Maintaining a connection to when Stanford was synonymous with speed, not students

The Red Barn, which was built circa 1878, and modern arena at the Stanford Equestrian Center.

What do you think of when somebody says the name “Stanford”? Guidance counselors and high-achieving high school students are likely to associate the name with Stanford University. Those in the technology and business realms might think of the school’s connections to companies like Hewlett-Packard, Genentech, Google, or, less flatteringly, Theranos. The names Jim Plunkett, John Elway, Andrew Luck, Richard Sherman, and Christian McCaffrey might come to the minds of football fans. History and railroad buffs are likely to recall Leland Stanford himself, the California governor, United States Senator, and president of Southern Pacific Railroad. There was a time, however, when the Stanford name was synonymous with horse racing and breeding. 

Before Leland Stanford and his wife Jane founded Leland Stanford Junior University following the 1884 death of their 15-year-old son Leland, Jr., their property on the San Francisco Bay Area Peninsula was the site of the Palo Alto Stock Farm where the elder Leland bred and raised trotters and thoroughbreds. The Stanford campus is nicknamed “The Farm,” but most people who use that moniker do not know the details of its equestrian origins. 

The front entrance to the Red Barn.

A more thorough account of the history of Palo Alto Stock Farm, which operated between 1876 and 1903, can probably be found elsewhere, but I will provide some of the text posted on one of the displays at the Red Barn Equestrian Center site. 

Leland Stanford has been viewed simply as a rich man indulging his hobby. But the Stock Farm was, in fact, a giant biological laboratory where he tested his progressive and controversial ideas on horse breeding and training. It also was the site of the photographic experiments he commissioned to prove his theory that, at one point in its steady gate, a trotter had all four feet off the ground. The experiments, conducted by Eadweard Muybridge, gave rise to the idea of the moving picture.

The Stock Farm never turned a profit; Leland Stanford never expected it to. His immediate goal was to develop speed in trotters, horses that pulled sulkies – the latter-day chariots – in the then-popular harness races. In the years preceding the development of the automobile, Stanford thought careful breeding of horses could increase their productivity, thereby boosting the national economy. There were approximately 13 million horses in the United States in the late 1880s. 

Despite numerous commitments that kept him away from the farm for long periods, Leland Stanford spent as much time as possible around the stables while at Palo Alto. He often sat on the office porch, a good vantage point close to the home stretch of the mile track, to observe the training of his trotters. Despite ill health, he visited the farm to watch the horses being worked on the day he died. 

At the height of the Stock Farm’s success, a writer who had seen the major stock farms of America reported: “It is easy to say that no two or three of them rolled into one would duplicate Palo Alto. Governor Stanford is easily the first [place] trotting-horse breeder in the world. 

This statue commemorates Eadweard Muybridge's "The Horse in Motion" proto-films that proved that horses momentarily have all four legs in the air while trotting or galloping.

The lynchpin in the Stock Farm’s success was the trotting sire Electioneer, whom Stanford purchased for $12,000 in 1876. Electioneer had not distinguished himself at stud at Stony Ford in New York, but he went on to sire nine of the 13 champions bred at the Stock Farm. In addition to Electioneer’s prowess at stud, the trotters bred by Stanford benefited from his novel approach of aggressively training yearlings for speed in what became known as the “Palo Alto System.” Leland Stanford, Sr. died in 1893 and with Stanford University (which admitted its first students in 1891) becoming Jane Stanford’s top priority, the Stock Farm closed in 1903.

The statue of Leland Stanford's prolific sire Electioneer.

While growing up in nearby Sunnyvale I spent numerous weekends either at Stanford University watching football, basketball, and baseball games or attending the races further north along the former Southern Pacific right-of-way at Bay Meadows Racecourse, but I was unaware of the Stanford-horse racing connection until I read Tom Ainslie’s New Complete Guide to Harness Racing when I was living in New Jersey in my early 20s and making semi-regular trips to the harness races at the Meadowlands. 

A shed row inside the Red Barn.

Last summer when visiting California to see friends and family I decided to walk around the beautiful and spacious Stanford campus. I entered the visitor center and saw images from Sallie Gardner at the Gallop, one of the proto-films Stanford had commissioned to prove that horses have all four legs off the ground at one point at either the trot or the gallop. I texted a picture of the display to my friend Barbara Livingston, whose equine photography skills are matched only by her passion for racing and equestrian history. She informed me that she had considered making a visit to the Stanford Red Barn Equestrian Center when she passed through the Bay Area in 2016 but could not make it work logistically, but she encouraged me to make my own pilgrimage. I took a lengthy, meandering walk from the visitor center at Cobb Track & Angell Field to the Red Barn, only to see a sign saying the facility was closed to visitors.

Before making my most recent visit to the Bay Area I emailed the barn manager at the Red Barn and asked if it would be possible for me to visit, shamelessly playing the “I used to work in horse racing and I’m a history geek card.” Barn manager Catherine D’Arcey was kind enough to not just offer me an invitation, but also give me a tour of the facilities and introduce me to some of the horses who live on the grounds, which now serves as the home of the Stanford equestrian team. 

Visitors to Stanford Red Barn Equestrian Center, which is tucked between fairways on the Stanford Golf Course on the campus’ southwest corner, are greeted by a bronze statue of Electioneer that stands in front of an open arena. To the left is the Red Barn where inside you will find the office D’Arcey shares with Red Barn executive director and the equestrian team’s head coach Vanessa Bartsch. This is the same office Leland Stanford used when visiting the Stock Farm. In addition to horses, the Red Barn is home to two barn owls who, according to D’Arcey, are appreciated for their help with controlling the rodent population. The Red Barn was in disrepair by the early 1980s, but renovation projects undertaken that decade and in the mid-2000s have restored it to its former glory.

The view from what was Leland Stanford's office at the Red Barn.

The other building on the grounds that dates back to the Stock Farm era is a brick structure that was built to replace a wooden barn that was destroyed by a fire in 1888, but the brick barn was repurposed after its coldness and dampness caused the horses sheltered within to contract pneumonia. Opposite this brick building are two statues, one of which honors the top horses who were bred and raised at the site and another commemorates Muybridge’s proto-films. Stanford University's equestrian history is also acknowledged by the name of its Marguerite free shuttle service, with Marguerite being the name of one of Jane Stanford’s gray carriage horses. 

This show bridle owned by Leland Stanford is one of the many artifacts inside the brick barn.

I think it is, for lack of a more sophisticated term, totally cool that the Red Barn not only still stands but remains in use. The staff, riders, and horses are helping maintain a legacy that began almost 150 years ago and predates many of racetracks and breeding operations throughout the United States. Stanford might be acclaimed today for its academic reputation, but for as long as the Red Barn Equestrian Center remains in operation Leland Stanford’s passion for horses will never be forgotten.

Cheese, one of the current residents at the Stanford Equestrian Center.