Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Wrens named Nevada County Farm Family of the Year for 2004

Steve and Janis Wren are the 2004 Nevada County Farm Family of the Year.

The Wren family owns and operates a stable of thoroughbred race horses.

Steve grew up on a cattle farm, where horses were ridden for both work and pleasure. He showed horses several years, and broke horses for other people to earn extra money.

His uncle Billy, who lived in Virginia, got him started in the horse business. He talked Steve into moving to Charles Town, Va., and becoming a jockey. The 21-year-old had to drop 20 pounds, but six months later rode in his first parimutuel race  winning on the first two horses he rode.

Injuries and weight forced him out of the jockey end of the business, but, in 1979, he got his trainer's licence. This, though, didn't turn out to be very profitable, so he opened a feed store in Hope. Unfortunately, though a lot of feed was sold, when three dairies filed bankruptcy, it forced him out of business as well.

D&D Training Center was built outside of Prescott on Highway 19, and for the next 10 years the Wrens managed a thoroughbred horse farm, building it into one of the premier farms in the state.

They trained about 50 horses at all times, and had another 50 turnouts. "It was a profitable time to be in the horse industry," he said. "Don and Dorothy McDaniell, from Sparkman, owned the farm and were the greatest people to work for."

A decision had to be made, though, whether to stay at the horse farm with its securities, or go back to the race track with no guarantees. The Wrens went back to the track, and, Steve said, it proved to be a wise decision.

This is because Kaaren and Hays Biggs of Fayetteville, hired him to be their private trainer in 1990. The relationship was more like a family than employee/employer. Hays Biggs died in August 2003, but the Wrens still have a strong relationship with Kaaren.

"The race horse industry has the highest of highs and the lowest of lows," he said, "and we've experienced it all."

The highest high, he said, was when Mr. Jester, a horse of theirs, won the Million Dollar Delta Jackpot for two-year-olds.

The family faced another major decision in 1994 when Brandon, their son, wanted to drop out of college and come to the track to help Steve. "As much as I liked the idea," Steve said, "I knew his mother would kill me, so I bought him a job  30 cows and one Charolais bull."

The family's main business is the Steve Wren Racing Stable, which trains horses for racing in Arkansas, Kentucky and Louisiana. There are currently 20 horses in training.

Wren is now training for two people, Biggs and Buddy Formby, who's from Prescott. Formby has five horses being trained at the facility. When Formby first approached Wren to train his horses, Wren politely declined, saying he was doing private training for Biggs. After the Delta Jackpot win, he said, Formby called again saying he wanted a horse and only Wren could train it. He agreed, saying it turned out to be the right decision.

The Steve Wren Racing Stable is a cottage industry in its own right. It employs a number of exercise boys who gallop the horses, grooms who clean the stalls and take care of the horses, hot walkers who walk the animals every morning after their gallop and bath and a night watchman who waters the horses at night and feeds them again at 4 a.m.

Janis helps with the books and bills, with each day starting no later than 5 a.m. Training is a 365-day-a-year job.

The horses are fed lunch at 11 a.m. and are left alone to rest until their next feeding time at 5 p.m. A veterinarian checks with the Wrens daily to keep up with the care and maintenance of the horses. The animals are vaccinated and dewormed monthly and also get a flu/vacc/Rhino shot.

Each horse is shod every 30 days, with their teeth worked on every four months. The manure is put in a bin and hauled away daily to mushroom farms.

"Before I became a race tracker," he said, "I thought all you had to do is hang a bridle on the horse and lead him over to race. Wrong. It takes about 120-150 days of vigorous training to have horse ready to run, including getting it gate approved.

The Wren's second enterprise is Willow Oaks Acres, which also employs several people. This includes a farm manager who oversees the farm and training, exercise boys and grooms.

An Equisizer is used at Willow Oaks Acres after horses are galloped. This piece of equipment can accommodate six horses at a time and varies in speeds from a walk to a jog to a gallop, depending on what the trainer wants the horses to do.

The manure from this facility is spread over the pastures daily. Willow Oaks Acres is a 160 acre site equipped to board and train horses with a 5/8 mile track, a new 20 stall barn, a training barn with the Equisizer. The clientele, he said, includes 25-30 owners.

The cattle operation has 250 cow/calf pairs and 20 grown bulls. The calves are weaned and backgrounded before going to market. "We first got into the cow business 10 years ago," he said, "with little knowledge.

"In 1994 we bought our first cow herd consisting of 30 cows and a Charolais bull. Brandon takes care of the entire cattle operation with a semi-full-time person helping."