Time has not been kind to historic Glen Riddle Farm

After decades of decay, Glen Riddle Farm in Berlin, Md., the once-lavish establishment of Man o’ War’s owner Samuel D. Riddle, is soon to become the site of an upscale residential development.
Story by Frederick N. Rasmussen

The long-abandoned Glen Riddle Farm in Worcester County, Md., is one of the most important unmarked equine historical sites in the nation.

Here on Maryland’s Eastern Shore more than 80 years ago, Man o’ War learned to run and his most famous son, Triple Crown winner War Admiral, also trained.

History will be swept aside over the next few years, however, as the landscape is transformed from a once-flourishing horse farm to a luxury gated community of 650 single-family homes and condominiums built by Texas-based Centex Homes.

“When you say Glen Riddle, you’re talking about what was the number one farm in Maryland, which was followed by number two, Alfred Vanderbilt’s Saga-more Farm. Those places mean something to people,” said former Pimlico general manager and lifelong racing participant Chick Lang, himself an Eastern Shore resident. “What they’re developing here is hallowed ground.”
Samuel Doyle Riddle, a Phila-delphia textile manufacturer and turfman, purchased the sprawling Eastern Shore farm that once encompassed some 17,000 acres, in 1915. He thought the “salt air breezes and blue grass of Worcester County” would prove beneficial to his Thoroughbred racing stock.

When visiting his farm, Rid-dle stayed in the 13-room white colonial frame house that had been built in 1869 and featured eight master bedrooms and seven baths. Its rooms were furnished with antique Hepplewhite and Sheraton furniture, rare leather-bound books, paintings and ship models. A six-car garage and dormitory with 10 rooms provided living accommodations for 25 jockeys. Stables had room for 60 horses.

Holly Grove Road, a dusty lane across from the farm, led to a nearby Pennsylvania Rail-road siding where Riddle’s Thoroughbreds traveled aboard specially outfitted horse cars to and from Glen Riddle.

It was here at Glen Riddle that its owner enjoyed hunting foxes and raccoons with guests and at day’s end slaked their thirst with glistening silver cups of perfectly concocted mint juleps.
Riddle was born in 1861 at Glen Riddle, Pa., near Media, and grew up on his father’s 6,000-acre farm, also named Glen Riddle, after the family’s ancestral home in Scotland.
His father, Samuel Riddle, later a successful textile manufacturer, had arrived in Philadelphia as a penniless immigrant from Belfast, Ireland, and established the Glen Riddle Mills in 1842 in Delaware County, Pa.

The younger Riddle graduated from the Pennsylvania Mili-tary Academy in 1879, and married Elizabeth Dobson, also the daughter of a textile manufacturer, in 1883. The couple had no children.

He entered his father’s business as a young man, eventually becoming president of the Riddle Company.

He believed that “one had to be trained to run a business, to run a government and equally so, one had to be trained to handle horses,” said a 1940 Associated Press profile.
The epitome of Philadelphia blue blood society, Riddle certainly looked and dressed the part.
He was a handsome man whose name regularly appeared on the country’s best-dressed lists. A carefully trimmed moustache defined his face with a full head of white hair combed straight back from his forehead. He favored high starched collars and carefully knotted cravats, which complemented his conservative suits. Thoughtful, yet piercing, eyes seemingly glowed from behind rimless gold spectacles.

While he was active in local civic affairs and business, it was the breeding of horses and hounds that seemed to define his life. He counted among his many acquaintances President Calvin Coolidge with whom “I used to talk horses.”

“Riddle grew up in the atmosphere of the foxhunting country of Delaware and Chester counties in Pennsylvania. Ela-bor-ate stables and fine paddocks with blooded horses were a tradition of his home,” said the AP profile. “He was a fine judge of horses—show, hunters and race—and a thorough student of breeding and training.”

Fame came to Riddle in 1918 with the purchase of Man o’ War, a son of August Belmont II’s good runner Fair Play out of Mahubah (by 1903 English Triple Crown winner *Rock Sand), from Belmont for $5,000 at the Saratoga sales.

“You’ll hear 50 persons tell how they influenced me to buy him,” Riddle once confided, “but don’t believe them, I’ll tell you. When August Belmont—the greatest man of the American turf—was selling his yearlings, I went down to the stalls for a look. Red was last in the line and I noticed he wasn’t brushed and made ready like the others. I said to the groom, ‘Mr. Belmont must have set this fellow aside?’ and when Red poked his big head through the door my heart skipped a little. . . you see, I rode once, and I’ve trained. I know them, if I do say it.”
Man o’ War, who stood 16 hands and had a stride of 25 to 27 feet, raced for only two years, 1919 and 1920, and in that brief but spectacular time won 20 of 21 races, set five American and world track records and earned $249,465.

On a cold January 25, 1921, Man o’ War left Glen Riddle for the last time. Retired from racing, he stood at Riddle’s Faraway Farm in Lexington, Ky., where he spent the remainder of his days siring 380 foals—64 of whom (a remarkable 17 percent)—won stakes. He was the nation’s leading sire in 1926.

Man o’ War’s progeny, the majority of whom were raised and trained at Glen Riddle Farm, included Crusader, who won the Belmont Stakes and two runnings of the prestigious Suburban Handicap; War Relic (also to have profound influence as a sire); and American Flag.
But the one most often mentioned in the same breath as his sire is War Admiral. Riddle’s first and only Kentucky Derby starter, War Admiral reigned undefeated as a 3-year-old in 1937 and has gained newfound fame as the antagonist to the title hero in this year’s box office hit Seabiscuit.

The glory years at Glen Riddle ended all too soon, however.
Man o’ War died in 1947, and less than four years later, on January 8, 1951, Riddle passed away at his home in Pennsylvania. He was 89. Both Glen Riddle and Faraway Farm passed to Walter Jeffords Sr., Riddle’s business partner and husband of his wife’s niece. Title to the property would remain with Jeffords’s heirs until the sale, a few years ago, to developers.
Glen Riddle’s mansion burned in 1969, and the farm began a slow slide toward overgrown decay. Its weed-grown crumbling roadside presence became a monument to better days.

“The passing of time has robbed the Riddle Farm, close by Ocean City, of its grand luster of yesteryear, since there’s little evidence that a training facility of major proportion ever existed here,” wrote the Baltimore Sun’s late John Steadman after a 1997 visit. “But the history books can’t diminish the achievements of Man o’ War, the preeminent runner of all time.”
Today, plans for the 972-acre farm with its faded yellow and green roofed barns and weed-choked mile training oval —located several miles west of Ocean City on Route 50 adjacent to Ocean Downs Racetrack—include two 18-hole golf courses named for Man o’ War and War Admiral.

The developer, seeking to preserve some of the character of the original site, plans to restore the original training barn into a golf clubhouse. Where horses once stood, a fitness center, an outdoor swimming pool, a whirlpool and sauna will take their place. Residents will also have access to a business center, library, billiards room, arts-and-craft studios, sports lounge and card room.

A 96-slip marina will give boaters access to Turville and Herring creeks while tennis players have their choice of two courts. Prices range from $450,000 to $1 million for the 2,600 to 4,800-square foot homes. Completion of the first group of homes is slated for next fall while the project is expected to be totally finished by 2006.

“GlenRiddle is the choice of champions,” boasts Centex’s Web site. The former Glen Riddle Farm has been renamed GlenRiddle by the developer.

Even though work on the construction phases of the project began in August, it has not been without controversy. Over the last decade or so, the proposed development has pitted preservationists and environmentalists against county and state officials who have been criticized for not doing enough to preserve the unique historic and environmental heritage that Glen Riddle represented.

A land use agreement finally approved by Worcester County Commissioners in 2002 required a 100-foot setback for waterfront lots, a key factor of the Atlantic Coastal Bays Critical Areas Act, which will affect 85 percent of the 650 homes, while the remaining 15 percent must be no closer than 50 feet from the water’s edge.

The waterfront site, of which some 600 acres is forested, is also home to endangered plant species, several rare birds and amphibian species, advised David Blazer, executive director of the Maryland Coastal Bays Program.

The loss of 16 acres of irreplaceable wetlands remains an ongoing concern for environ-mentalists. “That forest was probably one of the best habitats for birds and animals in this region. Now it’s chopped up and doesn’t function as effectively as it did before,” said Blazer in a recent interview with the Daily Times in Salisbury, Md.

The developer is not immune to these concerns, noted a Cen-tex representative who stated that homes are being built on only approximately 300 acres within the 972-acre site, leaving “hundreds of acres of open space, forest preserve and tidal wetlands.”
Erin M. Fitzsimmons, a lawyer and former Ocean City councilwoman, has been a strong advocate and watchdog since the early 1990s of Glen Riddle’s environmental fate.
“I look at it from the environmental side—it’s one of the last pristine pieces of land in the Mid-Atlantic intercoastal flyway. It is a habitat and we worry about the impact the development will have on the ecosystem of the creeks and coastal bays,” she said.

Fitzsimmons believes progress must be monitored. “The development of Glen Riddle means changes for our community. It’ll be different now. Growth always means change,” she said.
Added Fitzsimmons: “Every-one has a story about what the locals call the ‘Riddle Farm.’ Older residents have many fond memories about going out there when they were kids and watching the horses.”

John Bozman is a reporter for the Ocean Pines Independent, and has written widely about the history and development of Glen Riddle.

“What’s happening there is affecting the whole area. For historical purposes, I think Man o’ War should be remembered for more than being a name on a golf course,” he said.