Listed in: Race Horse Breeding & Sales

Brandywine Farm   [ MAP ]
751 JACKSTOWN ROAD
PARIS,KY 40361
Contact Person: JIM & PAM ROBINSON
Email Address: pjbrandy@gte.net
Website: http://www.brandywinefarmllc.com/
Phone: Pam's cell phone: (859) 621-0724 / Jim’s cell phone: (859) 621-8556

The journey of Brandywine Farm, Jim and Pam Robinson’s commercial breeding operation, took a path longer than the 470 miles that separate Chapel Hill from Lexington. But it’s a good place to start. Just about 13 years ago, a loose caravan of 11 semi-trucks rumbled northwest from North Carolina, climbed and crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains, and pulled into Paris, Kentucky on a cold January day, carrying the lives and livelihood of the Robinsons.

The “livelihood” took the form of Thoroughbreds, mostly broodmares, the sole freight of eight of the semis. There were nearly 100 in total, and they were the driving force behind a whirl-wind two months that saw Pam make the abrupt decision to retire from a long and successful career in academia, and the couple uproot Brandywine from one state to another.

“We came up from North Carolina for the 1997 Keeneland November Sale with two weanlings,” explained Pam. “One sold for $182,000 and the other brought $125,000. Those were very good sales then, and we probably had $35,000 in the two of them combined, including the price of the mares carrying them. We had always known we’d retire to Kentucky, so while we were there, we decided to look around at property.”

The Robinson’s fell in love with one of the first farms they were shown, a beautiful spread over several hundred acres in Paris that, strangely, featured a house that had the exact floor plan of the house they owned in North Carolina, but reversed. They put in an offer. It was accepted. Entertaining, but ultimately rejecting the idea of splitting their time between the two farms, they hurriedly put their North Carolina farm on the market, knowing getting real estate sold can takes months or longer. It took days. “The first people who came and looked at it bought it,” laughed Pam. “So we owned a farm in Kentucky and no longer owned a farm in North Carolina and thought, “Well, we better move!”


“New Start in the Bluegrass”…………..

For the Robinsons, both natives of Ohio, moving to Kentucky was the official start of their second careers. Jim was a retired electrical engineer who spent 30 years with General Telephone and Electronics (GTE). His work there included research on fiber optics and long-range telecommunications. By the time he retired, he was GTE’s Director of transmission and protection for the Southern United States.

Pam’s resume was no less impressive. She was just 24 when she earned her first Ph.D. in the field of medical sciences. She went straight to work for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she found that all of the graduate students she was teaching were older than she was. Pam also taught or studied at Ohio University, the Ohio State University, and Michigan State University.

Always in the background, though, were the horses. Jim had grown up on a large farm, and the couple had three pleasure horses when they first settled down in North Carolina in the mid-1970s. A neighbor had horses too, Thoroughbreds, and they took an interest that grew from a dabbling here and there to a full-scale breeding operation.

“Over 15 years or so, three or four turned into a hundred mares and five stallions,” said Pam. Despite being away from the hub of activity in Lexington, the Robinson’s were still breeding for the commercial market, which meant a lot of miles during breeding and sales seasons. It was a lot of work, too, “and very expensive,” said Pam.

When the Robinson’s found and purchased the farm in Paris, followed shortly by the sale of their North Carolina property, Pam was confronted with a tough decision; retire from her post at UNC, in the middle of the academic year, or stay in Tarheel country during the weeks while Jim managed the Kentucky farm. She decided to retire.

“I was the Director of the graduate program for sports medicine,” she explained. “I had 65 graduate students, and all sorts of things going on. I had 25 years with the university, so I had a lot to do to make sure everything was covered”.

Retirement’s never been so much work. Not for the Robinsons, at least. Today, Brandywine has doubled in size and is one of the country’s most prolific breeders. As Pam looks back at the history of Brandywine, it wasn’t the move from North Carolina to Kentucky that set the tone for the operation, but rather an earlier move from Ohio to North Carolina. “We still have this great picture from the move,” she said. “We were towing a trailer behind with our manure spreader, and in the manure spreader sat our dining room set. We must have looked like the Beverly Hillbillies. It was comical.”

“We just try to raise good horses and keep a good reputation for treating people honestly and fairly,” she said.
-Lucas Marquardt.