Located in the heart of historic Reisterstown, Md., just down the road from Sagamore Farm, Hall of Fame steeplechase trainer Jack Fisher's Kingfisher Farm, and GreenMount Farm, the birthplace of 2021 Horse of the Year Knicks Go (Paynter), sits the newly opened Maryland Horse Library and Education Center.
The one-of-a-kind facility, honoring the robust history of horses in Maryland and serving as a hub for educating the next generation, is housed in the Maryland Horse Breeders Association (MHBA)'s building. The stately brick structure with large, white columns, was originally built in 1876 as the Grace Methodist Church South, and later housed Reisterstown Federal Savings and Loan, Shaw's Antiques, various realty groups and another Living Faith Chapel, before it was purchased by the MHBA in April of 2020.
It was only fitting that a building with such a storied past would add a new chapter to its legacy as the permanent home of the Maryland Horse Library and Education Center, representing a collective vision and years-long culmination of work by the Maryland Horse Foundation (MHF), the MHBA's staff, boards and committees, and Cricket Goodall, executive director of the MHBA and Maryland Million Ltd.
“We had several different opportunities over the years that didn't work out and I thought, maybe it's just not going to work out, maybe I'm not going to get this done,” said Goodall, who has worked for the MHBA since 1986 and has served as executive director since 2003. “It was certainly a long-term goal of mine, but really it was sort of fate, I guess, that the right spot came along, and that we had the right board of directors that were willing to take the next step to commit and own something. Even the timeframe, [dealing] with COVID, low interest rates and a whole bunch of other things that we couldn't have ever planned for, it all came together at the right time.”
Walking up onto the porch and through the double set of doors, visitors will find themselves stepping into a facility entirely dedicated to Maryland's diverse and expansive horse industry, featuring a 5,000-book reference library covering a wide range of history, breeds, disciplines, genres and collections. The building also boasts a soundproof media room, research room, conference room/meeting area, a children's activity area and a section that's home to a variety of memorabilia.
The center is a dream turned reality for both the MHBA, whose offices have also found a permanent home in the building, and the MHF, which promotes and oversees a variety of equine industry educational programs as well as operates the library and education center.
Though finding an ideal location to display and share the extensive collection of literature, which has only grown throughout the history of the MHBA, was a main priority, the emphasis on education and creating an inviting place to foster learning, collaboration and future growth was inspired by meetings between Goodall and Jordyn Egan, the former director of development for the MHF.
Egan was an integral part of bringing the right people together to help put the vision for the center to paper, in the form of renderings and plans, along with spearheading the collaboration and support necessary to launch and carry out the capital campaign for the project.
“We put together the narrative of what we really believed it would be and the purpose it would serve for the community, and once we took that message and that vision out, it exploded. We thought this would be a much larger process as far as the capital campaign, but our original goal was surpassed in under a year and it just kept going,” said Egan, now the executive director of the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC).
Once the initial goal was reached, the plans could be put into action, as renovations began to gut the majority of what existed in the front section of the building and rebuild to fit the vision of the center. A few initial plans changed as more walls and a drop ceiling were stripped away, with quite a few adjustments and tweaks made to preserve the original barrel ceiling of the church, revealed during the demolition process. A cozy reading loft and a spiral staircase to access it, above the media and research rooms, was also added in.
The $1-million capital campaign launched in March of 2021 and by that June, the goal had already been reached, which prompted the team to extend the campaign in an effort to raise $2 million. Currently, they've raised just over $1.7 million.
“Not only did we raise enough money to do the project, but we were able to have some money to endow the project in the future and make sure that the programming happens.”
Goodall extends a lot of credit to Josh Pons, president of the MHF, along with Richard Blue, Jr. and Dr. Michael Harrison, who led the process of reaching out to potential donors and bringing in donations for the capital campaign.
“It feels like we've won some great prize that we can then build on, I think that's one of the biggest things. We packaged this idea of Cricket's vision for what this building could be and people were creative enough and had familiarity with other museums and other libraries that they could say, 'We should have something like that,'” said Pons. “It's difficult to argue with the merits of not just the library, but also the education center component.”
The library aspect of the project was a beast of its own, as the MHBA and later the MHF had developed an extensive collection of literature over many, many decades, which came along for the ride as the MHBA moved office locations throughout its history before eventually, the books were sent out to be housed in storage units. Another dream realized was that of finally having a fully-fledged library, where the books could be organized, shelved and shared.
But before all of that could come to fruition, the collection had to be pulled out of storage, sorted by hand and eventually catalogued. The MHBA's research specialist Cindy Deubler, along with Wesley Wilson, who retired in January after more than 50 years with Enoch Pratt Free Library in downtown Baltimore, and a small but mighty group of volunteers handled the daunting task.
“We tried to come up with an idea of how to organize it, because there are many ways with libraries, but it's so specialized that it was very challenging to break it apart and define it more for some of the collections. I contacted Becky Ryder at Keeneland Library and she was super helpful to give me some basics on what they did, what system they used and how they were displaying them on shelves. We used the Library of Congress method, which is what Keeneland uses, and we're putting the catalog online, on the cloud, at libraryworld.com,” said Deubler.
The bulk of the library was pulled out of storage in April, with the organizing process beginning at the end of that month and continuing until late September. After flooring was installed and the shelving units were all put up in the library, the final collection of books was moved into the building while the rest, another 5,000, returned to storage.
“The material is everything. It's all disciplines, so many different breeds, from veterinary care and stable management, really any kind of horse book you can think of. We have a decent fiction section and a lot of our Dick Francis books are first editions signed by Dick Francis,” said Deubler. “We're just trying to keep it diverse and we'll try to keep it fresh.”
The library collection is also highlighted by many rare, unique finds, thanks to donations through the years including: the Selima Room collection from the Prince George's County Library System's Bowie branch; at least a dozen copies of The History of Thoroughbred Racing in America, by William H.P. Robertson; and complete sets of The Jockey Club Racing In America series (which covers racing history from the 1600s to the 1970s).
“Most research materials are online, so you don't see many volumes of that coming in anymore. But one thing we kept are old stallion registers, we have them going back to the '50s. I look at it as a researcher, a history writer, that it's nice to be able to get your hands on that. The Daily Racing Form chart books are very much that way,” said Deubler. “We're not just Thoroughbred, but obviously the big focus of the library is that because of who our donors have been.”
The dream has always been to create a central location where the horse industry across the state, and those looking to learn more and become a part of it, can come together and collaborate. Based on the turnout of the official grand opening of the library and education center, held Friday, Dec. 16, where the public, politicians, members of the horse industry and supportive donors came together to celebrate, there's no doubt that Goodall's dream has been realized.
She only hopes it will grow from there, as the center will not only host the MHF's various educational programs, but hopes to be the home base for a variety of other programs and events.
“It's an important look in the future, because when you're educating people, you're hoping and planning that they're going to be learning and carrying on the future of the horse industry,” she said. “We hope to have everything from author talks to speaker series, along with hosting local community groups and seminars, because that's a lot of exposure for the industry.”
Other unique features include the outer wall of the building adorned with colorful racing silks, representing prominent Maryland connections in flat racing and steeplechase that donated to the project, along with the walls and doorways, both inside and out, which are graced with the names of supportive donors and treasured members of Maryland's horse industry, such as Robert E. Meyerhoff and Nancy Lee Frenkil.
Topped off with a beautiful, blue-sky mural that spans the ceiling, there is no space that more perfectly emulates the importance of preserving Maryland's horse history while also educating and inspiring the next generation.
“You drive by a horse farm and you can't always come in, but you drive by the Maryland Horse Library and Education Center and you can come in, talk to people and find out how to get involved. It's also bringing the horse community together because it's a central resource for all of the different disciplines. This building signifies the togetherness of the Maryland horse industry as a whole, along with its health, importance and heritage. It is incredibly meaningful,” said Egan.
The Maryland Horse Library and Education Center is open Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, visit www.marylandhorse.com.
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