Vanderbilt expanded the property to nearly 1,000 acres and created a sort of self-sufficient village, complete with staff dormitories and a blacksmith shop. From Sagamore, he bred a line of champions, led by the great Native Dancer, winner of the Preakness and Belmont Stakes in 1953 and later, the nation's greatest sire. With Native Dancer stabled at Sagamore, a steady stream of the world's richest horse owners, including Queen Elizabeth, sent their mares to Baltimore County.
"The influence on breeding history is phenomenal, just phenomenal," Litz says. "Historically, it stacks right up there with the most significant farms in the country."
After Native Dancer's death in 1967, the Vanderbilts gradually devoted less attention to the farm and in 1986, sold it to developer Jim Ward. Under Ward's care, some renters used the barns and fields, but the extensive property fell into disrepair. Neighbors, who loved the place for its history and majestic vistas, wondered who would ever take on a restoration project of such scale.
"I never thought it would be in the right hands," says Kentucky-based racing consultant Dan Rosenberg, who has worked with Plank.
Rosenberg and others could not have fathomed the dreams of a Maryland-raised, sports-crazed entrepreneur.
"To have someone come in and really take the care to restore it, well, there aren't many people who could do it," Litz says. "Thank God for Kevin Plank."
Plank, 36, did not grow up around horses. His grandfather took him to the track sometimes when he was a kid, and he liked to party at the Preakness as a University of Maryland student. But he was a casual fan, and even as Under Armour took off and made him a multi-millionaire, he nursed no particular ambitions of owning a stable.
As he tells it, a conversation at the Maryland Million race changed all of that. Plank heard from several people that if the sport's economics did not turn around, the state could lose the Preakness.
"When you think about the great assets, the great brands in the state of Maryland, you think about Johns Hopkins, the Naval Academy, Camden Yards," he says. "But the one day of the year when the entire world looks at Maryland is Preakness day. How could we lose that?"
By chance, Mullikin had left the corporate world a few years earlier to learn the ropes of the racing business, or "the game" as he calls it. He also had no experience with horses, but he took an entry-level job at Machmer Hall in Kentucky and quickly realized that working the land and tending to animals satisfied him far more than sitting behind a desk.
