A Livelihood Could Be on the Vine

As Competition Devours the State's Horse Industry, Maryland Breeding Farm Looks to Diversify

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Tough Times Lead to Wine
With Maryland's breeding business falling on hard times, places like the Bonita Farm are forced to find other ways to make money on its land.

Three seasons removed from his last as an active stallion, Deputed Testamony lives a quiet life on Bonita Farm in Darlington, Md., at 27 the oldest living Preakness Stakes winner.

The dark brown horse's back curves from age, and he doesn't shed his winter coat as quickly as he used to, but Deputed Testamony stands in his twilight years as a fading reminder of the once-glorious Maryland thoroughbred breeding industry, an industry pummeled to the brink of ruin in recent years by economic dynamics beyond its control.

Deputed Testamony earned $626,154 in a racing career capped by a victory in the 1983 Preakness Stakes, and the money allowed the family of Bill Boniface, who bred and trained the horse, to move operations from a 40-acre farm in nearby Bel Air to the sprawling beauty of the 235-acre Bonita Farm of today.

Behind the idyllic picture of sloping green pasture at the farm, however, there is trouble. Business has been drying up at Bonita as it has been at breeding farms around the state, and Boniface has had to turn to other sources of revenue, planting grapes for wine and fir trees to be sold at Christmas.

Across the border in Pennsylvania, the state government has legalized slot machines and begun pouring money into the thoroughbred industry, not only galvanizing a second-tier racing program, but driving explosive growth in breeding as well.

Boniface, like many others, has watched his clientele abandon Maryland, following the money north, and now he is trying to keep his farm viable and support a horse business that struggles to pay the bills.

To do that, he has begun to diversify, and recently he has planted 2,500 merlot grapevines on his property as well as 1,500 trees -- Douglas and Fraser fir and Norway spruce to sell as Christmas trees. He also has set aside 25 acres to make hay.

"The wine consumption in North America in the past two decades has gone up 30 percent," Boniface said. "There are 26 wineries in Maryland, and they're all looking for grapes."

Asked what an old horseman knows about growing grapes, Boniface has an easy answer: "I drank a lot of wine in my day."

The vines won't produce grapes for three years, and a full crop doesn't arrive until the fifth, but with the possibility of yielding about $8,000 per acre, Boniface figured it was a prudent investment.

"We're going to have to find another way to meet the nut unless something happens and slots come in to Maryland, and the breeding fund and things like that swing back," Boniface said. "We're going to try some diversification to survive. Our expertise, naturally, is in the horse farm. That's what we know. My partners, my sons [Bill Jr., who runs the breeding operation, and Kevin and John, both trainers], that's what we know. If you can't get enough horse business, you have to do something else."

The economic impact of the Maryland horse industry is $1 billion, according to a 2005 study commissioned by the American Horse Council Foundation, with 28,000 equine-related jobs in the state. The 2002 Maryland Equine Census found 206,000 acres of land in the state used for equine operations. Maryland also is home to the Preakness, one of the most recognizable races in the world, which this year attracted a crowd of 121,263 and nearly $87.2 million in a single day of wagering.