Ashford purchases Waterford Farm for $10 million

Coolmore’s Ashford Stud of Versailles, Ky., has purchased Waterford Farm in nearby Midway, Ky., for more than $10 million.

According to Feb. 19 deed transfers filed with the Woodford County clerk, Shenton Business Ltd., which has a mailing address at Ashford Stud, purchased the six tracts of land that make up Waterford in two separate transactions of more than $5 million each. In total, the 725-acre farm was purchased for $10,135,072. The deal was first reported by Blood-Horse.

Waterford Farm had been owned by the family of the late Kathryn Martin West since the 1880s. Kathryn and her late husband, R. Smiser West, often partnered with Hall of Fame trainer MacKenzie Miller and his wife, Martha, on breeding horses for the commercial market. Leading horses bred by the Wests, alone or in partnership with the Millers, include champions Chilukki and De La Rose, Grade/Group 1 winners Lite Light, Testa Matta, and Tweedside, and Peru’s Horse of the Year Al Qasr.

Smiser West died in 2006, and Kathryn West died last year at age 91. Robert West Jr. had taken over operations at Waterford, making it a pre-export quarantine facility.

The Waterford property includes eight barns with 138 stalls, a main residence, a guest house, office, and five employee homes. The farm is expected to get a makeover, with new barns and fencing, before horses are moved onto the property.