We own a farm in Virginia and due to our proximity to Charles Town, WV, we have become actively involved with racing.  We moved here from Maryland 16 years ago. At that time we had some clients with VA bred horses and people who would overnight at our farm to race at Colonial. Within a short period of time, our clients horses and ours were all WV bred, due to their programs.  In the past 3-4 years, more than half became more involved with the MD breeding programs.

The new Virginia Residency program and the hope of renewed racing at Colonial have sparked interest, not only from Virginians, but from neighboring states to participate in VA racing.  This is all good for the racing industry and especially good for Virginia.  Now is the time to concentrate on renewing our racing industry during this good economy and to build something substantial that can last through our tougher times.

Horse racing is farming, from the breeding of livestock, raising feed, hay, and bedding, caring for grazing land to building barns, buying trucks, trailers, and farm equipment…the number of businesses we touch to get horses to the race track is amazing!  Farming helps keep our landscapes open with pastoral views that we all enjoy.  Horse racing in Virginia is not only beneficial to my business, but is important to so many others that are not directly involved.  I hope that the Virginia Racing Commission will do everything possible to grow our racing industry.