It wasn't just a 425-acre swath of one of the prettiest sections of Baltimore County. The place pulsed with history. Its red-roofed barns had housed some of the 20th century's greatest thoroughbreds. The remains of Native Dancer, the genetic link between many modern champions, lay beneath a tombstone at its center. Sagamore Farm fit the ambitions of Under Armour founder Kevin Plank.
When he plucked his high school buddy, Tom Mullikin, from a Kentucky farm to start a racing and breeding outfit, Plank said the only goal was to win a Triple Crown. That kind of story - winning the sport's biggest prize with a horse from one of its classic farms - could light a fire under the moribund Maryland racing industry.
And make no mistake, that's what Plank hopes to do. The CEO of the sports-apparel company wants to help save one of his state's oldest sporting pastimes.
"It seemed to me a way of making something happen," Plank says of buying the farm and founding a state-of-the-art racing operation. "It's not as cut-and-dry as needing slots or a new track. We need great stories. We need winning. This could be the bolt of lightning that energizes racing in Maryland."
For a man who believes so strongly in brands and the stories behind them, the narrative seemed too perfect to resist.
Mullikin originally thought they were looking for a more modest farm, but he shouldn't have been surprised that Sagamore kept calling to his friend. "When you walk onto this farm, you know he has big dreams," Mullikin says.
Saving a farm, sport
Plank's efforts at Sagamore, which he purchased in February 2007, have earned widespread acclaim from a Maryland racing community desperate for any snippet of good news.
"I think people in the industry are just grateful that someone like Kevin would take an interest and throw his resources into trying to breed champions," says Don Litz, president of the Maryland Stallion Station.
Any tour of historic Maryland racing spots would have to pass by Sagamore. Isaac Emerson, the inventor of Bromo-Seltzer, converted the land from alfalfa fields to a horse farm in 1925. In 1933, the farm passed to his grandson, Alfred G. Vanderbilt, who would become a giant in American racing.
