Morgan’s Ford Farm: splendor along the Shenandoah.

Susie and Wayne Chatfield-Taylor’s scenic farm is one of the region’s leading commercial Thoroughbred nurseries.
Story by George R. Carter Photographs by Barrie B. Reightler

Morgan’s Ford Farm in Front Royal, Va., is a tableau of land and animals, a masterful labor of love that Wayne and Susie Chatfield-Taylor have been steadily building since 1979. Not incidentally, it is also one of the region’s premier Thoroughbred nurseries, having bred and/or raised 31 stakes winners and achieved an enviable reputation for select, well-bred sales horses.

Practically a world unto itself, the farm, within sight of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the lush Shenandoah Valley, was originally part of a larger tract developed by prominent Virginian Raymond R. Guest Sr. in the late 1930s. He had assembled 2,500 acres, built a house and main barn, but then abandoned the project before completion. Guest, a state senator, was ambassador to Ireland during President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration.

Susie’s father, Dr. Samuel F. Thomas, a New York neurol­ogist, bought a corner of that property. What greeted the Chatfield-Taylors upon their arrival 26 years ago was an unfinished shell of a home— “vintage Ozzie and Harriet,” as Wayne called it—that was constructed around 1950. The couple pulled their horse van up to the front door, dragged off their furniture, set up camp and got right to work. The first tool they bought was a chainsaw.
There was plenty to do. “I think, initially, our naivety was a blessing,” said Wayne. The farm was dormant: The fences weren’t standing, and the grass was unmowed. “We’ve been building it ever since,” Wayne said.

The breeding operation has grown along with the farm. The Chatfield-Taylors started out with six mares and have since had about 300 foals born at Morgan’s Ford. They aim to sell 10 to 15 young horses per year.

One mare they brought with them was Baskerville, a daughter of *Sea Charger and an old show horse of Susie’s. In retirement, Baskerville roamed the farm unchecked by fences. She is buried in the farm cemetery, located at the bottom of a hill. Her daughter, stakes-placed Chanctonbury, now 31, still lives on the farm as one of about eight pensioners.

Among the current runners bred by Morgan’s Ford is the outstanding 4-year-old filly Bank Audit, winner of three stakes this season, including the Genuine Risk and Distaff Breeders’ Cup Handicaps (both Grade 2). Sold by the Chatfield-Taylors for $52,000 at the 2002 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Eastern Fall Yearling sale, Bank Audit (by Wild Rush) has earned $501,761 in 25 career starts, and now campaigns for New York-based owner Robert Amendola.

Bank Audit’s family ties go back a long way at Morgan’s Ford, with Susie’s late mother, Elizabeth Thomas, having purchased her granddam Rabida (by Rollicking) for $32,000 at the 1978 Eastern Fall Yearling sale. Rabida—now living out her days as a pensioner at Morgan’s Ford—produced four stakes horses, one of whom is Bank Audit’s dam, Mosquera (by Faraway Son), who continues as a producer at the farm.

Stars among Morgan’s Ford’s current 16-member brood­­mare band include I’ll Get There (Copelan—I’m a Plea­sure, by What a Pleasure), who is the dam of Grade 1 winner I Believe in You (by Plea­sant Tap). The Chatfield-Taylors sold I Believe in You for $315,000—top price among fillies and second-highest overall—at the 1999 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Eastern Fall Yearling sale. The filly carried the colors of her buyers, Jan, Mace and Samantha Siegel, to victory in the Hollywood Starlet Stakes-G1, and finished on the board in each of her four starts. I’ll Get There was bred this year to Smarty Jones and has a weanling filly by Aldebaran.

The Chatfield-Taylors also own close relatives to two of this season’s top performers. Their 11-year-old mare Hawzah (GB) (by Green Desert) is a half-sister to multiple Group 1-winning 3-year-old Oratorio. Just beginning her broodmare career at Morgan’s Ford is 4-year-old Never a No Hitter (by Kris S.), whose half-sister Contrive (by Storm Cat) is the dam of Matron Stakes-G1 winner Folklore.

Underpinning the growing success of the Chatfield-Taylors’ operation is their straightforward philosophy. It is rooted, they say, in the land itself, a fortuitous and rich mixing of soil, climate and history.

The Shenandoah has always been a fertile region. During the Civil War, the “bread basket of the Confederacy,” as it was then known, was an area of vital strategic importance. It was there that General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson led his legendary Valley campaigns that so badly frustrated the Union armies.

Long before that, the area was a major migratory route for pre-Columbian Indians. On a neighbor’s farm across the river, three Indian mounds have been uncovered. Wayne said he is constantly collecting artifacts when his tractors work the fields. As a mechanical rock-picker worked nearby, Wayne pointed to a big pile of stones and assorted debris to sort through. The field, he explained, is being cleared so he can plant rye for straw. Almost all of the hay and straw used on the farm is produced on the premises. “This farm is totally organic, except for a little fly spray,” Wayne said. He has fertilized his fields with Norwegian seaweed to keep the weevils down.

The farm is named for nearby Morgan’s Ford, a crossing of the Shenandoah River at the edge of the property. These days, a low-water bridge crosses the river. The bridge, which is included in a miles-long conservation easement that Wayne has obtained along the river, is true to its description. When the river is low, the bridge is dry and vehicles cross freely. When the Shenandoah runs high, water covers the span and drivers cross at their own discretion. The actual river ford is next to the bridge.

The ford was named after General Daniel Morgan, a hero of the Revolutionary War’s Battle of Saratoga, who lived nearby. He named his own farm in honor of that pivotal military engagement in upstate New York.

The Chatfield-Taylors are leaders in preservation, the first landowners in the area to commit property to scenic easement. In addition to their own preserved three and a half miles along the river, they have persuaded some of their neighbors to join in the effort and are trying for 14 permanently preserved miles. It’s an ideal area for hiking, tubing and canoeing. The Appalachian Trail runs nearby, and there is a put-in for boats at the low-water bridge on a public road. The Chatfield-Taylors said they enjoy tubing on the river in the summer.

Landscape and farm meld seamlessly on the couple’s roughly 1,000 acres. Wayne, an architect by training, makes sure that his farm buildings complement their setting. An equipment shed, for instance, was constructed with wood from the farm’s own trees. Using only storm-downed wood from the 300 acres of forest, Wayne operates an on-site sawmill to meet the farm’s needs.

He recently spent more than a year renovating a broodmare barn of log construction, and noted that the mares just love it there. It’s airy, cool and comforting; he even installed skylights.

A short walk from the couple’s house is a classic Belmont training barn that was already there when the Chatfield-Taylors moved in, although in poor repair. The barn has been renovated twice under the Chatfield-Taylors’ watch, with one of the overhauls requiring a year and a half of labor. It houses yearlings in the summer months, and is used for foaling mares in the winter.

“ This farm has such good bones,” he said. “The uncompleted thought was there.”
The Chatfield-Taylors, both in their mid-50s, brought considerable expertise with them to make that thought a reality. Susie comes from a strong horse background. She grew up in Red Bank, N.J., and competed at major horse shows. Later, she turned to racing. She was both a professional exercise rider and horse photographer.

In the mid-1970s, Susie’s father bought her a farm just south of Tolchester on Mary­land’s Eastern Shore, where she bred horses and rode. Her mother kept breeding stock at the farm, called Hinchingham. Neapolitan Way, who finished second to Little Current in the 1974 Preakness, was once part of Elizabeth Thomas’s stable.

Susie and Wayne married in 1977. Wayne, from a longtime family of the Leesburg, Va., area, started riding at age 3. He was never involved in breeding, he said. That was a passion of Susie’s, who is a student of bloodstock pedigrees.

While their horses carry high-caliber pedigrees, the farm is designed to make them into athletes. “We keep the fields as big as possible so the horses can stretch their legs and fill their lungs at young ages,” Wayne said.

The Chatfield-Taylors pointed out that they usually sell the colts as weanlings or yearlings; the fillies they may keep. The farm has a three-quarter-mile grass course that was already roughed-in when the couple arrived. Young horses are broken on-site, but Wayne explained that they don’t have enough steady work to keep riders busy year-round. As a result, horses are taken elsewhere for further training.

One measure of how the young horses thrive on the farm is a performance listing of Keeneland September Yearling sales consignors between 1991 and 2002 compiled by Thoroughbred Times and published in the September 11, 2005, edition of thoroughbredtimes.com. Morgan’s Ford Farm sold 27 yearlings at Keeneland September during that period, and all of them went on to make at least one start on the race track. Twenty (74.1 percent) were winners, five (18.5 percent) were stakes winners and three (11.1 percent) were graded stakes winners.

At the 2002 Keeneland September sale, Morgan’s Ford marketed a bargain in the form of Skipaslew (by Skip Away), an $18,000 colt who has won four stakes, including the 2004 renewal of the Golden Gate Derby-G3, for TV producer Merv Griffin. Skipaslew, out of the beautifully bred mare Slew Be (by Seattle Slew), was claimed by Griffin for $50,000 while making his second start against maidens at Hollywood Park in July 2003. His career earnings now total $307,465.

Another recent standout from Morgan’s Ford is Kris’s Prayer (Kris S.—My Prayer by Hero’s Honor), the champion Virginia-bred 3-year-old male in 2002, the season in which he won the Choice Stakes and finished second in the Jersey Derby-G3, both at Monmouth Park.

Morgan’s Ford is marketing six major yearling offerings in 2005: four who sold at Keeneland September and two consigned to the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Eastern Fall sale. The Keeneland group was topped by a chestnut colt by Came Home—I’ll Get There, sold for $400,000 on the third day of the sale, with Gainesway as agent.

Consigned to the Keeneland November sale are three weanlings, including fillies by Giant’s Causeway—Ready Cash and Swain (Ire)—Hawzah (GB).

The Chatfield-Taylors’ own small contingent of horses of racing age currently consists of three 2-year-olds, one of whom, Running Bond (Commendable—Wonders Delight, by Icecapade), is at Laurel Park with trainer Tim Tullock. Running Bond is owned by a partnership of 10 architects, all people whom Wayne went to school with. The term “running bond” comes from the architectural profession; it refers to a method of laying bricks. To facilitate the meetings of the partners at the farm, Wayne crafted a large walnut table from his own wood, using his sawmill.

The Chatfield-Taylors and their staff of eight full-time workers and several part-timers are diligent stewards of the land, with about 150 trees being planted every year. All the full-time employees, Wayne noted, live on the farm. The tidy tenant houses are tucked along the lanes, fitting perfectly into the contours of the farm.

Morgan’s Ford quietly hums with self-sufficiency. A Santa Gertrudis cattle herd, from King Ranch stock, provides the meat, and there is even a bee-hive operation in a quiet corner of the farm. An electric fence surrounds the hives to keep away hungry bears. Wayne said a beekeeper maintains it and gives him honey in return.

There’s a polo field on the farm, where the late Raymond R. (Andy) Guest Jr., an internationally known polo player and Virginia delegate, used to play. The Chatfield-Taylors rent it to a local club.

The couple also keeps a large organic vegetable garden next to their house. Shaded and laced with outdoor running water­ways, the home does just fine without air conditioning. Wayne said there are about 30 different kinds of wood in the home’s interior, including silver maple, walnut, cherry and pine. Wayne and Susie greatly ex­panded the size of the original house in a project five years ago.

Once every December, the Blue Ridge Hunt meets at Morgan’s Ford. Wayne said he makes sure to put all his horses inside and shut the doors. The hunting, predictably, makes for a grand day. Last year, there was a 10 to 12-mile run. The year before, the hounds ran nine foxes on the farm and flushed out one bear from the forest. The bear, by the way, had better not mess with farm sidekick Jezebel. She’s a Plott hound, a Southern breed known for its deep, rich voice and the toughness to hunt large game such as boars and bears.

Morgan’s Ford Farm unfolds its gentle message around each hill and bend, with the river, the forest, the fields and the animal life interwoven. The Chatfield-Taylors hope their call will resonate throughout the Shenandoah Valley as more landowners follow their lead in preservation. As Wayne noted, it’s all about “people who care about their land.”