With the wistful harmonica and piano that open Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” playing through a portable speaker, Debra Rothwell cut the ribbon Saturday on the official opening of her dream farm.

For Rothwell, the moment at Thunder Road Stables in Jamesport was the realization of a wish she has carried since she was a little girl.

“The girl that galloped instead of skipped to gym class. The girl that saved all her pennies to buy her model horses,” Rothwell told the crowd gathered outside the barn just before the ribbon cutting. “The girl who never had a horse growing up, but rode everybody else’s horse at any given moment.”

“This was every wish on every shooting star,” she continued. “This was every birthday candle I blew out. This was it.”

Then Rothwell considered what that horse-crazy little girl might have thought of the scene before her Saturday.

“That little girl would be so proud right now and think I’m the coolest person in the world.”

The Rothwells purchased the Jamesport property in February and have spent the past six months repairing, painting and preparing the equestrian facility for its next chapter. They have mended fences and barn doors, installed new signs and taken on the less glamorous work of figuring out everything from hay and feed orders to the daily logistics of caring for the horses.

It’s also the beginning a new chapter for Debra. A former elementary school teacher, Rothwell left the profession after having children and spent the next 25 years as a stay-at-home mother raising the couple’s two sons. With her children now grown, she said Saturday that the timing finally felt right to pursue something she had wanted for herself for decades.

“My kids are grown, so it’s time for me to explore my own dreams,” she said.

Those dreams always included horses.

Ken Rothwell said his own family had connections to horse racing, while his wife always loved them. Their shared interest in horses was one of the connections between them when they first met, he said. The couple recently celebrated 30 years of marriage.

“This has really been our dream together,” Ken Rothwell told those gathered Saturday. “This is our little slice of heaven that we’ve created here.”

The farm’s name is another link to their history. Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” has long been one of Debra’s favorite songs, Ken said. When the couple was considering names for the farm, the song came on the radio.

“She’s like, ‘We should name it Thunder Road,’” he recalled.

Saturday’s ceremony drew friends, family and community members, along with Riverhead officials and state Assemblywoman Jodi Giglio. Councilwoman Joann Waski, a Jamesport resident, said she was particularly pleased to see the property continue as an equestrian farm.

“This is the piece of heaven that everybody loves out here,” Waski said.

The Rothwells also credited the farm’s six full-time employees with making the operation possible.

“You’re really nothing without your team behind you,” Ken Rothwell said.

Debra, meanwhile, has become the farm’s everyday caretaker, spending her days doing the work that comes with the childhood fantasy she finally made real.

“It’s a labor of love,” she said. “But it’s really a blessing to be tired at the end of the day from this kind of life.”

The Rothwells purchased the former B.J. Farms property at 1394 Main Road for $3.5 million, closing on the deal Feb. 13 after a roughly year-and-a-half process. The preserved 107-acre farm stretches north from Main Road nearly to Sound Avenue.

The property was a potato farm until the late 1970s, when Robert W. Entenmann converted it into a thoroughbred facility. Suffolk County acquired the farm’s development rights in 1979, making it one of the county’s earlier preserved agricultural properties. Over the ensuing decades, ownership passed through several hands before Brian and Jennifer Nixon acquired the farm in 1993.

The Nixons operated B.J. Farms for more than three decades, with the property used for horse boarding, training and breeding and, at various times, harness racing. The farm includes barns, paddocks and a full-size track for trotters.

The Rothwells were already familiar with the property before buying it. They had boarded their own horses, Lotti and Lucky, at B.J. Farms for about four years, giving them a close-up view of the operation and its staff.

After purchasing the property, they retained its six-person staff and continued its boarding operation, which had roughly 50 horses at the time of the sale. Their longer-term plans include construction of a larger indoor riding arena with improved footing, while preserving the property’s longstanding use as a working equestrian farm.