In April 1951, The Maryland Horse magazine printed a brief news article about a couple of horse-crazy teenagers and their encyclopedic knowledge displayed during a Question Bee conducted by the Havre de Grace chapter of the Harford County (Md.) Horse and Pony Club.

Try as he might, master of ceremonies Humphrey Finney did not find a question to stump the winner, 14-year-old Audrey Rickey, whose boyfriend, Allen Murray, finished as runner-up in the contest.

Fast forward 51 years, and Audrey and Allen Murray are standing behind the Pimlico stakes barn following the 127th running of the Preakness, participating in something that might be described as a grown-up version of a Question Bee. But this time there are no clear-cut answers.

And only two questions really matter: Would they sell? And for how for much? Kentucky Derby hero War Emblem had just won the Preakness in a most convincing style, adding immeasurably to the value of his sire Our Emblem, the young Mr. Prospector stallion whom the Murrays brought to their Murmur Farm in Darlington, Md., last November, before his second crop exploded into action, yielding up so far this spring four stakes winners and two classic contenders.

A TV reporter, side-stepping the unanswerable, stuck a microphone in front of Audrey Murray’s face and asked: How do you feel about War Emblem and Our Emblem? I love them both, said Audrey with a warm smile, and undoubtable sincerity. The questions still loomed. But, to many, departure seemed inevitable.

After the Belmont, said Audrey Murray at one point, when asked when they might make a decision. Then on June 5 the suspense ended. Our Emblem was sold to a partnership of WinStar and Taylor Made Farms, for slightly more than $10 million. The Mid-Atlantic region, briefly home to the leading sire in North America, is left with only the memories, and a swirling mass of second-guesses.

Did the Murrays do the right thing? Was their selling price (astronomically more than the still-undisclosed amount they paid for the horse whom they struggled to syndicate last fall at $7,500 a share) too low? Did they sell too soon? Would they have been better off in the long run if they’d kept the horse here? No one knows. But one thing’s for sure.

The Murrays are not, as they’ve sometimes been portrayed, a couple of small-time operators who landed a big one solely on luck. Murmur Farm, situated on 133 acres of mostly pastureland contained by gleaming white fences, is a gem of a facility that has been likened to one of Maryland’s most sacred Thoroughbred sites that is Sagamore Farm in its heyday.

The Murrays have assembled that operation literally with their own hands, and their ace in the hole has been a knack for turning over horses at a profit. The story has often been told of how the Murrays bought their first broodmare Rip-Fleet (out of a daughter of Man o’ War) for $800 in 1959 before they were married. In foal to one of Maryland’s stalwart stallions, Tuscany, the mare promptly produced a colt whom they sold for $3,400 at the inaugural Eastern Fall Yearling sale in 1961.

(That yearling price was well above average by the standards of the day. The sales-topper brought $6,000.) Profits from their yearling, the first horse the Murrays bred, provided the down payment on a run-down, 40-acre farm in Harford County. Everything we’ve made, we’ve put back into the operation. Sometimes we talk about what it would be like to take off one year and enjoy the money.

But you can never stand still were Audrey Murray’s words and that was in 1984. An electrical engineer by education, Allen Murray devoted time away from his job with the federal government (he retired in 1988) to building barns and fences, and Audrey worked right along with him often until 10 or 11 o’clock at night, after their three children had been tucked into bed.

The kids Kent, Stuart and Carolyn would grow into able farmhands, but none has made it a career. Although they loved what they did, their life was an epic struggle. It was our policy never to say Ôno’ to a boarder, Allen Murray has recalled. There were times when a trainer would call at night and say he was sending four horses down to us the next afternoon.

We’d be up all night building stalls. The pieces came together for the Murrays in 1988, when they parlayed the original Murmur Farm near Bel Air into the purchase of their present-day property, which had previously been owned by trainer Tom Barry. In the early 1990s, they ventured gambled deeper than ever before, acquiring Norquestor and syndicating him to stand at stud in their handsome new six-stall stallion barn.

Norquestor hit big within the region, siring well over 30 stakes performers before his untimely death in January 1999 from complications of a bone infection. And so did the Murmur stallion Deerhound (by Danzig), who moved from the Murrays’ farm to Kentucky after his daughter Countess Diana won the 1997 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Stakes-G1 and an Eclipse Award as the champion 2-year-old filly.

Originally syndicated by the Murrays for $7,500 a share, Deerhound raised the value of those shares to $45,000 by the time of his sale. Encouraged by the success of Norquestor and Deerhound, the Murrays kept rolling the dice.

They currently stand six stallions, including sprint star Disco Rico, who entered stud this season. Wonder what they plan to do now that Our Emblem is gone? That’s easy: Buy another horse.

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