Go Fund Me Page Set Up for Merrymans' Premature Baby

A site to raise funds to support baby Max Merryman, who was born prematurely at 24 weeks and is expected to be hospitalized in a neonatal intensive care unit in Boston for several months at a minimum and then will require significant aftercare, has been established by the family. Max is the only child of Grace and Louis Merryman, the owners of Anchor and Hope Farm near Point Depot in Maryland. Louis, 44, is a third-generation horseman and part of a family long synonymous with breeding, training, and racing Thoroughbreds in Maryland. "This is very tough for all of us, and then there will be a lot of very big expenses to cover," said Liza Hendriks, the co-founder of Wanamaker's online Thoroughbred auctions, who is Louis' first cousin and the daughter of prominent breeder and trainer Elizabeth Merryman. "I put together the Go Fund Me page, but it was the idea of my aunt Ann (Merryman) as a way to support Grace and Louis through this very difficult time." Grace and Louis married in 2017 and established Anchor and Hope Farm, which is a full-service breeding operation, a year later. Grace, who was visiting family near Boston over the holidays before delivering Max prematurely by Caesarian section, normally does all the foal watching on the farm but now will be by her son's bedside indefinitely, so this blow is magnified. It is just the latest of the troubles that have plagued the family and the farm. On August 12, 2019, a devastating fire broke out in their main barn, which was a combination of three barns, and within five minutes, was totally engulfed in flames. In the aftermath, Grace and Louis were forced to hold a literal fire sale of the 10 yearlings they had planned to offer at the fall yearling sales in Kentucky and in the Mid-Atlantic. Just three of the lot sold, tallying under $30,000 in total, which was a small fraction of the projected gross profit for the 10 horses. Another gut punch came Aug. 23 when Imagining, a 14-year-old son of Giant's Causeway and grade 1-winning millionaire for owner/breeder Phipps Stable, was euthanized due to complications of colic. He had stood at Anchor and Hope since 2018. "They've been through so much, those two. Why did they have to be thrown another curveball? I can't even think about it without getting a lump in my throat," said longtime horsewoman Ann Merryman, a graded stakes winning-trainer and the sister of owner/breeder/trainer Edwin Merryman, Louis' father. "Having lived on the bottom spectrum of the financial world for so many years, I know that financial stress is much more stress than people realize. All of us are laborers in the businesses we run. We're not people that have tons of people working for us. Grace and Louis are very much like I am. The reason why they keep their head above water in the business is because they're not embarrassed to do all the physical work," Ann Merryman said. There is much work to be done at Anchor and Hope, especially now that foaling season is about to start, and Grace will stay in Boston with Max while Louis will fly back and forth as much as he can. Ann Merryman said that this large family adores them both and wants to help with the farm work, but there is nothing they can do since none live close to Anchor and Hope, and they all have their own farms and horses to maintain and care for. Asking for assistance does not come easily. "They are very humble people. Like when I called Edwin, we said that we're just not the people who ask for help. We're very proud people. But I said I don't give a damn, I'm doing it," she said. "Obviously, we don't know what's going to be. And we don't know what the medical bills will be." The Merrymans said that baby Max is being cared for at the world-renowned Tufts Medical Center in Boston. The hope is that one day he can be moved to another world-renowned facility, The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore closer to home, but that won't be a consideration until many months down the road. "You can imagine what it's like being there (in the Tufts NICU) and seeing a little, tiny baby that looks like that, and then all of this on top of it...," said Ann Merryman. "They say that the baby can hear, so Louis has been spending hours by his bedside reading to him. Louis is a big, rock-solid man, but the other day he came home and just sat down and bawled. Every time I think about it, I get a lump in my throat." She said that it seems, at this point, there aren't any January foals expected at Anchor and Hope, so her nephew and his wife caught the smallest of breaks. "But then all hell breaks loose on a breeding farm," she said while reiterating that Grace has always handled the foal-watching duties. "There's not somebody else that can handle that."