With the first two barns done, cornfields converted to horse pastures and six miles of new fencing up, Plank's crew has turned its attention to restoring the farm's three-quarters-of-a-mile training track, which was uneven and strewn with pebbles and weeds. The huge grading effort is scheduled to be done by late summer. After that, Mullikin says, further physical improvements, such as a restoration of the uniquely large indoor training track, will have to wait (he estimates a 15- to 20-year timeline for the whole project).
Racing and breeding will consume all of his attention.
Plank believes that in modern racing, jockeys and trainers receive too much attention, that if fans could learn to anticipate a certain kind of horse from a certain farm, they would form deeper loyalties.
"My mentality is a franchise one," he says. "Our horses would run with a heart and intensity, and people would know they were brought up the right way. They would say, 'That's a Sagamore horse.' "
In a first step toward branding, his racing silks incorporate the same cerise diamond and white design used by the Vanderbilts in their Sagamore heyday.
Plank would love it if Marylanders could root for his horses in the Preakness like they root for the Ravens in the NFL playoffs.
'Make people care'
Just as he does at Under Armour, Plank wants everything at Sagamore done a certain way. He compares the operation to Disney World, where employees are considered "onstage" whenever they're in the park. There is no smoking on the farm. If brooms come out during the day, they go back to the same place at night. Staff members wear Under Armour jackets, with the Sagamore logo stitched on the breast.
"When you cross the road to the farm, you need to have a certain tempo, a purpose," Plank says. "I believe the horses sense that."
He hopes that some day, the farm will be the Disney World of Maryland racing, a place where visitors can fall in love with racing because all of its best features are on display.
"My goal is to make people care about racing," he says. "And they don't care right now, but that's because they haven't seen a race at Saratoga on a beautiful afternoon in August."
Rosenberg has worked in the industry for his entire adult life and says, "There's no question that as a rule, horse racing has done a lousy job of telling our story and presenting ourselves to the public."
