A SUCCESS FROM ANY VIEW.

Northview Stallion Station, heir to the once-mighty Windfields Farm, can boast of many achievements— including regional leader Not For Love.
by Lucy Acton

When one door closes, another one opens—so the saying goes. But the gates slammed shut with a jolt that shook Maryland’s breeding industry to its foundations when E.P. Taylor’s Windfields Farm abruptly ceased operation in the summer of 1988.

The undisputed giant within the state, the Maryland division of Windfields, which eventually spanned some 3,000 acres in the environs of Chesapeake City, had been built from the ground up in the late 1960s by Taylor, a prominent industrialist and leading owner/breeder in his native Canada.

For years Windfields offered an impressive stallion roster, topped by Northern Dancer, the blocky bay champion whose stud fee in the mid-1970s reached epic proportions ($1 million, no guarantee) based on the performances of his offspring in races and sales rings in the U.S. and overseas.

Northern Dancer was retired in 1987 but still living on the farm when the Windfields property was put up for sale by relatives of the ailing Taylor, who died at the age of 88 in 1989.

What was to become of the vast acreage and history-laden barns and paddocks, not to mention the cherished pensioner and several young and commercially attractive stallions who would need a new home when Windfields closed?

The answer came quickly, with Northview Stallion Station opening for business in the spring of 1989, just months after Windfields’s departure. (A separate group, known as St. Augustine Associates, shepherded much of the land into preservation, and arranged for parcels to be sold as horse farms. A significant portion of the original property now belongs to Joe Thomson’s Win­bak Farm, a leading Stand­ard­bred operation.)

Northview has more than fulfilled the mission of its founders, Richard Golden, Tom Bowman and the late Allaire duPont, all local breeder/owners who determined that the Chesapeake City area must not be allowed to lie fallow, even for one season, without the presence of a major Thoroughbred breeding establishment.

Now with an impressive history of its own, Northview currently stands 10 stallions, including the Mid-Atlantic region’s three-time leading sire Not For Love, on the site of the former Windfields Stallion Division.

“Anyone who starts a business has to do it on a positive note, but there is no question that Northview has been a very pleasant surprise,” said Golden, a retired clothing manufacturer and owner of nearby Sycamore Hall Farm who has served as Northview’s managing partner since its inception. “I know that Northview’s success always made Mrs. duPont extremely happy, and that made Dr. Bow­man and me happy as well.”

The stallions
The accolades for Northview sires began in 1989, the farm’s inaugural season, when its roster consisted of three of Windfields’s most popular veterans—Caveat, Smarten and Two Punch—plus Waquoit, fresh from his $2.2 million-earning racing career. Smarten ranked as Maryland’s leading sire for the year—a feat that Northview sires have repeated in nine of the 16 seasons since then.

In today’s market Northview’s reach is extensive by any measure. A total of 640 mares were covered by the farm’s stallions in 2005—a figure that Bowman, Northview’s general manager and a veterinarian nationally recognized for his work in equine reproduction, believes to be a Maryland record. “Even Windfields at its height did not, to my knowledge, breed that many mares,” said Bowman.

Northview’s conception rate in 2005 is also a source of wonder. More than 90 percent of the mares sent to the farm’s stallions were reported in foal, a ratio that prompts Bowman to state, without boasting, “I’ve never been associated with a farm that had a rate that high.”

Asked for a possible explanation, Bowman, who examines the majority of mares for breeding readiness, indicated that experience counts. “We feel as if we’re doing our job better every year,” he noted, “plus we’ve learned the capability of our stallions and made some changes that allow mares to have access to stallions on short notice.
“But we’re also blessed with a roster of fertile stallions, and that’s probably the most important factor of all. The veterinarian makes a difference only occasionally; the stallion is the one who does the job.”

Not For Love covered 105 mares in 2005, and 102 of them conceived “with a minimum of return breedings,” Bowman pointed out. While such numbers are a tribute to the stallion’s fertility, they also seem to signify that the mares being sent to Northview’s flagship horse are “better bets to get in foal,” as Bowman described it.
With luck those figures will continue to grow. Four Northview stallions—Not For Love, Dance With Ravens, Domes­tic Dispute and Lion Hearted—are positioned to breed at least 100 mares in 2006.

Racing success, of course, is what fuels the demand, and in that regard Northview’s stock is equally high.

Of Maryland’s list of leading sires for 2005, four are current or deceased Northview stallions: Not For Love, Polish Numbers, Two Punch and Partner’s Hero. The leader, with $4,167,720 in progeny earnings and seven stakes winners, is Not For Love, a 16-year-old son of Mr. Prospector and the Northern Dancer mare Dance Number who entered stud at Northview in 1996 for a fee of $3,500 and soon saw the cost of his services rise to $25,000.

Not For Love’s stud fee “would probably be higher in Kentucky,” noted Bowman, who promised the horse will never leave Maryland. Not For Love was the leading sire outside of Kentucky in 2003 and ’04, and in 2004 set a record for single-season progeny earnings by a Maryland sire ($5,440,860) while becoming the state’s first stallion to reach the $5 million mark.

Northview suffered a profound loss when Polish Num­bers died in a paddock accident in November 2002. Only 15 years old at the time, Polish Num­bers (fourth-ranked among Maryland sires in 2005) continues to hint at what might have been. A royally bred son of Danzig—Numbered Account, by Buckpasser, Polish Num­bers was represented by six 2005 stakes winners, including Mary­land Million Classic hero Play Bingo.

A perennial Maryland leader who survived a syndicate-led attempt to move him to Kentucky in 1994 (Golden won a court battle in the matter, contending that Northview’s right of first refusal had been violated), Two Punch turned 23 this season with, in Bowman’s words, “no sign of slowing down,” although Bowman allowed that the farm may begin limiting the size of the stallion’s book. But the son of Mr.

Prospector—Heavenly Cause, by *Grey Dawn II, remained busy in 2005, covering 66 mares. Two Punch is the sire of Eclipse Award-winning sprinter Smoke Glacken, who is helping to boost Two Punch’s stature as a sire of sires. Two Punch also ranks among the region’s leading sales sires, with 67 of his offspring having sold for $100,000 or more within the past five years. His yearlings have averaged $69,114 and his 2-year-olds $113,007 during that time.

Partner’s Hero (a 12-year-old son of Danzig—Safely Home, by Winning Hit, and thus a half-brother to champion sprinter Safely Kept) managed to top the $2-million mark in progeny earnings last season, and was represented by four stakes winners—reinforcing the hopes of Northview partners. After getting off to a running start with his first crop (foals of 2000), which was headed by graded winner and Maryland-bred champion New York Hero, Partner’s Hero hit a lull that nearly spelled the end of his career at Northview.
“Early in 2005 we talked about moving him for a fresh start,” conceded Bowman. “We knew he was a good stallion. By the end of the year he was generating more interest, and we decided he would be better off staying than moving. He’s a different type of Danzig—big and tall—and part of his problem may be that people expect too much too soon from his offspring.”

Northview’s roster also includes Dance With Ravens, a superbly bred Grade 2-winning son of A.P. Indy entering stud this season; Lion Hearted, Maryland’s leading freshman sire of 2004; Waquoit, a Maryland stalwart with career progeny earnings of more than $24 million; Domestic Dispute and Great Notion, each of whom has his first crop arriving this season; Polish Miner, whose first foals will race in 2006; and the as-yet-unproven Crowd Pleaser.

Golden, the mastermind behind selecting Northview’s stallions, tends to be tight-lipped when asked about his criteria. “Most stallions in the country have shown some brilliance on the race track,” Golden stated. “Northview puts a lot of emphasis on pedigree and conformation; Northview is in the business of genetics.

“We just have tried to offer the right product at the right price. That usually works in any business. It did for me in the apparel business for 44 years.”

Bowman will tell you that Northview’s syndicate shareholders traditionally have shown a profit—a special point of pride for the farm. But owning stallions, rather than syndicating them, remains Golden’s preference. “We have a lot of very good clients who ask to buy shares in these stallions,” said Golden, “and we try to accommodate them. We basically own 50 percent of every stallion that we have purchased in the last 10 years.”

Asked about the major changes that have taken place in the stallion market since Northview was founded, Golden responded, “Probably the biggest two changes have been the [increased] size of the stallions’ books and dual hemisphere breeding.”
Of shuttling stallions to the southern hemisphere, Golden offers the following view: “Northview owned West by West when he stood at Walmac [in Kentucky]. We did shuttle him to Argentina and that worked very well. We eventually sold West by West for a very handsome price due to the shuttle arrangement.

“I am not a fan of southern hemisphere breeding. We have had quite a few requests, but when it gets down to making a decision, I think that we love our horses too much to subject them to that endurance test.”

The farm
What goes on in Northview’s breeding shed—that hallowed building where Northern Dancer and his champion sons The Minstrel and El Gran Senor once held court—is the farm’s sustaining purpose, but not its sole commercial activity.

Northview also has a brood­mare division, begun in 1999, and a sales division now being launched by David Wade, longtime manager of Golden’s Sycamore Hall Farm.

Most mares bred to North­view stallions remain on the farm only briefly, shipping in from other farms for mating, but Northview also has a sizeable resident clientele.
“During the breeding season, from March to May, it’s not unusual for us to have 300 horses on the farm on any given day,” said farm manager David Farrell.

According to Farrell, about 45 percent of the mares bred to Northview stallions are boarded on the farm; many of them deliver foals at Northview before breeding. During the off-season the farm’s total horse population drops to 50 or 60. Included in that number are seven broodmares owned by Northview—having earned their place on the farm with their potential as mates for Northview’s young stallions.

Northview’s broodmare division, along with a group of yearlings and some race track layups, is housed at facilities built in the late 1980s by Robert P. Levy, and operated for years as Levy’s Muirfield East. Northview doubled in acreage with the purchase of the neighboring 200-acre Muirfield East in 1999, and at the same time took major strides toward becoming a full-service establishment.

The newer property boasts a 20-stall barn designed for training and a 13-stall foaling barn. Mares are also kept at the original Northview site, which has 90 stalls.
Although Northview’s acreage is not huge, nearly all of its land is usable pasture, noted Farrell.

Carrying on the day-to-day work of both the stallion and broodmare divisions is a year-round crew of approximately 15, overseen by Farrell. “We have a good staff, with very little turnover,” said Farrell, who joined Northview in 1999 after an eight-year stint as manager of Winbak Farm, the nearby Standardbred operation.

Farrell, 45, was introduced to horses as a child on his family’s summer vacation farm on Prince Edward Island in Canada. He quit his agricultural science studies at Kentucky’s Morehead State University to go to work at Stoner Creek Stud, also in Kentucky, and has worked at various horse farms in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York.
Like most of Northview’s year-round employees, Farrell lives in a house on the premises; his is shared by his wife, Jennifer (who “has worked on every farm where I’ve had a job except Northview”), and their two children, aged 17 and 15.

Northview’s stud manager, new to the farm this season, is Louis Merryman—who has an impressive pedigree of his own as the son of Cecil County-based breeders/owners Edwin and Sarah (Sass) Merryman, and grandson of the late John B. and Kitty Merryman. The Merrymans bred and raced horses for many years with major success.
David Wade, while not a Northview employee, is gearing up to begin offering consignments of yearlings, weanlings and broodmares under the banner of Northview Stallion Station/David Wade, agent.

Explaining the rationale for the new sales division, Golden said, “Clients have always asked us why Northview has not been represented at the sales. We finally decided that the time had come for us to do this after a long discussion with David Wade, my farm manager for the last 18 years. David has all of the attributes that Northview requires to manage a first-class sales division. He is very knowledgeable about conformation, pedigrees, matings, et cetera, and above all has great integrity. We have high hopes for this division.”

A native of Savage, Md., who graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park, after majoring in animal science and business management, Wade, 44, was the yearling manager at Jim Ryan’s highly successful Ryehill Farm before being hired by Golden to help develop Sycamore Hall, where he has prepped a number of high-priced auction horses.

Wade’s own small breeding operation also boasts a remarkable record. From a broodmare band numbering no more than three at one time, he has bred (on his own or in partnership) two runners who have earned Maryland-bred championship titles within the past five years: Sparkling Number, the state’s top 3-year-old filly of 2001; and Celestial Legend, champion 2-year-old filly of 2005.

The future
Allaire duPont played a major role in the creation of Northview, rallying support at its inception, just as she had done decades earlier in urging E.P. Taylor to locate his farm near Chesapeake City.

But her death, on January 6 at age 92, is not expected to have an immediate impact on Northview’s operation; although still deeply committed to the farm, duPont was not involved in its day-to-day activities.

Asked about the possibility of duPont’s heirs’ future participation in Northview, Golden stated, “At this point we have not had any indication from her estate as to their direction.”
On a different note, Golden downplayed the poten­tial impact of slots at Mary­land tracks, noting that Northview—whose stallions draw an estimated 75 percent of their mares from Maryland and the surrounding states, and the remainder from other locations throughout the nation—is not subject to the same market forces as many Maryland breeding establishments.

“If Maryland never gets slots, there will be no impact on Northview,” stated Golden. “If Maryland does get slots, that will be great.”

Asked about his goals for Northview, Golden said, “Our immediate goals are always the same; that would be to improve our service, our staff and our stallion base. Our long-term goal would be to open another division of Northview outside of Maryland. Dr. Bowman and I have been discussing this goal for a while. As far as where we might expand to, that is still in the discussion stage, and I would rather not discuss the locations that we are contemplating.”

Golden, 66, retired from the clothing manufacturing business in 2002 after selling his five apparel companies three years earlier. But despite the fact that he and his wife, Ann, have stepped up their recreational travels, Golden gives no hint of retiring from the farm in which he has obviously invested heart and soul.

“My time spent managing Northview seems to be increasing,” noted Golden, who added that he “enjoys it most of the time. I would say that, on an average, I spend half of a day five days a week on Northview matters. I am in constant touch with our management team, and I am always available to them as well.”