by Murray Brown

If one were using one word to describe Midland Acres and its influence in Ohio standardbred breeding and racing, that word would be family.

Dr. John Mossbarger, the present head of one of the leading nurseries in the state of Ohio said, “Any and all success that Midland Acres has achieved in standardbred breeding is due entirely to our team, our family, here. It is led by my brother Jay, myself, Jay’s son Jake, and Dr. Robert Schwartz. It’s been a long, but very satisfying road that we have traveled since my dad, Dr. Don Mossbarger, first established the farm and transitioned his practice from one specializing in large animals, primarily cattle, to one where all we do is breed and raise trotters and pacers.”

You are a man wearing several different hats in harness racing. Can you tell us about some of them?

“My dad used to say that I spent most of my time attending meetings. To some extent that is true. However, I believe my primary duty, and where I spend most of my time, is as the equine veterinarian here at Midland Acres. I was raised on the farm and rode with my dad from the time I was just a kid. There was never any doubt in my mind that I was going to become an equine veterinarian. Both before attending vet school at Ohio State and since, I’ve done most of my work here on the farm.

“However, as the Ohio program grew, it became quite evident that in order for it to become successful, it was imperative that we and other breeders be available to help guide its progress both within and outside of the industry.

“Thus, I began wearing several hats. I became a director of the USTA and rose to the chairman of the registration committee. I’m the past president of the OHHA [Ohio Harness Horsemen’s Association] and a trustee of the Ohio farm bureau.

“I’m also quite active politically. It’s of great importance that the politicians know our story. We think we’ve done a good job of it, but it’s never quite enough. I believe our biggest selling point is the value of agriculture to the state, its economy and its quality of life.”

At the recent USTA meetings a proposal was made to raise the limit of the mares bred to a stallion each season to 160. Do you have any thoughts on it?

“Actually, that proposed rule change was first made last year. It was in effect tabled pending the results of a genetic diversity study. Those results are not yet available, so it was once again tabled.

“At this point, I would probably say that we are doing alright with the limit as it is. The factors involved in limiting stud books are not only related to genetic diversity, but also to commercial diversity. It’s likely that raising the limit would only affect a handful of stallions, probably at the most. Nevertheless, we would be creeping into uncharted territory.

“How many mares to a stallion in a given year is too many? I really do not know. We might be aiding those stallions, but are we hurting others which might be adversely affected by not getting some of those surplus mares?”

Midland Acres is an all-purpose standardbred farm, standing stallions of your own and other breeders’ mares, but you also breed and raise yearlings for Ohio primarily and sometimes occasionally dip into the North American marketplace. What can you tell us about that?

“We like to believe that we do it all and hopefully do it all reasonably well. For all intents and purposes, we began as a standardbred farm in the 1960s. Through the years we have stood many stallions, some with varying degrees of success. Among them were Flower Child, the first trotter to win in 2:00 in Europe, Speed In Action, a horse that dominated the trotting sires stakes here in Ohio, and Nobleland Sam who did the same with pacers. ‘Sam’ came along when the industry here in Ohio was hurting.

“Many other states had adopted successful sires stakes programs connecting gaming and racing. We hadn’t yet done that. I look upon that as both being a negative and a positive. It was a negative in that people had stopped or certainly lessened their breeding in Ohio. We realized that we had to do something and do it reasonably rapidly. The result was that significant unity was achieved between all segments of the industry here in Ohio. We worked together with the legislature, to the point where I believe our program, both at the tracks and the fairs is unrivaled in North America.

“A positive was that we were able to look at all the other programs and add the good parts and delete those that we didn’t like. The result is that, in my far from unbiased opinion, we have the best program for both pari-mutuel and fair racing in North America.”

You mentioned that you occasionally dip your toe out of Ohio into the North American market.

“A fortuitous example of that was when my nephew Jake bought the mare Margie Seelster, then in foal to Explosive Matter for us. The foal she was carrying was named Pinkman and he went on to win the 2015 Hambletonian. We aren’t the official breeder of record, but he was foaled and raised here on the farm and sold by us as a yearling. It is something of which we take great pride.”

How is Midland Acres presently constituted?

“When dad first bought the farm, it was an old dairy farm and covered 75 acres. Today we have 500 acres. We stand six stallions T C I, Summa Cum Laude, Monte Miki, Ready For Moni, Long Tom, and Bit Of A Legend N. We own about 100 broodmares. From those mares we are able to raise somewhere around 70 commercially marketable yearlings each year. Of those 70, I would guess that 10 or so enable us to remain a profitable enterprise. Nobody ever said that breeding horses is an easy pursuit. If they said that, they were lying.”

It is no easy feat to have existed and often thrived when so many other Ohio breeding farms no longer exist. Names like Fair Chance, Hill Farms, Sahbra Farms, Pickwick, Fairmeade Greenacres and others come to mind. To what do you attribute this longevity?

“I would point to two main factors — family and hard work. They actually go hand in hand. I like to quote an old saying, ‘Hard work doesn’t guarantee anything, but without it you have nothing.’ We cannot thank the owners and breeders enough for having the confidence in entrusting us with their mares and horses through the years.”