Kevin Boniface, lean like his father, peered onto the track through the large, open window on the second floor of Bonita Farm's training barn. A 5-year-old mare named Churchbell Chimes galloped through the clinging fog, slow to lift this cool autumn morning, preparing for her attempt at a third straight win in a Maryland Million race.
Boniface, 30, assistant trainer to his father, J. William "Bill" Boniface, lifted his eyes from the snorting mare to the rolling hills beyond the track. The view, as the rising sun turned the sky purple and orange, was as pleasing as a morning prayer.
"We bred and raised that horse's daddy, Deputed Testamony; he's 16 now," Kevin Boniface said. "And we bought her mother, Have You, as a yearling; now she's 22. So as Churchbell Chimes was learning how to race, we had her father watching her from one side of the racetrack and her mother watching her from the other side.
"Ours is one operation where one horse can go through its whole life span with the same people. We like to foal, raise, learn, race and return. This is the only place in the world where horses can do that."
Please excuse the devoted trainer for that slight exaggeration. But Boniface's exuberance for what he and his family are doing in Harford County -- breeding, raising and racing thoroughbreds -- is typical of the attitude of families throughout the state consumed by horses.
And this week the spotlight shines on them, as Maryland celebrates its thoroughbred racing and breeding industry with Saturday's Maryland Million at Laurel Park. Beginning at 12: 30 p.m., 11 races for horses sired by Maryland stallions will be contested over the dirt course, the turf course, even the steeplechase course.
Purses total $1 million, of which $200,000 spices the Maryland Million Classic. That race features the continuing comeback of the Boniface-trained, Charles M. Oliver-owned Oliver's Twist, beset with injuries and ailments since last summer. The 4-year-old dark brown colt finished second by a half-length in last year's Preakness, and probably would have won had he not run into a roadblock of horses in the homestretch.
But the Maryland Million is more than the Classic. It's a daylong festival for the home folks: the owners, breeders and trainers as well as the anonymous workers who deliver the foals, rub the horses and shovel the manure. It is, after the Preakness, the biggest day of racing in Maryland.
