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TGSF Note: Maryland steeplechase owner Perry Bolton passed away on Tuesday, January 28, 2025, at his home in Jupiter Beach, Florida. To honor his memory we are republishing this story about Perry Bolton and Ben Griswold's Armata Stables - originally published on April 15, 2022.

Additional memorial articles about Perry Bolton can be found HERE from the National Steeplechase Association and HERE from Tod Marks.

Our thoughts are with Mr. Bolton's family and friends.

By Betsy Burke Parker

Perry Bolton (left) and Ben Griswold (right) with presenter Betty Fenwick at the 2021 Maryland Hunt Cup. ©Douglas Lees

Perry Bolton, who turns 92 in August 2022, figures he’s at the top of the age bracket in steeplechasing.

His age doesn’t deflect his interest in assembling an armata of athletic horses with the chops to make it to what he calls “the greatest 8 minutes and 22 seconds in sports.”

And it doesn’t stop him buying green tomatoes.

Bolton formed the Armata Stables partnership in the early 1990s with lifelong friend Ben Griswold, 10 years his junior at 81. Their Vintage Vinnie won the timber stake at the 110th My Lady’s Manor meet last year, two weeks later winning the 124th Maryland Hunt Cup by 112 lengths and smashing the prior course mark (Young Dubliner in 2002 - 8:25) by 3 seconds.

The Armata partners have their eyes trained on the prize again for 2022, with horses entered in all three races on the undercard at the April 16 My Lady’s Manor meet in Monkton, Maryland. The Joe Davies-trained Our Friend in a division of the maiden and Vintage Vinnie in the apprentice timber get the services of Davies’ son, Teddy. The Kathy Neilson-trained Highway Prince is in the other maiden division; her daughter Skylar McKenna will ride.

Both conditioners rode for the partnership previously: Neilson (Toughkenamon) Davies (Welter Weight).

Griswold and Bolton both love the lineage, heritage and history.

“It’s exciting” and pleasing, Bolton says, to continue the family tradition like his own sport-centric ancestry. He calls it a hallmark of steeplechasing. “I’ve known (Skylar) since she was born. Now she’s turned into a helluva rider. And the young Davies …. is very capable.

How it happened

Both Bolton and Griswold were born and bred into American steeplechasing, with roots reaching deep into the very start of Maryland’s timber tradition.

Bolton’s great-uncle George Brown attended the first Maryland Hunt Cup in 1894, and rode it 14 times. He won the 1900 race aboard Tom Clark, again with Burgeois in 1916. Bolton awards the George Brown trophy – a handsome, repurposed silver bowl, to the top Maryland timber horse each spring.

Their friendship traces to 1939, when Griswold’s father hired Bolton’s future wife’s father, Charles Garland, to run the Alex Brown investment firm.

Their relationships to Maryland timber goes just as far.

Bolton was vice president of corporate development then went on to work for a specialty publications company. He hunted with the Green Spring Valley Hounds until age 85. No one trick pony, Bolton has been involved with the Maryland Daffodil Society for years, and he used to help manage their annual show as well as compete. He maintains that the judging “could be more tense than the Hunt Cup finish.”

Son George Bolton was part of the syndicate that campaigned 2007 Preakness winner (Rebel Stakes and Arkansas Derby winner, third in the Kentucky Derby, second in the Belmont) Curlin.

Like his father, George Bolton was modest in interviews following the classic score. “You never think you're going to ever be in a race or win a race like this,” George Bolton told the Baltimore Sun. “This is something that is very surreal. The Derby was surreal. The Arkansas Derby was surreal. I am just very proud to be associated with this group and to win a race 10 miles from my father's farm is a great, great honor.”

‘You might not want to drive the Jag to Sheppard’s’

Trainer Joe Davies, one of several on the circuit that manage Armata runners, remembers one of his first training jobs for Bolton. They were going to look at a timber prospect, a Pape-Sheppard homebred at Jonathan Sheppard’s near West Grove, Pennsylvania. 

“Perry comes and picks us up in a fancy, fancy car,” Davies recalls. “A beautiful shiny Jaguar. I was thinking to myself, ‘not sure this is the best car to go horse shopping in.’ ”

“Joe seemed to think it was the wrong strategy to drive the Jag to Sheppard’s to look at the horse,” Bolton remembers the day. “He thought it might send the wrong message and they might jack up the price.

“One of the boys said to my wife while we were there ‘that’s the best horse in the barn.’ I’d say he was correct.”

They bought the horse, Welter Weight, and punched Armata’s Hunt Cup ticket. The powerful runner won a 1994 point-to-point and the 1995 allowance at Grand National for trainer-rider Davies before he moved to California for business. Tom Voss took over training, and Welter Weight became King of the Cup out of his Atlanta Hall: he won in 1999, second four other times.

“All Tom had to do was lead him up to the paddock,” Davies cracks, joking that he’d "done all the hard work" with Welter Weight. “Perry had been honest from the very beginning saying his one goal for Armata was to win the Hunt Cup. It was special for him to win it.”

For his part, Bolton says he was honored to play a role in Welter Weight’s career. “He was a very talented horse. Tom Voss used to say he’s the only horse he knew that could hurdle the Maryland Hunt Cup course.

“He was that quick” over the jumps.

Memory book

Eclipse Award-winning photographer Douglas Lees produced a picture book of Vintage Vinnie’s 2021 Maryland timber tour. The 36-page, 12 by 12 inch hardcover book “is a collectors item,” according to Perry Bolton.

“It took me all summer to get it just right,” Lees says, noting that he had his choice of photos from the free-running Vintage Vinnie, in front every step of the cumulative seven miles.

Lees included images from the Hunt Cup and his win in the timber stakes at the Manor two weeks before.

Armata – Historic, exciting name for their syndicate

From “The Story of Alexander Brown and Sons,” by Frank Kent in 1925:

“The first ship owned by Alex. Brown & Sons was the "Armata" (see sketch at right), bought in New York in 1811 when she was unfinished on the stocks.

She was put in service between Baltimore and Belfast.

Her length was 108 feet and she had a tonnage of 413. She had two decks and three masts.

Mr. John Wesley Brown of Baltimore, an authority on early shipping, supplies some very interesting data concerning the his tory of the Armata, including an extract from the Baltimore Gazette of August 11, 1828, which describes the arrival of the Armata in Baltimore, loaded with “ salt, linens and whiskey and 165 passengers."

"One of the ships from the Brown fleet, drawn from a hull model which hangs in the present banking house."

From “The Story of Alexander Brown and Sons"

When we consider the size of the great steamships today and realize that this little vessel, loaded as she was, brought in her 108 foot length 165 passengers we wonder how they lived. Mr. Brown points out that under date of February 10, 1865, Mrs. William Arthurs of Pittsburgh, one of the 165 passengers, wrote to relatives in Baltimore as follows: “I look back with pleasure and clear remembrance to the appearance of our family group seated on the deck of the old Armata — little girl that I was.”

In 1831 the Browns sold the Armata and from that time on she led an excitingly romantic career as a whaler in the Pacific, in the Atlantic and in the Indian Ocean.

It is recorded that while on a whaling voyage the mate of the Armata and a boat's crew were pulled down under the seas by a whale in the Indian Ocean.

The good ship came to her last resting place on a reef near Cape North on July 15, 1851, yielding to safety, before her death, a cargo of 200 barrels of sperm oil and 4,500 barrels of whale oil.

The Armata fleet

Cornhusker – $266,000 earner trained by Tom Voss (hurdles) then Alicia Murphy (timber). Imported from England, allowance winner over hurdles before winning his first start over timber at the 2013 Shawan meet. Went on to win the Middleburg Hunt Cup (three times), the Houghland (three times) and the Winterthur stake.

Son of Dynaformer.

(Tod Marks photo of Cornhusker and Kieran Norris in the 2018 Middleburg Hunt Cup)

Dynaski – $221,000 earner trained by Tom Voss. Grade 1 placed stakes winner.

Son of Dynaformer.

(Tod Marks photo of Dynaski in 2009)

New Member – $184,000 earner trained by Jack Fisher. Irish-born; winner in England before imported in 2017. Grade 1-placed hurdle stakes winner. Won the Alfred Hunt cross-country race at Glenwood Park in 2021.

(Douglas Lees photo of New Member and Graham Watters at the 2021 Virginia Fall races)

Toughkenamon – $204,000 earner trained by Kathy Neilson. Allowance winner on the turf before winning first-out over hurdles in late 2004. Returned to win the Grade 2 Temple Gwathmey in 2005.

(Tod Marks photo of Toughkenamon in 2006)

Vintage Vinnie – $145,000 earner trained by Joe Davies. Bumper, hurdle and ‘chase winner in England. Seventh in the Topham Trophy (over Aintree’s Grand National course) before imported to the U.S. in late 2017. Second in the maidens at Manor and (Maryland) Grand National before breaking his timber maiden at Great Meadow in 2020. Won the Manor feature last spring then set a new course record winning the 2021 Maryland Hunt Cup by 112 lengths.

(Douglas Lees photo of Vintage Vinnie and Dan Nevin at the 2021 Maryland Hunt Cup)

Welter Weight – $194,000 earner trained by Joe Davies and Tom Voss. Winner on the turf and over hurdles for breeder-trainer Jonathan Sheppard before bought for Armata by Davies. First timber start at the Manor (third in the maiden) in 1994; first timber win at the (Maryland) Grand National in 1995. Won the 1999 Maryland Hunt Cup; second four times.

(Douglas Lees photo of Mike Elmore and Welterweight nearing finish line at the 1999 Maryland Hunt Cup)