About five miles west of this Hill Country town on Texas 46 is the Double Diamond Ranch. It has a barn, stables, training pens, trainers, grooms, saddles and bridles and, of course, horses.
But this is not a dusty country barn with sunlight oozing through the cracks between the boards to relieve the gloom.
We’re talking a Four Seasons Hotel for horses, a training spa for Arabians and Half-Arabians, whose owners expect–and get–the very best.
Its services include daily stall and pasture ($300 a month), training ($525 a month), body clips ($75 a horse), photography ($50) and “stall name plates will be billed to client upon horse’s arrival,” according to a brochure. It also provides breeding services.
And for the owners, “We’ve created pretty much a country-club atmosphere for people who enjoy horses,” said Bill Rodgers, director of sales and marketing for the Double Diamond. He’s not exaggerating.
The front of the barn is a stone and brick facade that would do any West Lake Hills office park proud. The two-story front of the 80,000-square-foot building is for the staff and horse owners, not the horses, and the furniture would sit well in the corner office of any downtown, high-rise law firm. There’s a commercial-grade kitchen upstairs, a bar and art work valuable enough to warrant a visit last week from a security consultant.
Behind the office and reception area is the riding arena, 200 feet long and about 110 feet wide–roughly two-thirds the size of a football field. Although the roof and sides provide ample protection from the rain and direct sunlight, there are plenty of openings to let air circulate and sunshine to bounce off the white walls and ceilings.
Embracing the arena on three sides are stalls, and training and care areas.
There are 96 white stalls for horses, and they, too, get plenty of natural light. The floors have rubber mats covered with sawdust. Automatic sprayers periodically erupt in a never-ending battle with flies, and a ceiling fan turns over each stall.
Meters enable the keepers to know how much water a horse is drinking every day–an early clue for detecting illness.
Another special touch is the sand used in the arena and some training areas. It’s covered with a polymer that almost eliminates dust. It feels a bit greasy, but wipe your hands off and they feel dry.
Walter Mishek, publisher of the Arabian Horse Times, visited the Double Diamond at its coming-out party with about 1,900 guests recently and came away with rave reviews, calling it one of the three best facilities of its kind in the world.
“It has every amenity that’s imaginable to mankind–not only for a horse but for a human being,” said Mishek, whose publication is the bible of the Arabian horse industry.
Others in the area who attended the grand opening also came away awed.
“I was a little astounded,” said Rebecca Snell, a veteran horsewoman who has lived here for 22 years.
Snell said she hasn’t seen spending on such a scale on a horse operation in the Hill Country since the boom times of the 1980s, when wealthy investors putting money into expensive horses and their facilities “were talking about what they put in their folios (portfolios), not in their barns.”
But can such an expensive facility make money?
“Hell, no,” Mishek said. Of the two other comparable facilities in the world, he said, one went bankrupt in Brazil and the other, near Barksdale, is not being used.
Snell agreed: “No–there’s no way.”
Rodgers, the sales manager, said, “We do attempt to make a profit here.”
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But even Rodgers, as well as others acquainted with the Double Diamond, say it is as much about the passion of its owner, Edgar “Ted” Blanch, as it is about profit.
Blanch, 59, who could not be reached for comment, is from Minnesota. He has spent his career at a business now called E.W. Blanch Holdings Inc., started by his father in 1957. Blanch Holdings serves as a broker between insurance companies and reinsurance companies. Reinsurance companies insure insurers.
In 1993 he took the company public and, according to reports at the time, immediately grossed $27.4 million. He remains chairman at a salary of $895,000 a year.
After the company’s stock began publicly trading, Blanch began selling off some of it. A company spokeswoman said Blanch had been “very open and consistent” in telling people he was selling the stock to reap some of the wealth he had built over his 40-year career. He still owns 1.6 million shares, according to financial reports. And the company continues to do well: It had net income last year of $18.2 million, about double its 1992 income.
Blanch does not seek publicity but he attracts attention, anyway. Corporate Report Minnesota three years ago said that Blanch “once dropped $33,500 in one day at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York,” and on another occasion took all the flight attendants on a Minneapolis-to-New York flight into New York to buy shoes.
It’s not clear just how much money Blanch has put into the Double Diamond. Rodgers would say only that it was well in excess of $2 million. Mishek said he figured more than $10 million. And that doesn’t include the horses.
The Double Diamond is not just the barn, formally known as the Arabian Training Center. The 3,000-acre ranch includes a 2,000-acre preserve for exotic animals and a thoroughbred race horse operation separate from the training center. (The wild game preserve is not open to the public or available for hunters, Rodgers said.)
There are 48 employees on the Double Diamond, and someone is there 24 hours a day. Several employees marveled that they even get fringe benefits, such as health insurance.
To encourage youth interest in show horses, the Double Diamond also is offering college scholarships of up to $5,000 for those who win national championships. Rodgers said all too often youths are forced to sell off their horses when they go to college because of the expense–both of the college and the horse.
The scholarships should arouse some interest. Mishek said Texas ranks second in the nation with about 3,000 Arabian horses; California has 6,000. And the ranch is in Kendall County, where there are plenty of horse lovers, Snell said. The San Antonio Rose Palace, a premier arena for show horse competition, is just a few miles away.
So, in fact, is San Antonio. Kendall County was the second-fastest growing county in Texas between 1990 and 1995, according to U.S. Census records, and the ranch is just 22 miles from downtown San Antonio, which has growth coming out toward the Double Diamond. Already there are two country clubs (for people) nearby.
Perhaps Blanch has that growth in mind as well as his horses.