Josh Pons discusses Merryland: Two Years in the Life of a Racing Stable

Merryland first appeared as a popular series in The Blood-Horse magazine in 2005, just four years after the Pons family purchased the training facility in Maryland. Fifth-generation horseman and Eclipse Award-winning author Josh Pons wrote Country Life Diary: Three Years in the Life of a Horse Farm, in 1992, also published by Eclipse Press.

Although you did it previously with Country Life Diary, was it difficult to open your life and business for everyone to read about in Merryland: Two Years in the Life of a Racing Stable?

No, it was fun. I enjoyed the reflection on the day’s material. I selected what I thought had the most relevance to readers. My wife Ellen’s photographs often captured what I was thinking of writing about. Then I’d just put my faith in the material. The sport of racing is never short on material.

What did you learn from doing Country Life Diary that was helpful to you in capturing your thoughts for Merryland?

That the babies we raise at Country Life face a challenging life as racehorses. Reading back over the Country Life Diary, it strikes me as romantically naïve. You lose that innocence quickly in racing. The racetrack is a harder place than a breeding farm, because they post a report card every day of racing. Less forgiving. One winner per race, the rest losers. On a breeding farm, all the babies are winners, until proven otherwise.

After reading Merryland, what do you hope readers will take away from the compilation?

I hope they recognize that it’s only a game, even though you might depend on it for a living. It’s still just a sport. That the ball bounces funny in all sports, and here are a few odd bounces that happened to me. And not to whine about losing. That’s racing. It comes your way if you persevere.

What inspired you to write this sort of diary-style story again?

Because I read somewhere that 99 percent of all first-time authors never write a second book. I wanted to be in that other 1 percent. And Merryland presented me with fresh
material in a bite-size format that didn’t intimidate me, the way writing a novel does. A diary lets you keep your day job, write at night, or early morning.

What are the challenges and setbacks of running a training facility, and how do they differ from those of a breeding facility?

The responsibility for the safety of riders, for one. We’ve had three helicopters lift out injured riders to Shock Trauma. The responsibility for a safe training surface for the rider and the horse. We spend a lot of time and resources making sure the track is uniform.
It’s a lateral move to go from a breeding farm to a training center, like the Harvard business school example of Otis Elevator being in the vertical transportation business. You are in a different sector of a service business, but it’s still horse farming.

Is the emotional connection you have with the horses at the training center different from the connection you have with the horses you breed and raise at Country Life Farm?

A training center is a high school. Some juvenile delinquents will test your patience. A breeding farm, though, is more like an elementary school. Foals and weanlings are such fun to be around, whereas the young racehorses already have that distant look of pre-occupation to them. They know there is some business about to be undertaken. It’s just a different stage of growing up, same for people as for horses.

How does it feel running a successful training facility that is surrounded by encroaching development?

Actually, Merryland is located in a great farmland preserve area called the Long Green Valley. Under strict conservation easements. Country Life, though, is the last green parcel on Business Route One, twenty minutes from Baltimore. Luckily, the two farms feed off each other, and need each other. But both farms are dependant on a constant supply of good horses and good clients. That’s where we come in, that’s how we preserve farmland, by working at it.

Are you hopeful that your sons will one day take over the business?

It’s a family farm, with a niece and nephews who have also worked on the two farms. I hope all of them have a choice. I hope they choose to do something they love, not something they think has been painted in for them.

What is next for you as an author?

I’m a great fan of the author Richard Ford, who wrote a trilogy of books about New Jersey. Humorous, insightful prose that gives the reader "the lay of the land," which happens to be the title of his last book. So I’ve got a third book in mind, a not-so-serious look at the quirky world of horse racing.

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