Pin Oak Stud with Parchment Party
The late Ms. Josephine Abercrombie, a consummate horsewoman who founded Pin Oak Stud in 1952, left a tough act to follow when she passed peacefully in her home January 5th, 2022, just 10 days before her 96th birthday.
“Mrs. Abercrombie was an amazing lady and a great steward of the land, and most importantly, it was always the horse comes first,” said Clifford Barry, who’s been working at Pin Oak Stud for 35 years.
She would have smiled knowing that Dana and Jim Bernhard, who purchased Pin Oak Stud in November, 2022, and their son Ben, a rocket scientist turned horseman, have continued her good work, complementing their considerable success on the track with cutting-edge technology to prevent equine injuries, like the one that killed their first and best horse, Geaux Rocket Ride, as he was preparing for the 2023 Breeders’ Cup Classic. He was their first Thoroughbred, a birthday gift from Jim to Dana.
Simply put, the Bernhards, like Abercrombie, do the right thing. “That’s where it all starts,” Ben said. “Everything we do, we put the horse first, and my parents have driven that point home.” His mother said, “We are passionate about doing a good job for the horses. They can’t speak for themselves.”
Barry has witnessed the Bernhards’ ongoing commitment: “It’s been amazing to watch Jim and Dana be like-minded as Mrs. Abercrombie. I mean it really has been heartwarming to watch. Anytime you go through a major transition like this, you worry what the next entity will involve. But they’ve come in, and we got a facelift to the farm and added new property and new buildings and really have got the horses’ health and welfare at heart for sure.”
Abercrombie was an incredible owner and breeder. Among her nearly 100 stakes winners were her home-bred Eclipse Champions Laugh as well as Confessional, Peaks and Valleys and Broken Vow. She was The National Breeder of the Year, in 1995 and the winner of the Hardboot Award from the Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association and the William T. Young Humanitarian Award. In 2018, Abercrombie was the Honor Guest of the Thoroughbred Club of America in appreciation for her “enduring sportsmanship, acumen and vision, and her devotion to the loftiest principles established by earlier leaders on the Turf.”
Like Abercrombie, Dana grew up with horses: “I grew up in Louisiana. I was given my first horse, a Tennessee Walker, when I was eight years old, and I’ve owned a horse ever since. I began riding that day. She was a trail horse for me. I was given my next horse for my 10th birthday, Dixie. I had her until I was 29. My love was horses, not just racehorses.”
Dana worked as a corporate attorney and marketing director. She met Jim, the founder and partner of Bernhard Capital Partners, through work. Jim’s company, based in Baton Rouge, now manages about seven billion dollars buying and investing in companies, and has some 30,000 employees.
“I was a lawyer and our law firm handled Jim’s corporate law,” Dana said. “He was a client. When we decided to start dating, we had an office rule against dating co-workers. I said, `How about clients?’ The senior partner offered me a list. We got married some six months later.”
They married in 1993 and Jim became an avid horseman. Asked why he loved it, he said, “Because Dana loves it.” They have purchased and maintained a dozen Friesians, a breed originated in the north Netherlands which nearly went extinct more than once. They ride their horses at Pin Oak Stud in Kentucky and Pin Oak Stud South in Baton Rouge. “When we got our first Friesians some 13 years ago, there were less than 75 in the United States,” Dana said. “Their personality reminds me of our two labrapoodles. They are just big puppy dogs.”
In June, 2021, Jim gave Dana a birthday gift, a trip to Lexington to buy a Thoroughbred yearling at the Fasig-Tipton July Sale. They wound up with three yearlings. The first one was Geaux Rocket Ride, a son of Candy Ride out of the Uncle Mo mare Beyond Grace. He cost $350,000 and was given to Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella.
Geaux Rocket Ride won a maiden race by 5 ¾ lengths, then finished second by 2 ½ lengths to Practical Move in the G.2 San Felipe Stakes. Another victory by a length and three-quarters in the $100,000 Affirmed Stakes convinced his connections to up the ante. Sent off at 12-1 in the Grade 1 Haskell at Monmouth Park, Geaux Rocket Ride went head-to-head with the even-money favorite, Arabian Knight, put him away, then turned back a rally by Kentucky Derby winner Mage, winning by a length and three-quarters. In his final start before the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita, Geaux Rocket Ride was second by a neck to Arabian Knight in the G.1 Pacific Classic. His three victories and two seconds in five starts had produced $980,200 in earnings. He was a legitimate contender for the Classic.
“In the Haskell, we were thrilled,” Dana said. “Rocket was such a feisty horse on one hand, feisty with his feed bucket, but in the barn and the paddock, he was so kind and loving. He loved his bath. He played with the water hose. He was quite a character. We just loved him. He was our first racehorse. We still love him to death.”
One week before the Breeders’ Cup, with Dana and Jim watching his workout live on TV, Geaux Rocket Ride suffered a horrific injury in his front leg, which was described by Breeders’ Cup officials as “an open condylar fracture with intersesamoid ligament damage.”
Dana said, “We were at our home in Pebble Beach and about to fly down to LA. We watched him live.” Jim said, “We saw it live. We didn’t know the extent of it until we drove down there. We couldn’t save him. His leg was too far gone.”
He was euthanized the following Wednesday. “It was a typical roller coaster ride,” Mandella said. “We had the greatest time with him, but also had one of the worst days of my life.”
His respect for the Bernhards is immense: “It’s a wonderful family, I can’t say enough good things about them. They want to do everything right by the horse.”
Ben, who had spent a lot of time hanging out with Mandella at his barn, was deeply affected, so much that he decided to leave Space X in Los Angeles and become a vice president of Pin Oak Stud and start his new company of developing equine sensors, Stable Analytics, with technology similar to the ones he had used at Space X: “Geaux Rocket Ride was training at Santa Anita, and I used to hang out with Richard Mandella, probably the biggest reason I’m into horse racing. Learn from him. Watch Geaux Rocket Ride train. I just got so into it. I decided to make the move.”
Dana said, “It was a wonderful thing. He is very passionate about preventing this type of accident in the future.”
Jim said simply: “He’s smart.”
Ben said of his career change: “It’s a lot of things that are different obviously, but there are surprising similarities. I talked to my friends back at Space X. They said, `There’s nothing like the rush you get watching a rocket launch.’ I said, `There’s something similar, watching your horse win a race.
“I came into this trying to make it as much of a math problem as I can. I know math and engineering. I think there’s an opportunity to look at it from that perspective. Geaux Rocket Ride had the best horseman, the best jockey, the Breeders’ Cup veterinary staff and somehow he still gets injured. There’s got to be a way to detect things.”
Ben developed equine sensors, which all the 150 to 170 Thoroughbreds wear at Pin Oak Stud: “They’re practically air-space sensors which began in the aerospace industry. We see gait changes and data. I’ve never really been a horse person. Richard Mandella changed that.”
Mandella said of Ben, “I’m sure he makes his parents proud. He’s just a class person, a gentleman, and maybe genius-smart. Yet he’s just the most normal young guy you could ever meet, just a pleasure to be around.”
At the Keeneland 2022 September Yearling Sale, the Bernhards bought Parchment Party, a son of Constitution out of Life Well Lived by Tiznow bred by Bobby Flay for $450,000. Ben’s sensors caught a potential problem. “We found a small abscess that was growing,” Jim said. “We were able to take care of that long before it became a major problem.”
Parchment Party, who is trained by Hall of Famer Bill Mott, won his first two starts. On June 6th, 2025, at Saratoga, he captured the Belmont Gold Cup when it was switched from turf to dirt, by 8 ½ lengths. In doing so, he clinched a berth in the starting gate for the Melbourne Cup, the race that stops a nation. “He’s the first Kentucky-bred to make the Melbourne Cup,” Jim said. “Australia? It’s just a little island down south from here. It’ll be fun.”