PILOT POINT, TX – The almost 400-acre Valor Farm with its grand steeples atop a red-brick barn, rolling green pastures behind checkerboard wooden fencing and its even grander history of breeding and training Thoroughbreds has been sold to a new owner.
The new Valor Farm owner will continue the farm's tradition of world-class Thoroughbred horse raising that includes the great Alysheba, the all-time leading earner which was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.
The farm, listed for $14,950,000, was sold by Angie Nelson, Vice President with Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty’s Ranch & Land Division, based in North Texas, along with her business partner, Brenda Moerschell, Vice President of Briggs Freeman Sotheby's International Realty.
“Brenda and I were privileged to represent the sellers in this significant transaction. It was a particularly meaningful sale to a buyer who will continue Valor’s legacy,” Nelson said. The Nelson-Moerschell partnership has more than 50 years of combined real estate experience in marketing farm and ranch properties in Texas and Oklahoma.
About 10 minutes east of Interstate 35 in Denton County, Valor Farm stands in one of nature's anomalies: a stretch of Texas land about 10 to 20 miles wide and 30 miles long that has a sandy loam soil, which drains well and is ideal for raising horses. That is why Pilot Point, an hour north of Dallas and Fort Worth, attracts some of the world's best horse farms and the teams of professionals to breed, train and treat them.
The sandy loam soil brought Clarence and Dorothy Scharbauer from Midland almost a quarter century ago to build Valor Farm into one of the premier Thoroughbred-raising farms. Three years after they began buying Thoroughbred yearlings in 1984, Alysheba captured the roses.
“It is an iconic ranch, known all over the world not only among thoroughbred breeders, but the horse industry generally,” Nelson said. “Everybody knows the ranch. It is respected by everyone.”
“You can see the craftsmanship that went into every building,” Moerschell said. “It is over and above. In every direction your eye can see the quality in the details.” Today, Valor Farm breeds yearlings, races and boards its own horses and those owned by others.