When Payson Stud founder and namesake Virginia Payson died in January, there were questions regarding the future of the farm. Placed in the hands of longtime family friend and trustee of Payson's estate Christian Erickson, Payson Stud has turned a corner.
With the help of his wife, Lori Ann, and sage advice from friends in the industry, Erickson has overseen not just a consolidation of assets but a renovated farm property as well as a sharper broodmare band with the aim of revitalizing the Payson name.
It also doesn't hurt to have bred an up-and-coming 2-year-old named She Feels Pretty, who will run in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1T) after earning an automatic bid by winning the Natalma Stakes (G1T) in just her second career start.
MarketWatch caught up with Erickson to discuss Payson's lasting legacy, plans for the operations, and what She Feels Pretty means to the farm.
MarketWatch: It's been a difficult year with Virginia's passing. How different has it been?
Christian Erickson: The story really goes back to January of 2022. She passed in January 2023 but I took over the reins as the successor trustee of her trust in 2022. I met her when I was 21 years old. I'm 62. And I always called her Mrs. Payson. In many ways, I she felt like my second mother. I'd grown up in Jackson, Wyoming, and I met her through her son Dean in college when we both went to the University of Kentucky, and we just sort of jived. I was actually galloping horses at Keeneland when I was in college. (Payson) was a horsewoman and a journalist, and my mother was a sports writer for The Oakland Tribune and had a column called "The Horse, of Course."
I became a financial adviser in 1993. She was my first big client, as well as my true friend. I was named as the trustee of the estate in 2006.
I succeeded (Payson) as trustee of the estate in 2022, but it really kind of started before she passed away, and that was actually a blessing because it gave me a chance to move things around while real estate was attractive. I would say it's been a challenge since then, because there's so many moving parts and components to the estate. Ee've actually kind of gotten our arms around it and cleaned it up, and it looks pretty attractive. We're on target to get things done where if we had to start this in January of 2023, I would have been knee deep right now.
MW: What would you say were the biggest changes that you've had to make?
CE: If you could imagine that you had a checkbook that had no bottom in it for 50 years, and you could do whatever you wanted with that checkbook, that's what we encountered. My wife Lori Ann is very much involved in this as well as I am. She was a business owner, and she runs the business side of it. The biggest challenge was that it was so vast; she had real estate everywhere. She had an equine portfolio that I kind of liken it to a tree that hadn't been trimmed up in some time. What the previous management did was nothing essentially, so that had to be cleaned up. The properties were all in a state of disarray. The farm on Paris Pike hadn't had a lot of work done to it in years, and every property was like that. There were 18 cars and a jet and it just was just a tangled mess of stuff.
We had to clean a lot up, we had to renovate property, we had to sell property. I hired Nathan McCauley, who is a friend of mine, to help me with bloodstock. I mean everything we do requires a professional, there's so many lawyers you just can't even imagine. We've cleaned it up and we're down to the farm on Paris Pike and some really nice horses. The portfolio of horses has gotten smaller but much stronger. We've gotten rid of art and jewelry and planes and cars. The farm has been undergoing a major renovation since I started. There was a barn on that farm that hadn't been used for 35 years that Dean had run a stallion venture out of and when they discontinued that the barn essentially just sat there.
I knew that farm, and I love that farm. It was in a pretty good state of deterioration. I went through that farm with Tommy Biederman, who's a local farm , and I asked him,Should I just get rid of the farm and move on or should I fix it? And Tommy's quote was, "Christian, wealthy people don't like projects." That's reverberated in the back of my mind since that meeting back in 2022. My legacy for Virginia Payson, who I loved, was that I would leave that farm in premium condition. So, I sold everything else.
Now I have a tenant on a renovated farm that's pretty much complete. (The farm is leased to Gainesway) One thing about this whole process …it's thrust me into a unique position. (Payson) was a gambler. She was a horsewoman and a quote in that trust is, "I encourage my trustee to think outside the box" and to look at assets other than what your typical trust would be. It is just an unbelievable opportunity for a guy that would have never been able to be involved in this sphere of horses and horse racing.
We've decided for now we're going to stay in the horse business. I culled out some of the older mares with Nathan's advice. We've decided we want to be a boutique operation and have four or five or six really good mares. We want to only deal in the top level of the business. I developed that through reading…her theories were on owning a band of broodmares and her theories on the horse world. She was a big believer in a small band, but a really good band, and if you're lucky enough to have a cornerstone, use it as a foundation building block. We were lucky enough now that just by chance we've got this young mare named Summer Sweet, who is the dam of She Feels Pretty. So I've got my cornerstone.
MW: What are your operations looking like today?
CE: The operation is strong now. We own, I think, 12 horses, not counting the retirees. … I don't know how much we're going to race. You know, I grew up on that side of it. I understand that side of it, probably better than the breeding side of it. I think Nathan McCauley is brilliant. We have a plan that I think is a really strong plan. … I've been offered seven figures for that mare in the last few weeks by multiple people, not just one, and it's hard to say no. I think we're going to keep her. I'm always seeking advice. Everybody's got an opinion about what you do with a really hot mare with a really hot pedigree. I was talking to Brian and was like, "What should I do?" And he said, "I wouldn't sell her." And Nathan agrees. We're going to build on that and we're going to the sale in November and we're going to look for another nice mare.
Two days after Mrs. Payson died, we bought a nice filly, 6-year-old mare, American Pharoah mare by the name of Lashara, and then we wheeled her back to Constitution and my intent originally was to pinhook her. But we're going to keep her. She's in foal to Constitution. I'm excited about that.
MW: What has She Feels Pretty meant to you and to Payson?
CE: She's put us on the map again. I surely didn't expect to be. We saw Into Mischief a couple of days ago and we're going to go see Justify next week, and I sure didn't expect this so soon. Virginia, she had some really nice mares.
MW: What haven't we touched on that you think readers should know?
CE: Virginia Payson created a legacy that we intend to grow. We're not going away. … If we can't deal in the upper echelon of the business then we're not going to be in the business. Our intention is to be noticed, because Virginia would want that.
