2012 Eclipse Awards: Adena Springs

photo by: Shigeki Kikkawa

In 2012, Frank Stronach’s Adena Springs operation compounded its record as the decade’s dominant breeder by earnings. For the 10th consecutive year, Adena established a staggering financial lead with $12,059,312 in earnings from 3,158 starts and 410 wins, finishing more than $3 million ahead of its nearest rival, Brereton C. Jones, whose horses had 247 wins from 1,809 starts. Adena-breds also won 10 graded stakes last year, second only to Darley and making Adena one of only three breeders to hit double digits.

The headliners among Adena-breds last year were two-time Grade 1 winner Game On Dude, who took the Hollywood Gold Cup and the Awesome Again Stakes – named for his sire – and Judy the Beauty, who got within a nose of Emma’s Encore in the Grade 1 Prioress. Adena also bred such 2012 graded winners as Bourbon Bay, Hunters Bay, Alpha Bettor, and Awesomemundo (in a partnership), as well as such stakes winners as Smart Sting, Stunning Stag, Mucho Mas Macho, Chips All In, and Lateegra.

Adena Springs has won eight Eclipse Awards as leading breeder, starting in 2000 and including consecutive awards in 2004-08 and 2010-11. Adena also has won the Eclipse Award as owner four times, in 1998-99, 2000, and 2008. The operation became the first breeder to win both an Eclipse Award and Canada’s Sovereign Award in the same year back in 2005 and repeated that feat for the next three years.

Adena has farms in Kentucky and Canada and also stands stallions at McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds in New York.