Ronnie Franklin, the hard-living Dundalk-raised jockey who rode Spectacular Bid to victories in the 1979 Kentucky Derby and Preakness, died March 8 of lung cancer.

If you build it, they will come. Or, at least, that’s the bet a few area equine facility owners and managers are making as they spend millions to bring their historic properties up to world-class competition standards.

Chuck Kuhn received the Commonwealth Steward Award for preserving more than 1,000 acres of land in Loudoun County at an event Oct. 12 at Middleburg Training Center, which is one of Kuhn’s preservation efforts

Travel into Western Loudoun and horses become a more common part of the landscape. What many county residents may not realize is each horse represents a booming industry.

The Middleburg Training Track, a long sought-after facility in the Loudoun equine community, is being fully revamped in a multi-million dollar overhaul.

The sale of the Middleburg Training Track was consummated last week, with Chuck Kuhn, founder and CEO of JK Movers based in Sterling, purchasing the 150-acre property for $1.5 million from the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation.

Consignor Cary Frommer made headlines in 2016 when two Uncle Mo colts she purchased as yearlings – one for $90,000 and another for $150,000 – brought seven-figure prices at the 2-year-old sales, the first going for $1 million at the Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream Sale and the second for $1.3 million at OBS in March.

The Middleburg Training Track is now under contract to Purcellville businessman Chuck Kuhn, who plans to settle on the 150-acre property in mid-May and immediately put the land in conservation easement.

Randolph D. “Randy” Rouse, a business impresario and a dashing, dapper and daring sportsman died on Friday, April 7. He was 100 years old.

The Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation (TRF) has listed for sale the 149-acre Middleburg Training Center that Virginia sportsman and developer Randy Rouse donated to the Saratoga-based organization on Dec. 29.

Tuesday, officials of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation said in an exclusive interview that the group may sell the Middleburg Training Center they were gifted in late December by Virginia horseman Randy Rouse.

Sportsman and real estate entrepreneur Randy Rouse has made an end-of-the-year donation of the Middleburg Training Center, an iconic piece of local property, to the non-profit Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation (TRF).