorists in Annapolis.

Mr. Pittman's grandmother was persuaded to buy the land back, and did so for $10,000 in 1929.

"She thought she had been taken," Mr. Pittman recalled. "And she tossed out the church. She told them to move their graveyard. And they did."

A family graveyard, marked by a small obelisk listing the names of Steuart kin resting there, sits in a grove of trees on one of the high spots of the property.

Mr. Pittman and his father were able to buy property to add to the Dodon Farm, bringing it up to its current 555 acres.

But a successful law career that included public service and founding of the law firm Shaw Pittman, now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP made the stewardship possible.

Two years before the first Marlborough races at Roedown, members of the hunt wanted to race each other, and they did race at Dodon. The Dodon Run had been part of a five-race event ever since.

"But this is fox-hunting land, so they started looking for more open land," Mr. Steuart said. "That's when they started at Roedown, it is more open country."

Back during that Maryland Subscription Race won by the first Steuart to own Dodon, Mr. Steuart's horse, Dungannon, beat challenger Lord Charles Carroll's mount by half a length at the match race held at the racetrack, Parole.

The "plate" was actually a bowl made by Annapolis silversmith John Inch. It now resides at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

But now it's again the centerpiece of this year's Marlborough Hunt where local folk will gather upon the hill to frolic and watch the races.

But family lore tells that the bowl, once under the care of Charles Carroll Steuart, was sometimes used to serve oatmeal and also as a centerpiece for flowers.

Another story says he took it into the garden, carrying seeds in it, and left it there until one of the help found it.

And perhaps they will thank the Pittmans, Beggs, Clagetts, and others. Thank them for their stewardship of the land and the great Maryland tradition that started, in earnest, with that race 265 years ago.

There are 11 races at the 34th annual Marlborough Hunt Races on April 6, including the new Annapolis Subscription Plate, a race over two miles for young riders. Post time is high noon, rain or shine. Call 410-798-8275 for information or visit www. marlboroughhuntraces.com.