Returning Sagamore To Her Rightful Glory
by Beth Herman (this article was fi rst published by DCMud on June 21, 2011)
If you listen quietly and long enough to sounds in the mist at Glyndon, Maryland’s Sagamore Farm, Native Dancer’s hoof beats will join up with your heartbeat. And in 2007, smitten by the same dreams that
were said to have seduced Alfred G. Vanderbilt II, Maryland native son and founder/CEO of Under Armour apparel Kevin Plank acquired Sagamore, with a dream to revitalize Sagamore and the state’s racing industry. To pursue the dream of restoring Sagamore
to her rightful throne as not only one of Mary- land’s most glorious. T oroughbred farms, but also one of its most state-of-the-art farms—as it would have been during Vanderbilt’s reign. Plank hired arcitect John Blackburn to trans- form the decaying historical landmark into a peerless 21st century breeding and training operation—without sacrifi cing its provenance. “Kevin had an outline and series of points—
a program of what he wanted to do—how he wanted to get there,” explained Blackburn. “His goals were to restore the farm, to build on that history and to develop his own thoroughbred breeding operation that would, at some point, produce a Triple Crown winner.” A 10-year to 15-year master plan was es-
tablished, with an existing 20-stall broodmare barn and 16-stall foaling barn part of an early phase of the renovation. T e mission of Blackburn was to update the barns using contemporary principals and technology while maintaining the historical integrity of the buildings. One of the primary challenges was how to increase ventilation and
A Rich History
T ere is perhaps no farm that quite captures the imaginations of Mary- landers more than the famed Sagamore Farm on Belmont Ave. in Glyn- don, Baltimore County. As described by Ross Peddicord in a December 1999 Equiery article about Native Dancer, “Over the years, Sagamore came to be thought of as “holy ground” among Maryland horse people.” Established in 1925 by the inventor of Bromo-Seltzer, Isaac Emerson,
Sagmore, the farm eventually passed to Emerson’s grandson, Alfred G. Vanderbilt II as a 21st birthday present. Vanderbilt eventually became
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introduce more natural light and recycled ma- terials without altering the exterior aesthetics of the existing build- ings.
T e solution was
to remove the large haylofts from each structure,
open-up
the large broodmare stalls, and add sky- lights and Dutch doors along the exte- rior to court natural ventilation.
“Both
the broodmare and foaling barns in- stantly went from dark to bright, like night and day” said Blackburn. “You want as much light as possible, as early in the season as possible for them,” Blackburn explained, “so the horse cycles naturally,
without
the use of artifi cial light.” Citing tem- peratures that paral- lel each other both inside and outside the barn as key to the horses’ health, Blackburn also took measures to ensure smooth transi- tions. And using the sun’s heat from the roof-
To increase ventilation and introduce more natural light, the interior of the hay loft was gutted and replaced with skylights.
top and skylight, and the horse’s own heat and humidity (horses give off a great deal of mois- ture), the architect worked to bring air in low and exhaust it out high. “T is cre- ates ventilation in the barn so it’s constantly venting whether it’s winter or summer,” Blackburn said. Ad- ditionally, a fan is typically placed high on a wall, directed into only one area of a stall, enabling the horse to move in and out of the breeze as needed.
“Going back to the health and safety of the horse, when driving the design of a barn, you have to duplicate nature— where they can con- trol their environ- ment,”
Blackburn
explained. “As soon as you put horses in barns they lose that control, so the barn
now needs to provide them those choices.” Where humans and sustainability measures
continued...
president of Pimlico Race Course and came to dominate Maryland rac- ing through the farm’s bloodlines, in particular those of Native Dancer. Sired by Polynesian and out of the mare, Geisha by Discovery, (a great
Vanderbilt stayer and weight carrier of the 1930s), the grey colt, winner of the Preakness, Belmont and 19 other races, lost only once–to Dark Star in the Kentucky Derby. “Quite literally, Native Dancer is in a class of his own,” explained Ped-
dicord in his 1999 article (which you can read at
www.equiery.com/ar- continued...
APRIL 2012 | THE EQUIERY | 39
Isabel J. Kurek
Cesar Lujan
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