Human side of the business

“It’s not just horses,” says Tom Bowman, who along with his wife Chris ranks among the region’s top Thoroughbred breeders.

Story by Joe Clancy.
Photographs by Barrie B. Reightler

Tom Bowman leans back on one elbow while sitting on the counter of his spartan barn office and ponders the path of his Thoroughbred business.

“There have been a lot of good horses, a lot of hard work and a lot of success I guess, but it’s the human parts of the story that are so good—it’s my family, my wife, my children, the other people involved. The human side is too important not to consider. It’s not just horses.”

Bowman wasn’t giving journalistic advice, just thinking back to 30-odd years in the Maryland Thoroughbred industry. Since they arrived in Chestertown with a son and a daughter, Bowman and wife Chris have added three more children (and six grandchildren) to their family, bought a second farm in Chesapeake City, cultivated a core group of clients and business partners, satisfied veterinary customers from the Eastern Shore to the western part of the state, fought for the future of the state’s horse industry, and bred enough quality horses to win two state breeder of the year awards.

The latest honor came in 2005 as Bowman-bred horses won 66 races and $1.7 million. Two-year-old stakes winners Creve Coeur and Smart and Fancy led the way for an operation that foals 50 to 60 mares per year.

This past spring, the Bow­mans drew further attention when Point Determined started in the Kentucky Derby. Bred by the Bowmans and longtime partner Milton Higgins, Point Determined was produced from a graded stakes-winning mare, Merengue (by Broad Brush), purchased as a foal.

Over the years, other stars of the program, which involves partners such as Higgins, Tom Sutton, trainer Dickie Small, and other friends and family, include Tenski (Maryland-bred horse of the year in 1998), Love of Money (winner of the 2004 Pennsylvania Derby-G2), Global Gait (champion Maryland-bred 2-year-old male in 2000), Who Wouldn’t, Proud Owner and G. O’Keefe.

“I always wanted to breed our own horses,” said Bowman, who was hired as the resident veterinarian at Cynthia and Charles McGinnes’s Thornmar Farm in Chestertown in 1970. “The ultimate goal was to have a group of nice broodmares and be able to race at least some of their offspring. We try to follow through on that. Some years you’ve got to sell to pay the bills and some years you find a way to keep some. There’s no real pattern to it.”
Other than the success.

A working veterinarian with clients throughout the state, Bowman built the breeding program over time—acquiring mares and adding partners while seeing 150 mares a day during the breeding season. He quickly gained a reputation for helping problem mares get (and stay) in foal, which led to foal-sharing arrangements, stallion seasons and more. He and Chris bought a 60-acre piece of Thornmar, creating a family farm with horses, goats, chickens and such—and also launching a legacy that began when Bowman was a child.

Tom Bowman, now 63, grew up on four acres in Catonsville, Md., one of five children. His father was a mailman, and horses did not run in the family. Farming did, however, courtesy of both sets of grandparents. Tom never missed a chance to go to his grandmother’s home in Carroll County to drive tractors or work with the resident beef cattle. Owning a farm of his own became a goal, a dream really, that needed a scholarship to the University of Maryland, a master’s degree in animal science, a veterinary degree from the University of Georgia, a three-year fellowship to the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center and, finally, the job at Thornmar to come true.

He would have been content doctoring cows, but that wouldn’t have resulted in the farm.
“You just don’t go from ‘I would like to live on a farm’ to living on a farm unless your family had the farm, and we didn’t have that,” said Bowman. “We didn’t have the money to buy the farm and being a veterinarian for beef cattle doesn’t pay much money. This is the closest I’ve come to being able to do what I wanted—which was to own a nice farm and raise cows. We might still do that one day, but we would recognize it as a hobby and not a business.”

Thoroughbred breeding remains a business, one that grew beyond that first farm, Dance Forth, in Ches­ter­town to 220-acre Roland Farm in Chesa­peake City. Roland Farm hums with the activity that comes with mares and foals (a group that numbered about 45 this season) and yearlings. The foals are all born in Chestertown—close to the Bowmans’ house with “monitors in every room” for nightwatching—but the real work gets done at Roland.

Once part of Windfields Farm, Roland came to be in typically roundabout fashion. The famed Windfields operation shuttered in the late 1980s, and Northview Stallion Station (co-founded by Bowman) came into being. The Bowmans first bought about 100 acres, with help from Tom’s sister Emma and her husband Bijoy Ghosh. An orthopedic surgeon in Phila­delphia at the time, Ghosh wanted a chance to slow down and live in the country. Tom and Chris wanted to expand. Ghosh never slowed down, but lives in the country, and the Bowman breeding operation began to bloom. Another 100 acres completed the farm a few years later.

“We originally bought half of what now makes up this—the other half of it was bought by Moon Nursery,” said Bowman. “They used barns to store nursery products and they were slowly starting to pull up all the fences and I heard they were getting ready to turn the land over and put it into production. I went to the man and said ‘I don’t know if we can afford to buy this from you, but I encourage you to leave it in grass because it’s been this way for so long.’ The man said ‘I’ll sell it to you for what we paid for it.’ ”

“We’re not land barons,” said Bowman. “Chestertown is the family farm, where the kids were born, where the grandkids come. The foals are born there because we’re there. Chesapeake City is an extension of that farm. We needed more room for our own horses and we have a handful of boarders that have been with us for years and years.”
Their most prized broodmares include:

L Merengue (Broad Brush —Sentimental Tango, by Senti­mental Slew), whose graded-winning son Point Deter­mined sold for $290,000 at the Keene­land September Yearling sale. Merengue, 11, did not have a foal in 2006, but is in foal to Saint Liam.
L Mescalina (Smarten—Tequila Sheila, by Hagley), dam of two stakes winners, including the 2004 Maryland-bred champion 3-year-old male Love of Money (by Not For Love) who has earned over $600,000. Winner of the 2004 Pennsylvania Derby-G2, Love of Money was caught at the wire in his debut this year when second in the Grade 3 Westchester Handicap. Now 13, Mescalina had a Smarty Jones filly this year and is in foal to Saint Liam.

L Shashobegon (Broad Brush—Kimonina, by Specta­cular Bid), co-bred with Dickie Small, who won or placed in 16 stakes, earning $531,904. The 11-year-old mare was not bred for 2006, but is in foal to Smarty Jones.

The Family Business
By no means a showplace, Roland works and gets worked with a perpetually changing cast of equine residents moving through on their way to the sales, the race track or the numerous fields surrounding the two main barns. Various parts of the Bowman family call Roland home—and work.

Daughter Becky Davis, 37, fills the role of farm manager. She oversees the Chesapeake City operation, steers her own steadily expanding sales consignment business and acts as her father would in many situations.

“She used to come home from college and help me feed at 4 in the morning,” said Tom with pride. “If there was a single person more responsible than anybody else, excluding me as a veterinarian, I would say it’s her. She’s been the thread that’s held things together.”

Another daughter, Quin Bowman, 28, floats between foaling duties at Chestertown, assisting with sales prep and nursing sick foals back to health. Son Brooke Bowman, 26, oversees the Chestertown farm and handles anything his sisters can’t, from dealing with difficult horses to groundskeeping to deadpanning that “all the fences on the farm should be painted John Deere green.”

Two other Bowman children, the oldest Tommy, 39, and middle child Peggy, 33, have moved on to other pursuits but still maintain deep ties to the farm life.

“Tommy helped build most of the fence on the Chestertown farm and still does some nightwatching, but he owns a screen printing business,” said his father. “Peggy [Siroli] became a veterinarian, but not the type you’d think. She works for a commercial food company in food safety. It’s a really good job and she loves it.”

Like any successful family business, the path weaves a bit but finds its way through highs, lows, good decisions, bad luck, circumstance and chance.

Through it all, Tom and Chris smile at the family they’ve created. Some combination of six grandchildren (three each from Becky and Tommy) could be playing ball in the barn or riding through the farm on the runningboards of Tom’s Dodge truck or begging Chris for a trip to the pool.

“It’s an amazing feeling,” said Tom. “It’s the same in every industry—the most difficult part is finding trusted labor and trusted management people and then being able to afford them. We’ve chosen to try to keep all of our children involved who want to stay involved and find ways to financially or otherwise reward them.”

Those rewards have included pieces of horses, places to live, shares in the income and a future.

Kid Stuff
Though technically employees, the three Bowman children who work on the farms get more out of the business than paychecks.

“We all have pride in what we do because it is a family farm,” said Quin.
“You get to go out and work with your family every day. Not many people can say that, and I really enjoy that part of it. My dad and I have always gotten along really well, and my mom and I are pretty close—I think all of us are, really. I love the farm in Chestertown, I’m extremely attached to that place.”

Once an actress who had a bit part in The Replacements, Quin and husband Dennis Hick­man, who works for the Kent County (Md.) Sheriff’s Department, have a house on the Chesapeake City farm. During foaling season, she lives with her parents.

Becky, whose sales consignment business has boomed along with the Bowman breeding operation, takes more responsibility than her younger siblings. Like them, she considered following her father into veterinary medicine but got tangled up in organic chemistry, biochemistry, physics, marriage and motherhood.

“As much I enjoyed it, I would have much rather been mucking stalls and cutting grass than going to class. So here I am,” said the Washington College graduate. “I’m more involved because I was first and I got involved in the sales stuff because someone we had a horse for on the farm asked me to do it, and I loved it. Quin and Brooke work with me and they can pretty much run things at the sales.”

Becky, who worked with several consignors before joining the family operation full time, credited her father’s philosophy on raising horses with much of the success. Like many Mid-Atlantic breeders, the Bowmans let their horses grow up in fields and in groups. They learn competition early, live toughness every day and thrive.

“He taught us the way he believes in raising horses,” Becky said. “They stay outside all the time, they get raised in groups, they learn to compete for food, they learn to compete for space. There’s a definite pecking order that goes on. We’re to the point now where we’ve got some horses that are valuable enough that we do have to raise some a little differently because we worry about scars and stuff. But the point that got us here is they all became hard-knocking, tough, competitive horses. They get to the track and know how to fight.”

Raised as farm kids from the beginning, the Bowman children, all college-educated, were encouraged to find outside interests. Tommy started a business. Becky got married and had three children. Peggy, a graduate of Virginia Tech vet school, became a research veterinarian with no attachment to horses. Quin followed the acting bug for a while and now pursues an art career (pastels, oils and wire sculpture). Brooke harbors hopes of being a race car driver, and has the trophies (and crack-ups) to prove it.

“Dad would love to have all five of us have little houses on the farm and all working here, but he didn’t make any of us stay,” said Quin. “He’s just passing down something that he’s been taught by his parents. It’s always been a very close family.”

Mom’s in Charge
Behind every great breeding farm there’s a strong woman, or something like that.
A native of England, Chris Bowman came to America at age 12—a year after her mother died—to live with an aunt in Maryland. She met Bowman in high school and has been by his side through veterinary school, Thornmar, Northview, five children and more. She has long taken the night shift, watching mares and handling the foaling duties while her husband caught up on some sleep before going to see veterinary clients all over the state. Now 62, Chris Bowman manages the farm office, orders supplies for the veterinary business, sends and pays bills, does laboratory work, keeps the books for Bowman-Higgins Stable.

Through it all, she’s also battled rheumatoid arthritis and nine joint surgeries.
“Mom tells stories about eating ketchup and crackers for dinner while dad was in school and how hard it was at times,” said Quin. “When I’m having a hard time or I’m upset about something, I think of them. I’m very proud of what they’ve done and it means a lot.”

Not half as proud as her mother.
“We have made it financially I guess, but we started out with absolutely nothing,” said Chris. “Now, it’s great to be able to work so close with your family—very gratifying. You hear about families that try to grab every little thing they can get in a business, but that’s not our family. I feel good about being able to raise them in this atmosphere, and being able to keep it all going.”

Chris would love to see her husband retire, but he laughs at the notion—though he admits he has slowed down and will continue to do so. He rises at 4:30 a.m., works until early afternoon but stays closer to home on his veterinary travels.

“Why would I want to retire when I’m already doing for a living what most people aspire to do as a hobby?” Tom said, while Chris frowned. “There aren’t many people who will tell you they are completely happy with what they do for a living, and I am.”

She coaxed him into a vacation in England recently, and enjoys seeing him tend his garden or play grandfather.

Still, Tom Bowman thinks about the future.
“When I’m working in the off-season I’m on the farm with my children,” he said. “I think everybody would like to say that they took on a project and at the end of it they felt some measure of success. Every new foal that’s born, every new race horse that comes along might be the next good horse. Mrs. [Allaire] duPont once told me that every new year her life was reinvented because of the foals that were born. I feel the same way.”
And so does his wife.

Father Time
Tom Bowman spent two years as president of the Mary­land Horse Breeders Associ­ation (2002 to 2004), taking the point in a fight for the industry’s future. He made 26 trips (by his count) to Annapolis, talked industry assistance (slots and beyond) with senators, delegates, the governor’s office—and still came away empty.

“I thought it was so important. I’m not too sure I made any difference, but I thought I was going to make a difference,” he said. “It’s impossible to penetrate, and it’s beyond us. The amount of empty promises I heard was just shocking. You’d go and sit down with the governor’s office, you’d go and sit down with [House Speaker] Mike Busch; you’d sit down with any of them and you’d explain the whole thing, and they would say they understood and would say they were sure they could get something done.”

And nothing got done. Like anyone, Bowman exited the job frustrated. Though not shy about offering an opinion or lending support, he returned to focusing efforts on something he could control—his family’s breeding program and position in the industry.
“People get into this business because they have a little bit of gambling in their veins —whether it’s going to the window, which I don’t do, or just betting that if you persist long enough you can hit the home run,” he said.

“There’s always a chance. If it was all science there would only be a few people in the world that would own them all. You’re betting on yourself, and that’s one of the reasons why I do it.”