Taylor Made Prepares for Invasion of 'Chromies'

California Chrome (Lucky Pulpit) will soon be taking up residence at Taylor Made Farm and the farm is already making plans to accommodate what it expects will be a crush of tourists.

Last spring, Taylor Made purchased a golf course adjacent to their property, a decision that had nothing to do with California Chrome's impending arrival. Yet when the Taylor family began to consider what was to come when California Chrome arrived, it realized the golf course solved all their problems.

Working through Horse Country Tours, Taylor Made now attracts about 1,500 visitors a year. Taylor Made President and CEO Duncan Taylor conservatively estimates that number will increase to 20,000 fans a year.

“Right now, to start the tours, people come right into our office,” Taylor said. “I kind of like that because it gives them a feel for our business, but if it goes from 1,500 to 20,000, we can't have that many people cramming into our office every day. We had to prepare for that.”

Once Chrome arrives, visitors will be directed to the golf course. There's already a pro shop there and it will be expanded to include a gift shop for California Chrome and Taylor Made merchandise. There are also plans to build a cafe. With ample parking and large area available to the visitors upon their arrival, there shouldn't be any problems with overcrowding or not being able to satisfy the tourists' needs.

“We have a two-stallion barn and we were thinking about putting the gift shop up in there but said, 'Hell, we've gotten something a lot better with the pro shop,'” Taylor said. “Why not expand a little, and build a gift shop? We're going to do that between now and March. We're also going to have an area where people can see an introductory video, have a snack or a drink. A bus will take them to the farm and then bring them back when the tour is over.”

When it comes to the golf business, Taylor said neither he nor anyone in his family “has a clue.” But they have hired professionals to run the club and changed its name from High Point to The Thoroughbred Golf Club at High Point.

“Buying the golf course was completely spontaneous,” Taylor said. “We saw a big sign go up and it said the minimum bid was $500,000. We didn't think much about and one day the guy who runs our farm called me and said they took the minimum bid provision off of the deal. I told him to go ahead and bid. We got it for $408,000.”

While not knowing much, if anything, about running a golf course, the Taylors could easily see that the previous owners were just going through the motions.

“We've hired some really good people to run the place,” Taylor said. “We've improved the course and done a ton of stuff. We cleaned up the pro shop and are taking better care of the place. We are trying to be being more customer friendly; before no one was paying any attention to the customer.”

Taylor said that Taylor Made intends to remain in the golf business but if that venture proves to be unsuccessful, the fallback plan is to convert the 175-acre property into an extension of the current farm.

The current plan is for California Chrome to arrive at Taylor Made shortly after he competes in the Jan. 28 GI Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream. However, as Taylor told the TDN in an earlier interview, there is still some chance the champion will have a full campaign in 2017.

“There's still about a 5% chance that he will race next year,” he said. “I don't think we'll really know until after the Breeders' Cup. That may tell us something. Or we might wait to make a decision after the Pegasus World Cup.”