Kinross Farm rising to the top

Years of effort and design generate results for Zohar and Lisa Ben-Dov’s grand establishment in Upperville, Va. Story by Joe Clancy Jr. Photographs by Douglas Lees

Four Thoroughbreds exercise in an indoor arena—a Grade 1-winning steeplechaser, two foxhunters and a recent 2-year-old sales purchase. They turn figure-eights at a trot or a canter, halt, go off again. In the center stands Neil Morris, horse trainer.

Morris manages the equine resources of Kinross Farm, a 500-acre Thoroughbred facility near Upperville, Va. Owned by Zohar and Lisa Ben-Dov, Kinross is home to a spectrum of horses including steeplechasers, flat runners, broodmares, foxhunters, yearlings and retirees. Though known primarily for its steeplechase success, Kinross shines in each of its disciplines and rides a growth pattern that reflects careful planning and calculated risk.

In 2000, Kinross had its first National Steeplechase Association champion: 3-year-old homebred Segregation Lane. In 2003, the stable won 21 races from 99 starts (flat and jumps) for earnings of just under $400,000. The steeplechase division led the circuit with 55 starts, 14 wins and another divisional champion, novice horse Sur La Tete. Through mid-August, Kinross led all NSA owners in purse earnings with $183,410 banked largely on the back of champion-ship contender Sur La Tete.

The success comes 15 years after Kinross made its first NSA start.
Though steeped in Virginia horse country—Rokeby is a neighbor, as is long-successful owner/breeder Bill Backer—Kinross has a corporate feel, with Zohar as chairman of the board and Morris as the CEO. Together, they might be the perfect team. The owner takes risks, and pushes ideas. Admittedly conservative, the trainer ponders most decisions and tries to produce athletes. The horses benefit.

“We try to make plans, but horses come when they come,” said Zohar Ben-Dov, a native of Israel who has called America home since 1957. “It’s hard to make budgets. Are we opportunists? Maybe. Do we make budgets? Maybe.”

“He likes excitement, and I worry too much, but he’s never once interfered with a decision about a horse,” said Morris, an English native who came to the U.S. to ride three-day event horses. “Zohar always tells me that cream rises to the top, and maybe we’re the cream now.”
The creamy process started in 1993, when Ben-Dov hired Morris as the farm trainer at Kinross, which then was home to more cattle than horses. The job focused on foxhunting, with race horses taking a secondary role. Ben-Dov hunts with gusto every day during the season, and needs a fleet of safe, reliable, bold horses on which to do it. The farm straddles the border between Orange County and Piedmont foxhunting country, and Ben-Dov is active with both packs.

“It’s a similar thrill to racing, yes indeed,” said Ben-Dov, who rode a few point-to-points some 20 years ago. “It’s all about an adrenaline rush. Some people skydive. I foxhunt.”
“I was told from the start that the hunters come first,” said Morris. “They still do in a way, but now there’s a bit more going on.”

Just a bit. Kinross 2004 bubbles with activity and resources both mortal and material. In 2001, Ben-Dov and Morris built a new, 20-stall racing barn and indoor arena complex. A Polytrack course followed. The artificial surface is used at England’s all-weather race courses and will soon be installed on the training track at Keeneland. The track, more like a path that stretches across a huge expanse of Kinross turf, allows for all-weather training and a forgiving surface. The area that used to be the turf gallop is lined with schooling fences of varied heights and consistency.
Still other jumps, the National fences used in NSA races, line the driveway to the Ben-Dovs’ home.

The indoor arena offers warmth in the winter, shade in the summer. The same Polytrack surface covers the arena floor, and just about every horse enters for a warm-up to a day of exercise.
The barn itself could be a Breyer model, though Morris quickly points out that it’s not a showplace. He’d rather have personnel caring for horses than polishing brass. Still, the barn is state-of-the-art compared to race track accommodations, with two wash stalls, a feed room with huge storage closets for blankets and other items, laundry room, office (complete with high-speed Internet access) and accessible electrical outlets.

Ten paddocks, a turf galloping strip, miles of hills and dales accompany the center-aisle barn, and give Morris a variety of training options. Care for the horse sounds like a cliché, but Morris means it. He’s old school when it comes to things like hay (as much as they want, even a bale a day, from a rack mounted high on the wall), ventilation (every stall in the center-aisle barn opens to the outside as well as the center) and a committed fitness regimen involving a variety of exercise.

“Our philosophy is to put weight across their backs with work in the indoor and other places,” said Morris, 40. “Then we can gallop it off. Horses learn to use themselves in different ways, and strengthen muscles they wouldn’t otherwise use in a galloping atmosphere. It’s OK to go to the gym once in a while.”

Morris stresses education of horse and rider during the exercise sessions. Even the 2-year-old, part of the farm for about a week, gets a handle on the expectations—dropping his head in a trot, using his neck, hips, back.

“I like developing horses, that’s what I do well and that’s what I hope we continue,” said Morris. “Everybody always says you can tell a Kinross horse because of the way it looks. Turning out horses that look good, that’s easy. Manes pulled, their faces trimmed, their feet in good shape, the racing tack is clean, the truck has fuel. Those are details. I didn’t do all of that, but I made sure it was done.”

Morris occupies the enviable position of working for a man who loves his equine hobbies and pursues them with a passion. Dollar figures matter, but Ben-Dov wants to win and chases opportunity without overpaying for anything.

Kinross bought $500,000 flat earner Gritty Sandie last year, and quickly won three races (one on the flat and two over hurdles). The purchase opened the door to flat trainer Jimmy Toner’s stable, and Kinross has since bought others, including the promising Deputy Minister gelding Noblest.
While other jump outfits scour past performances and TVG broadcasts, Kinross has created a pipeline with connections like Toner and owner/breeder John Phillips of Darby Dan Farm. Still other racing prospects come from the farm’s breeding program, which has produced several winners, including Segregation Lane. The mares visit Kentucky stallions such as Lear Fan, Parade Ground, Sky Classic and Plea-sant Tap.

“If we are going to breed mares, let’s breed them,” Morris said when the concept came up. “We go to better sires now —they are out-of-the-market horses a bit, but better horses. We aren’t looking for fast 2-year-olds like everyone else.”

To augment the breeding and the buying, Morris regularly attends Fasig-Tipton Midlantic auctions at Timonium. Much like the choosing of sires, Kinross doesn’t buy sales-toppers, largely ignores fast works and shops for conformation before pedigree.

The best horse on the farm came from yet another mode. Sur La Tete isn’t a homebred or a sales purchase, and didn’t come from a top flat trainer. The earner of $212,060 over hurdles was bought out of a field and taken on as a project —and blossomed from un-ride-able rogue to racing star under Kinross’s care. This year, the 6-year-old son of Sky Clas-sic has won the Georgia Cup-NSA1 and Meadow Brook Hurdle Stakes-NSA1.

“It’s all about evolving,” said Morris. “I never feel like I have to do a certain thing. I don’t want to win the races by greater distances. I want the barn to be continually successful and I’m never complacent about it.”

If the operation required a theme, it would—without question—be quality. Ben-Dov spends money, but has invested most of it in tools and infrastructure. The barn, the indoor arena, the Polytrack, equipment to maintain it all. At the center is Morris, whose commitment has fueled the success. The trainer grew up with little connection to horses before taking a job working on a horse farm in his native England and following the equine world through ponies, eventers, point-to-pointers and race horses.

“He’s an outstanding horseman who’s interested in the whole animal,” said Ben-Dov. “We were looking for a trainer to be on the farm and somebody told me ‘I have a guy you’re going to love.’ He came to the house, and I felt he was an outstanding human being. At the time, he didn’t know as much as he knows now, but I could tell he was going somewhere. I always wanted to get more involved in the racing, but it’s really evolved. If it weren’t for Neil, I wouldn’t do it.”
At first glance, the owner and trainer appear to be opposites though they complement each other. Morris eats, sleeps, drinks horses and what to do with them. Ben-Dov wants to succeed. Do their goals ever clash?

“Only liars and fools have only good times,” said Ben-Dov, 67. “It’s rare, but we do dis-agree occasionally.” Obviously driven, Ben-Dov talks quickly, suffers no fools and has high expectations. He also works. Ben-Dov operates Belvedere Management Company (in his words it “does business in New York”) from an office on the farm. Ben-Dov came to America for the “quest of opportunity” and has succeeded.

Ben-Dov is no idle executive, with the farm or the business. With Kinross, it could be a final decision on horse pur-chases. With Belvedere, it could be a window. A huge, custom-made, wooden window for a Manhattan office building. Ben-Dov hired a local woodworking shop to build the window—about eight feet high and 30 feet long.
“Do you want to visit my window?” Ben Dov asked a recent visitor. The visit was more like a check-up as Ben-Dov inspected, cajoled, called about the nearly inch-thick glass and pondered a deadline.

“Everything is parallel to me—business and horses,” he said. “It’s about attention to detail and trying to do as good a job as humanly possible.”
Though not as immediately evident, that trait percolates strongly in Morris as well. Married to three-day event rider Beale Wright Morris (together they have an infant son named Wright Anthony), the trainer lived on the farm for seven years, with every minute occupied by the horses. Now he lives a short drive away, on a small farm continually under improvement, but still gets consumed by his horses.

He manages a small staff that includes the first person he ever hired, Jamie Ariano, plus longtime employee Chris Read and Diane Atwood. They work from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. with two hours off in the middle of the day.

“I learned from working 18 hours a day and wondering if it would ever end that you aren’t very productive if you don’t like what you do,” he said. “I want people to want to come to work. If they like what they are doing they will do a better job.”
Rider Matt McCarron, Kin-ross’s stable jockey for several seasons, sees that commitment when he climbs into the saddle.

“Neil pays ultimate attention to every detail and genuinely falls in love with his horses, and you can tell when you ride them,” said McCarron. “Riding his horses, you know you’re sitting on the best he can provide —his horses are at the top of their own game.”
As a private trainer, Morris gives up some of the flexibility public trainers enjoy but lives without the pressure of trying to find owners and/or horses for owners.

“If you really mess up, [a private job] is over,” he said. “Your one owner can leave you with no job, no home, nothing. But I don’t want to be a public trainer. I don’t know how you sell steeplechasing to an owner. The horses run four to six times a year, there’s a higher chance of injury, the costs are as high as flat racing—I’m not pooh-poohing the sport, because I love it and it’s good racing. It’s just a tough sell and I don’t know sales. Would I learn if I was in that situation? I’d have to, but it would be work for me.”

Plus, if Morris devoted more time to selling, he might have less time to train. “You’ve got to be crazy to do this—and we qualify,” said Ben-Dov. “I love having horses here, love seeing them come along, love the excitement of racing. The horses, the training, the babies.”