Moran’s Unique Feat
Michael Moran of Unionville, Pa., not only owns the all-time leading steeplechase earner, three-time Eclipse Award winner McDynamo, he also co-bred one of this season’s top 3-year-old runners—Hard Spun.
Story by George R. Carter. Photographs by Barrie B. Reightler.

When it comes to Thor­oughbred racing, the 53-year-old Pennsylvania horseman Michael Moran has achieved the best of both worlds.

In the world of steeplechasing, Moran is represented, as an owner, by one of the top performers of all time—McDynamo, a three-time Eclipse Award winner who became the first jumper to top $1 million in earnings (exclusive of bonuses) while getting his fourth consecutive victory in the Breeders’ Cup Steeplechase-NSA1 last fall.

While McDynamo, trained by Sanna Hendriks, waited to make his season’s debut, the near-undefeated colt Hard Spun—whom Moran bred in partnership with his mother, Elizabeth Moran—was taking aim on this spring’s Triple Crown. (Mid-Atlantic Thor­ough­bred’s coverage of the Ken­tucky Derby and Preakness will appear in next month’s issue.)

Barely a week before the Ken­tucky Derby, however, Moran wasn’t sweating the latest twists and turns. Instead, he was digging into another kind of project at his Applestone Farm, in the heart of Unionville hunt country.
He was planting trees, thousands of them.

A world away from the race track, on a mild spring day, Moran led a handful of farm workers as they embarked on a watershed preservation effort with trees provided by a conservancy group. A branch of White Clay Creek originates just up the meadow in Moran’s springhouse, and by the time the project is over, more than 3,000 trees will have been planted.

Moran—described by fellow horse trainer Dr. John R.S. Fisher as “the most energetic guy I’ve ever known”—carefully nurtures his 225-acre farm in much the same way he manages his horses. It’s no wonder that his select operation of well-bred horses has made its mark in such a big way.

excellence runs in the family
Among Mid-Atlantic horsepeople, no name carries more cachet than Moran.
Elizabeth Moran, whose Brushwood Stable in Malvern, Pa., ranks at the top of the region’s commercial breeding operations, rose to national promi­nence as the owner of 1985 Belmont Stakes winner Creme Fraiche, and has had at least one horse in the limelight nearly every year since. Recent stars of her breeding program include European champion Russian Rhythm and the newly minted millionaire Master Command.

Michael’s brother Jim Moran has also had noteworthy success, as the proprietor of Elk Manor Farm in North East, Md., birthplace of last year’s Maryland-bred Horse of the Year, Les Arcs, whose campaign in England earned him acclaim as one of the best sprinters in the world in 2006.

Then there is sister Frances Moran Abbott, a horsewoman in her own right and wife of National Steeplechase Associ­ation president Franny Abbott.
Last but by no means least is Michael Moran’s wife, Anne K. Moran, whose accomplishments as an amateur rider have also earned her a place at the pinnacle of steeplechasing. She won the Maryland Hunt Cup in 1995 and 1997 aboard Arcadia Stable’s Buck Jakes. Buck Jakes set a course record the first time, beating by three seconds the mark set by *Ben Nevis II in 1978. Moran also rode Buck Jakes to victory in the 1997 and 1998 Maryland Grand National.
Still, with all his illustrious connections, Michael Moran has sometimes been perceived as a mystery man. “A lot of people don’t know too much about him,” says Mark McDermott, executive secretary of the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association. “For someone as successful as he has been, he keeps a low profile.”
Moran grew up as the second of six children in Paoli, Pa., and says he has been riding since the age of 7 or 8. He showed and raced ponies as a boy, and dropped out of the University of Pennsylvania to go to work in Ireland for trainer Ruby Walsh, whose son, Ted, trained Papillon to win the 2000 English Grand National at Ain­tree for Elizabeth Moran.

Before starting his own training operation, Moran spent six years (1976 to 1982) working for Hall of Fame trainer W. Burling Cocks.  
Michael and Anne met in Unionville, while she was employed by local horsewoman Betty Bird, and were married in January 1984. Anne, born and raised in County Meath, Ireland, is the daughter of former amateur steeplechase jockey Martin Kelly.

farm for all seasons
Moran and his wife bought Applestone Farm, with its gently rolling contours, 21 years ago. It had been a mushroom farm, and in no way resembled its current state. They have added on to the property over the years, buying land from their neighbors, always with the intent of preserving it. A major portion of the Pennsylvania Hunt Cup course has been incorporated into the farm.
The existing house was assessed at $15,000 when they moved in. They added on around the core of the house, built in 1750, and it’s now a spacious, elegant home for the Morans and their children.

They have three daughters. Elizabeth, 19, is a freshman at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., and a field hockey player. Caroline, 16, is a 10th-grader at Westminster School in Sims­bury, Conn. Thirteen-year-old Emily attends the nearby Upland Country Day School in Unionville.

An outdoors enthusiast, Moran regularly goes skiing in Europe and out West with his family and plays squash every day on an indoor court he installed on his farm.
Moran’s life centers around family and farm, and it is here that he plies his trade as a trainer (of exclusively flat runners), while working closely with his wife, who handles the bookkeeping and many other details. He points to his first winner’s circle picture as a trainer, when he saddled Turn Quickly in a July 1984 claimer at Penn National.

Currently he has three 2-year-olds, two 3-year-old colts and four 3-year-old fillies, three older grass horses, as well as a hunter and some ponies.
Among his current prospects is McDynamo’s 4-year-old half-sister, Rosamund (by Lemon Drop Kid), whom he purchased for $100,000 at the 2004 Keeneland September Yearling sale.

The filly has “mental issues,” according to Moran, who describes her as a hypochondriac, and is just now getting her career underway. She has competed in flat races at point-to-points—Middleburg, Va., last fall and Marlborough in Maryland this spring—and made her race track debut, as an also-ran, at Atlantic City in April. Moran’s plan is to get Rosamund to the winner’s circle at least once (“She will win, it’s just a matter of getting her confidence level up,” he says) and sell her as a broodmare this fall.

“She doesn’t have enough pedigree to be a broodmare for me,” says Moran.
His most recent stakes winner is Silent Roar, a 4-year-old gelding by Unbridled’s Song whom he purchased for $300,000 at the Keeneland September Yearling sale and sent out to win last year’s Paterson Stakes at the Meadowlands. Silent Roar comes from a family that has produced many distinguished runners, including champions Ajdal and Arazi.

Moran counts a total of nine stakes winners (17 stakes wins in all) since 1987 among the horses he has trained. His mother is his major client, and the bulk of his stakes wins have been for her. He also trains for a handful of outside owners. “I don’t actively go out and pursue people,” he says.

When choosing horses, he looks for those who are likely to do well on the turf.
Amenities at Applestone include a Tapeta track, curiously without a rail. “The rail was removed when we replaced the wood chips with Tapeta, and we never put it back,” he explains. “We haven’t really needed it, and doing without a rail eliminates a lot of weed-eating.”

In addition to the track, Moran points to his six-furlong grass breezing strip that goes “straightaway uphill,” adding to the horses’ conditioning. He also has a portable four-stall starting gate. “Now you can see why I don’t go to the [race] track,” he adds.

A 20-stall barn, a gift from his mother on his 50th birthday, is an environmental—as well as practical—marvel. The windows pull up, creating an open and airy space that is more like a lean-to than a traditional stable. Walls are made of recycled materials, including plastic.  

Swimming facilities are cleverly engineered in the form of a pond filled with rainwater run-off from the roof of the barn. But Moran says he rarely swims horses, since an incident several years ago with a horse who became fractious while about to enter the water.

With everything he needs right at home, Moran leases out the stalls he owns at Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland.

Moran’s hands-on style extends to the work with the horses. He personally gallops four or five horses every morning. Anne also helps with the schooling, but she has stayed away from young horses since she broke her back awhile back. She has been recently recovering from a broken hand, which she suffered after a horse she was riding reared and her hand smashed down.
Moran’s farm staff is selectively small. He has a rider, Brian Korrell, who comes to the farm to breeze horses and gallop, three workers, and a barn manager, Don Cagle. Jump jockey Paddy Young has also been helping out tempor­arily, since Anne has been sidelined. In the summers, Moran likes to employ a young person from Ire­land, but he says they are getting harder to find because of the booming economy there.

“I’m not very tolerant of bad help,” he says, adding that it’s difficult to find good, light riders.

Moran counsels patience with horses and doesn’t believe in running them in the winter, using the time for rest. “I can’t think of anything worse than going to Philadelphia Park in February,” he says.

As a trainer, he says, “I really try to pride myself with being honest with my owners,” not giving them inflated assessments of their horses’ potential.
At the same time, he says, he also tries to educate his owners. “This pet-shop mentality is crazy. I’m just trying to do my job and win races,” he says of an owner disappointed in losing a horse whom he had successfully moved up in the claiming ranks.

Driving a Gator ATV past a barn, he lightly hops off, explaining he’ll be back in a quick minute. He has to give a horse a shot. Loading his two yellow Labradors into the back of the Gator, he rolls on. Later, gesturing toward one of his green, spacious fields, he observes: “I try to keep the horses outside. It gives them a good head.”

tryst with fame
Moran likes to call Hard Spun’s dam, Turkish Tryst (a daughter of Turkoman), “the goose that laid the golden egg.” He bought Turkish Tryst for $39,000 at the 1992 Keeneland September Yearling sale for a syndicate that never came through, and trained her to earn $84,362. A late-developing turf performer, Turkish Tryst did her best running at age 5, winning the April Run Stakes at Laurel Park and finishing third in the Grade 2 Matchmaker Stakes at Monmouth Park—while carrying her first foal, by Belong to Me.

That Belong to Me daughter, Treysta (a three-quarter-sister to Hard Spun), is now a member of Moran’s broodmare band; she had a Mutakddim filly this spring and is in foal for 2008 to Speightstown. Her value is directly linked to Hard Spun’s 3-year-old campaign, as Moran muses.

“Part of the thing, the value, is such hype,” he explains, talking about how he sold Hard Spun to Delaware resident Rick Porter for $400,000 in a private deal after the colt did not reach his $485,000 reserve at the Keeneland September Yearling sale in 2005. Hard Spun was a May foal and immature, he says, and reported interest by Arab bidders did not materialize.

Hard Spun is Turkish Tryst’s sixth foal, and each is by a different sire. “Every horse I bred her to, [the foal] was an absolute beauty and it looked like they could run.” The mare has also produced stakes winner Our Rite of Spring (by Stravinsky) and stakes-placed Wild Current (by Wild Again), who were sold at the Saratoga Selected Yearling sale for $180,000 and $200,000, respectively.
Hard Spun is from the next-to-last crop of the longtime nationally leading sire Danzig, a son of Northern Dancer who, incidentally, was foaled in Pennsylvania at the late Marshall Jenney’s Derry Meeting Farm, not far from Moran’s establishment.

Turkish Tryst was bred to Danzig because Elizabeth Moran owned a share in the stallion. Michael Moran wound up selling Turkish Tryst to his mother, he explains, because he needed a half-million dollars to build the Tapeta track on his farm. “She had been bugging me to buy the mare,” he says.
Now part of the elite broodmare band at Brushwood, Turk­ish Tryst had a Kingmambo filly, named Kissed by a Star, on March 14, and was bred to Storm Cat.

Moran owns three and a half broodmares, he explains, the half being a Dixieland Band filly retired last year. He has a multiple stakes-placed 10-year-old Red Ransom mare named Minkie, who had a colt by More Than Ready and is to be bred to Lion Heart. A young Dixieland Band mare, Mood Indigo (a full sister to stakes winner Dootsie and half-sister to multiple stakes winner Sand Ridge), whom he owns with his mother, is in foal to Grand Slam. Another mare, Free Scarlet, by Red Ransom, is in foal to Brahms.

A favorite strategy of his, Michael says, is to race his fillies and if they are successful, bring them back as broodmares. “I don’t go to Keeneland to buy mares,” he says. “I go for yearling fillies that I like and can afford.”
He breeds primarily to Kentucky stallions, with occasional ventures to Maryland. Pulling Punches, whom he saddled to win the 1998 Maryland Million Nursery in his mother’s colors, was a son of Maryland sire Two Punch. Moran owns no stallion shares.

His mares foal at neighboring farms (primarily at facilities owned by Mrs. Edgar Scott Jr. and Rick and Dixie Abbott), making all of Moran’s foals Pennsylvania-breds, although Applestone has no foaling facilities. Hard Spun was born at Brushwood, where some of Moran’s mares also go to deliver foals.
While Michael does business with his mother, Elizabeth Moran relies upon Kentucky-based bloodstock agent Reiley McDonald as her principal adviser. Moran doesn’t usually advise his mother on breeding decisions. The focus is different as well, since Michael breeds more to race than to sell his young horses.  

a real Dynamo
Moran purchased McDynamo (by Dynaformer) for $82,000 at the 1998 Keene­land September Yearling sale, attracted to him by his big, rangy physique. “I had seen his brother [graded winner Old Chapel] with John Kimmel at Fair Hill, and I liked the type,” says Moran. “He looked like he’d be a marathon turf horse.”
Moran trained McDynamo to win two races on the flat, then turned him to steeplechasing as a 4-year-old in 2001. During his career as a flat horse, he had some racing injuries and a fear of the starting gate. He’d been jumping since he was 2, so Moran tried him over hurdles and “the rest is history.”
Moran had long since given up training jumpers himself. “It’s a different type of routine,” he says. “Maybe I would do it if I had the help; you need riders, and they have to go in a group.”

To launch McDynamo’s steeplechasing career, Moran turned to an old friend and former riding colleague of his wife. McDynamo would be first horse that Sanna Hendriks trained for Moran.

Hendriks, the wife of trainer Ricky Hendriks, comes from a noted steeplechasing family, as a daughter of trainer/rider Paddy Neilson, and she has had a brilliant career of her own, twice riding to victory in the Maryland Hunt Cup (aboard Tom Bob-Ire in 1991 and Ivory Poacher in 1993), and saddling her first winner in the timber classic this year.

“We have a great working relationship,” Moran says of his trainer, and apparently McDynamo agrees. The gelding doubles as Hendriks’s mount with the Cheshire Hunt in the off-season. “He doesn’t do anything wrong,” Moran says. Hendriks used him as a pony, to accompany another horse to the post, at this year’s Plumstead point-to-point (a meet that is held on Moran’s farm). McDynamo looked so calm that Moran asked Hen­driks if he had been tranquilized. He hadn’t.

McDynamo competes only three or four times a year, and that’s fine with Moran. “If he’s a good horse, you’d like to protect him.”
But Moran does not reserve his affection for his famous horses. His other favorites include stakes-placed Rob Roy, a one-eyed 20-year-old pensioner at Applestone. Moran originally bought him from Marshall Jenney and he was subsequently claimed, but Moran had the good fortune to buy him back later for $1,000.

Moran’s good friend Jamie Blaine, a research associate with Stroud Water Research Center in Avondale, Pa., knows Moran not through his horse interests, but as a conservationist, and philanthropist. Still, Blaine says, he has “always been very struck by Michael’s great reverence for horses. He treats them the same way he treats people; to him, each horse is an individual.”