The Race Before the Race: Gold Cup to Host Free Clinic Fundraiser
By • September 20, 2026 0 252
By Leland Schwartz
Rob Marino has been running the free clinic in Warrenton, Virginia, for going on three decades. What’s got him up these nights are the upcoming changes in the 2010 Affordable Care Act that are about to knock up to 1,500 Fauquier County residents off their Medicaid insurance.
The Fauquier Free Clinic already spends every cent of the nearly $3 million it raises to take care of more than 2,260 patients who came to the clinic for nearly 13,000 cost-free visits.
The clinic has more than 200 volunteers, including doctors, dentists and mental health care practitioners, but the medicine they prescribe and the supplies they use are by no means free. Indeed, more than 90 percent of the clinic’s funding goes to medical and pharmacy costs, dental care and hygiene expenses and providing mental health care.
“It’s more important than ever for us to have some support from the community, so that we can continue to be there for people,” Marino said. “This is an especially important year for us to seek that support and to be ready for what’s going to be more patients looking for help than we’ve been accustomed to.
“We’re already working really at capacity,” he said. “If there were another 1,500 people uninsured in this community, it would really be a strain to take good care of them.”
So the Virginia Gold Cup, in keeping with its original twin missions, is going to have a fundraiser for the Fauquier Free Clinic on Friday, Oct. 23, at Great Meadow in The Plains, the night before the International Gold Cup runs. One hundred percent of the proceeds will go to the clinic.
This is the race before the race, to help the clinic raise enough extra new money to be able to take care of the hundreds of new patients that will turn to them for help next year.
Gold Cup chairman Al Griffin explained it this way: “The Virginia Gold Cup Association has two goals. One, to provide the best steeplechase racing possible for the horsemen and spectators, and two, to create benefit to the local community through the races.
“This is the model for all steeplechase racing in America and is why steeplechasing is actually showing significant growth,” said Griffin. “It’s a partnership between the races and the community that we want to enhance moving forward.”
With the motto, “The spirit of Gold Cup meets the heart of Hunt Country,” the event is called “A Taste of Gold Cup.” Some of Hunt Country’s best restaurants will serve some of their best dishes.
“Those involved in steeplechase racing are by nature very passionate people, and that passion also extends to involvement in local community needs,” said Taste of Gold Cup committee member and donor Sondra LeHew.
The race and the clinic have deep roots together. Griffin and past Gold Cup chairman Dr. Will Allison, both dentists, were among the original group that started the clinic in 1993. More to the point, many of the clinic’s patients are part of the equine community’s workforce.
Dr. Sara Kepple, who runs Prosperity Family Medicine in Warrenton and is president of the clinic’s board, said that, without the clinic, health care for many would vanish.
“They would miss their cancer screenings. They would miss their chronic disease management. They would have more bad outcomes with heart disease and lose access to mental health care and dental care. Those things are hugely impactful in people’s lives.”
About 10 years ago, Gold Cup sponsored a similar fundraiser, which Marino said is a key reason the clinic has flourished.
“A lot of the folks who met us there continued to help us after the party was over. It’s pretty great, but we do need to come back to them and give an update, and this is why it’s important what we’re doing, an opportunity to help understand what we need next.
“It’s a lot to raise every single year,” Marino said of the clinic’s budget. “But this community has been incredibly good to us. You know, whenever we have raised our hands and said we need help, people have come through and said yes.”
Rob Marino, executive director of the Fauquier Free Clinic. Photo by Leland Schwartz.
Dr. Sara Kepple, board president of the Fauquier Free Clinic. Photo by Leland Schwartz.
Courtesy Fauquier Free Clinic.
