Rainy Sunday in mid-February. Labrador Retriever walked and toweled off. Raingear hung. Laundry mainly finished. Fourth book of 2025 completed (The Barn by Wright Thompson is one of the best and most important books I've ever read; also highly recommend Cabin by Patrick Hutchinson and The Green Mile by Kevin Fedarko). Cup of Barry's Gold Blend tea poured.
An inner voice speaks above the wind and rain outside. "Write the darn editorial for March already. Your Monday will go so much better."
This edition of Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred goes several directions, but loss feels like something of a theme.
Perry Bolton died at 94. The Marylander was a steadfast steeplechase owner who, with his friend Ben Griswold IV, formed Armata Stable and won the Maryland Hunt Cup three times. I have a voicemail message from Bolton about something I wrote that I'll try to never delete. He owned horses, pursued sport, supported trainers, cultivated history, gave to worthy causes and made me think.
Nobody should complain about a life that lasted 94 years, but he makes me think now that he's gone too. Are there future owners like Perry Bolton out there? Those who pursue something like the Maryland Hunt Cup with no guarantee or even reasonable expectation of success? I sure hope so.
Larry Johnson died at 78. A leading regional breeder for decades, he had just completed a career year. Mindframe, bred and sold by Johnson for $600,000 as a yearling, nearly won the Belmont Stakes-G1 and Haskell-G1. Homebred graded stakes winner Future Is Now and her younger half-sister Call Another Play, racing in Johnson's black and white silks, also won major races in 2024. All three won Maryland-bred championships, and earned Johnson his first Breeder of the Year award from the Maryland Horse Breeders Association. All three also trace to the $2,400 purchase of 2-year-old filly Ran's Chick in 1978. She bowed a tendon before racing and, instead of selling her or otherwise moving on, Johnson made her his first broodmare.
In January, about a month before he passed, Johnson looked forward to the potential of similar success this year. That he won't get to enjoy it lands hard.
Perry Bolton and Larry Johnson probably didn't know each other. Bolton grew up in a house with a name, went to Gilman and the University of Virginia. His grandfather Van Lear Black, who financed Admiral Byrd's flight to the North Pole, was one of the wealthiest people in Maryland when he died in 1930. Bolton went to the races in a coat and tie, pretty much all the time. Johnson grew up in Mount Rainier, a small city in Prince George's County, Md. he at least once referred to as "the hood." He went to the University of Maryland, became an accountant, preferred shorts and flip-flops to suits.
I am sure the two men weren't necessarily easy to deal with in all situations. Bolton wanted to win one race, a 4-mile, 22-fence race of great difficutly. Johnson wanted to succeed on the racetrack, in the sales arena, in boardrooms and courtrooms.
But they were forces. And they'll be difficult to replace.
The Starting Gate section of this magazine lists the Eclipse Award winners for 2024. The steeplechase champion, Snap Decision, calls the Mid-Atlantic home of course but the others on the list are decidedly not regional. Until you dig a little. Buried within the grocery list of owners of 2-year-old male champion Citizen Bull is Marylander Matt Dorman's Determined Stables.
A few years ago, Dorman made the magazine's cover thanks to big plans for a racing and breeding operation based in Maryland. There was going to be a farm in Montgomery County, prominent broodmares, well-bred foals going to sales as yearlings or a training base at Fair Hill as 2-year-olds. For reasons economical, practical and personal, Dorman abandoned all of that -- didn't build the farm, moved the mares to Kentucky, bought a farm there and put the Fair Hill barn on the market. The idea of producing Maryland-breds by national sires, sending yearlings to sales and supporting a regional racing stable sounded good. It just didn't work the way Dorman wanted it to.
Dorman has the means to invest in horses such as Citizen Bull with some of the biggest names in racing, but he still lives in Maryland. He roots for racing to find its footing in the state. Until it does, he and people like him -- Marylander TK Kuegler's Wasabi Ventures Stables also shifted its focus to Kentucky -- aren't going to be involved at scale. That stings, for Maryland and the Mid-Atlantic.
The dog slept through the whole thing. Like me, she's hoping for brighter days, and topics, ahead.
