The Iron Spring Farm website:
Did not know this lady myself, but saw it on FB and thought it should be shared on COTH.
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Many many years ago I read an article in the WSJ concerning the Cambells Soup Company. I think there were three grandchildren of the founder and Mary Alice Malone was one. The discussion was succession of the leadership of the company and the author’s opinion was that Mary Alice Malone had the best business sense of the grandchildren, but she had no desire whatsoever to run the company. She enjoyed being a wife and mother (and I am sure an equestrian and horse breeder) and wanted no part of running a company.
However I think she put that business sense and marketing and advertising expertise in play shaking up what was the old standard of advertising. Back when farm ads and stallion ads were comprised of amateur snapshots - she had full page spreads with professional photos and professional layouts, usually located in the back pages of the magazines she advertised in. You could not help but marvel at the horses she advertised standing at stud. It was a whole level higher than the other farms. I think that was just one way she innovated the whole sporthorse industry.
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I was always so impressed with what she built.
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Met her only once and she had just imported Contango and she showed him to us (at her farm), we were one of the first outsiders to see him in the flesh and when she pulled his sheet off we were speechless. Oh boooooooyyyyyyy he was stunningly handsome. She said she thought this one was going to be special and she was bang on.
Very, very nice lady she was.
I never met her in person, but she did humor 14 y/o Beowulf, who many, many years ago saw her ads in the back of a magazine and fell in love with one of her stallions. She had an incentive where Pony Clubbers got a discount on their breeding fee. Even though I’m sure she clocked me a mile away as a head-in-the-clouds teenager, she sent me the most lovely brochure and a CD of information on what that stallion improved, what he didn’t, and wished me the best of luck in my horse journey. What a kind lady she was.
