About Winterwood Farm (excerpts from the October 2001 Hoof Beats arcticle written by Dean Hoffman)

Winterwood Farm, set amid the bucolic hills of north central Ohio. That’s where he and wife Sherry live, along with son Mark and his wife, and it’s where they keep their broodmares and raise their yearlings.

To anyone who has visited Winterwood Farm, the fruits of Adams’s labor—and all his money—are obvious. It is a gem of a farm in a picturesque setting. It is just a few miles from Malabar Farm, the home of famed novelist Louis Bromfield, and the spot where Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall tied the knot in 1945.

Adams decided early on to keep Winterwood for his own horses. Only by limiting the numbers, he reasoned, can he keep the individual care at the level he insists on maintaining.
“I want a nice farm,” he said. “I don’t want a farm that has too many horses and is so torn up that the fields look like mud lots.”
Winterwood’s broodmare band once exceeded 30, but Adams prefers to keep it at 12 to 15 mares. He admitted that he often finds it difficult to cull mares; they are like members of his family.

There are precious few horsemen who can equal Albert Adams at turning a rough-and-ready yearling into a mouthwatering sales horse. He preps all the
Winterwood yearlings at his farm. The job he does in fitting a yearling for sale can only be appreciated if you take a close look at the Winterwood yearlings.

One of the reasons his yearlings look so good is that Adams is persnickety about his feeding program, and he learned long ago that cheap feed is false economy. For example, he’s not afraid to refuse a load of hay if his sense of smell tells him something’s wrong.
“Fortunately, they make good hay in this part of Ohio,” he said. “I’m picky on the hay we feed. It’s got to be good, and it’s important to get the best quality we can. In the winter when you have snow on the ground, you’d better feed good hay, because the horses have to eat whatever you put on the ground. If you feed poor-quality hay, you’ll get in trouble. I feed straight alfalfa in the winter.”

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