Once, sometimes more, a year I’d call Dr. Bill Solomon at Pennsylvania’s Pin Oak Lane Farm looking for input on an article I was writing. He’d listen to my questions, answer some, skip others and always always – have a few for me.
Some were honest questions he wanted answered, like what did I think of such and such stallion or racehorse or the future of the Thoroughbred industry. Others were completely rhetorical. He was winding me up, to see how I’d react to something. Most of the time, the questions concerned the state of the game. I’d get riled up and go on a rant and then he’d reel me back in with some reality.
Still others were trick questions. He’d use my answer, attempted answer or long pause as a way to make his point and teach me something.
Man, I’m going to miss those conversations. Solomon, “Doc” to me and so many others, died May 5. The veterinarian, farmer, horse breeder, dog lover and Mid- Atlantic Thoroughbred industry leader was 84. He is survived by his daughter Tricia Schuster, son Chris Solomon, six grandchildren, sister Mary McAlindon and brother Paul Solomon.
As fellow Pennsylvania Thoroughbred breeder and stallion owner Rodney Eckenrode put it, “I always learned something when I talked to Doc.” Solomon was born in 1942 and grew up in Johnstown, Pa., before moving to a farm in Gettysburg that had once been a Civil War hospital. The family raised Arabian horses, planting a seed. Solomon went to Georgetown University, where he studied pre-medicine and played varsity baseball.
After Georgetown, he went to veterinary school at the University of Pennsylvania and completed a surgical internship at the University of Minnesota before stints as the veterinarian at Pennsylvania’s Hanover Shoe Farms (Standardbreds) and Kentucky’s Castleton Farm (Thoroughbreds).
In 1973, he opened his Pin Oak Lane farm and veterinary clinic in New Freedom, Pa. Solomon bred Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds, and stood stallions of each breed. Pin Oak Lane raised 1992 Kentucky Derby-G1 winner Lil E. Tee and 1989 Hambletonian winner Park Avenue Joe. Thoroughbred stallions included Grade 1 winner Wicked Strong, Derby winner Real Quiet, Preakness Stakes-G1 winner Cloud Computing, Group 3 winner Royal Artillery, Pennsylvania leader Wheaton plus Normandy Invasion, Lord Shanakill, Last Gunfighter, Any Given Saturday, Rockport Habor, Offlee Wild, Albert the Great and Lite the Fuse. Solomon kept tabs on stallions in Kentucky and beyond that might fit the Pennsylvania market, using relationships he built with major farms such as Spendthrift and Darley.
He added Cloud Computing to the roster in 2024 because of the horse’s momentum from big early crops, and because Mark Toothaker called from Spendthrift Farm. “I wasn’t looking for another horse,” Solomon told me in December 2023. “Spendthrift took four new horses so had to get rid of some. Mark called and asked if I would be interested in Cloud Computing. I said, ‘Let me think about it.’ I thought about it. Yeah, he’s all right. He won the Preakness, he’s out of a good mare [A.P. Indy’s Quick Temper], he’s by a $50,000 stallion (Maclean’s Music). When they tell me they have 110 or 115 yearlings, that gets me to prick my ears up a little bit. If they tell me they had six foals in their last crop, that’s not going to work very well.”
Cloud Computing found a niche at Pin Oak Lane and used the strength of those Kentucky crops to establish himself in the Mid-Atlantic. He covered a respectable 45 mares in 2024 and added 33 in 2025. His first Pennsylvania-sired foals are yearlings of 2026 and I’m sure Doc would have asked me what I thought of them when I saw a few at the sales this year.
“This may be my last gasp,” he said of adding to the farm’s stallion roster. “I’m going to be a hundred years old soon [he was way off, but I got the point]. I’ve been doing this since I was a kid. I don’t think I’ll ever retire. It’s a labor of love and concern; I don’t want to say frustration. I like the animals, and I like the racing part of it to see how you do. ‘Why did we lose? Why did we win?’ “You have a nice horse, you have hope.”
Hope was a common theme in conversations with Solomon. He’d hope his state’s Thoroughbred interests would come together for the common good. He’d hope the Mid- Atlantic’s broodmare population would stabilize, and maybe even recover though he wasn’t confident. He’d hope the incentive money would stay in the region, and the individual states, to fuel a strong industry. He’d hope he could temper his frustration – OK Doc, concern – about politics, fickle breeders and a lack of a long-range or big-picture vision from industry leaders. He’d hope one of those Pin Oak Lane horses would hit it big.
I sure hope he saw Cloud Computing’s name atop the Mid-Atlantic sire standings this spring.
