November 7, 2009  |
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| bloodhorse.com >> Breeding >> Country Life Diary |
Country Life
Diary Foreword
That conversation occurred more than 50 years ago, at the office of the Maryland Horse Breeders Association, in what otherwise would have been the front second-floor bedroom of our house on Highland Avenue in Towson. I had not thought of Finney's statement in nearly that length of time, but it came to mind the other day when Josh Pons honored me with the request that I write this foreword. Whatever else each may or may not have achieved, Adolphe Pons and Humphrey Finney certainly got their kids involved. "Ponsie," as Finney affectionately called him, is remembered as a small, stocky man, always nattily presented, with a stylish mustache and a precise and colorful mode of expression. In time he was succeeded in stewardship of Country Life Farm by the duo known to us as "the Pons boys," and to the author as "Uncle John" and "Dad," who in turn have been relieved of that stewardship to a considerable extent by the third generation of Country Life Ponses. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, however; absent the mustache, but with the conformation, twinkling eye and fluent turn of phrase, the author is more than faintly evocative of his grandsire. When Ed Bowen (to whom we give thanks) fortuitously asked Josh to undertake a Maryland farm journal in 1989, he was asking to retrace footsteps Finney had taken when I was a yearling, but the path was over very different terrain. Finney was paid to oversee a fifteen-hundred-acre spread for a wealthy patron who did not expect the farm to feed the family, in an environment free of encroaching hostile development, and in a time when qualified labor was readily available. Pons is an entrepreneur, operating with not unlimited family capital a high-risk enterprise, the success of which is of vital importance to him and his family, in an extremely difficult labor market on a small parcel of ground constantly in danger of being overrun by suburbia. The external pressures confronting Finney and Pons differed significantly, but the fundamental challenges of the primary farm activity -- breeding, raising, and preparing Thoroughbred horses for racing -- have changed practically not at all in the intervening half-century, or indeed since the breed began. It is the thoughtful and artfully expressed evocation of these fundamentals which so enriches the daily reports in this work; the reader gleans an understanding of and appreciation for the cadences of horse farm life, dictated by Mother Nature and necessarily respected by successful Thoroughbred breeders of every generation. The externals may change through time, but the joy and cruelty of nature's process are immutable. This truth is superbly vignetted by Pons, as is the abiding faith in and affection for the animal which characterize the men and women who elect to spend their lives in this pursuit. Country Life and its generations of stewards are a charming anachronism in today's world, one which all who harbor affection for the Thoroughbred and the life surrounding his production would like to see go on forever. Few scribes are presented with such a rich lode to mine; fewer still have the prescience to marry a gifted illustrator. Josh Pons has chronicled with love and precision a segment of this charming anachronism; wife Ellen has skillfully illuminated it. May their efforts afford you as much pleasure as they have brought to me.
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