Ashview offering dams of Nest, Mo Donegal

The streaking filly Nest spent her fledgling years at Ashview Farm, a family operation that has soared to a place among the leading breeding and sales operations this year.

Ashview is owned by Wayne Lyster III and his wife, Margaret “Muffy” Lyster, and is co-managed by their sons W. Gray Lyster IV and Bryan Lyster, with help from their daughter Meredith. The family farm bred – in partnership with Richard Santulli’s Colts Neck Stables – raised, and sold Mo Donegal and Nest, who finished one-two in the Belmont Stakes in June.

The Belmont proved to be the final start for Mo Donegal, but Nest, who won the Grade 1 Ashland Stakes and finished second in the Kentucky Oaks earlier in the spring, has continued on to command her division with Grade 1 victories against 3-year-olds in the Coaching Club American Oaks and Alabama Stakes and a score against older females in the Grade 2 Beldame Stakes. Those three wins have come by a combined 26 1/4 lengths, and the filly is the morning-line favorite for the Breeders’ Cup Distaff on Nov. 5 at Keeneland.

“She’s just so cool,” Gray Lyster said. “We get to sit back and enjoy a couple of years of her racing. It’s a pleasure, it’s flattering, and it’s a sense of accomplishment every time she runs.”

With the ontrack success, stock from Ashview is at a premium. The farm sold its first solely bred seven-figure yearling at the Keeneland September sale, when a Justify filly fetched $1.05 million. Meanwhile, the farm is preparing to offer the dams of Nest and Mo Donegal, carrying full siblings to those respective runners, at the Keeneland November breeding stock sale.

The $1.05 million daughter of Justify was “the first filly we’ve bred ourselves to make a million,” Gray Lyster said.

“We’ve sold million-dollar yearlings for other people, but it’s a pretty big deal, and it’s really hard to do,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of success in this industry in raising racehorses, and it’s difficult to get $1 million for a horse, and we’re really pleased.

“You’d like to think when you have success on the racetrack with horses you’ve raised it would translate at the sales, and I think that’s what tipped her a couple of extra bids. It’s been an awesome year.”

The Ashview property in Versailles, Ky., was purchased by the Lysters in 1978. The farm, which has grown to about 350 acres, was the first home of Eclipse Award champions Johannesburg and Runhappy.

The Lysters purchased the mare Myth for $350,000 at the 1997 Keeneland November breeding stock sale, and, in partnership with Jayeff B Stables, in which Santulli is a partner, bred her to Hennessy. The resulting colt sold for $200,000 to Demi O’Byrne, on behalf of the Coolmore group, at the Keeneland September sale three years later. Johannesburg won all seven of his starts in 2001, with Group 1 victories in Ireland, France, and England followed by the 2001 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. He earned a Cartier Award as Europe’s champion 2-year-old male, as well as the divisional Eclipse.

It would be well more than a decade before Ashview bred its next Grade 1 winner. The Lysters claimed the mare Bella Jolie for $5,000 and sent her to Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver in his first year at stud.

The resulting colt, Runhappy, sold for $200,000 to Jim McIngvale at the 2013 Keeneland September sale. Runhappy earned the Eclipse as outstanding male sprinter in 2015, with four consecutive graded stakes victories highlighted by the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Keeneland. Just a few days later, Ashview capitalized by selling Bella Jolie for $1.6 million to Stonestreet Farm at the Keeneland November sale.

Ashview privately acquired the winning Pulpit mare Callingmissbrown, who would become the dam of Mo Donegal. It went to $400,000 to purchase the stakes-winning A.P. Indy mare Marion Ravenwood out of the 2017 Keeneland November sale. The following spring, the Lysters sent the mare to Curlin. Nest was born in April 2019.

“The mare is a queen of a mare, and Nest immediately stood up the morning she was born and we thought, ‘Wow she’s really athletic and beautiful looking,’ ” Gray Lyster recalled. “It just continued on throughout the year and a half we had her. She was always smooth, always athletic. She was one of the fillies in the paddock you never had trouble with, but it wasn’t like she was some pushover either. She was definitely one of the leaders in the pack. . . . Mentally, she was as wonderful as she was physically. I would say that has a lot to do with why she’s become such a good racehorse.”

The young Nest and the Uncle Mo colt Mo Donegal – who was foaled 11 days after her – were stabled together as part of Ashview’s consignment in Book 2 of the 2020 Keeneland September sale. Nest was purchased for $350,000 by Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners and Mike Repole, with Michael House buying in. Mo Donegal sold for $250,000 to Donegal Racing, with Repole buying a share in him this spring. Nest and Mo Donegal, both sent to trainer Todd Pletcher, won last year’s Grade 2 Demoiselle and Grade 2 Remsen, respectively, on the same Dec. 4 card at Aqueduct. They then rose through their divisions this year, with Nest’s run through major events, and Mo Donegal winning the Grade 2 Wood Memorial and finishing a troubled fifth in the Kentucky Derby before the Belmont.

“How fortunate are we as the breeders to just be a part of that?” Gray Lyster said. “My family has done this long enough to realize how special and unlikely this is, and we’re all enjoying every moment of it. They won the Demoiselle and Remsen back-to-back with the same trainer, same jockey, from the same farm and from the same Book 2 consignment in stalls right next to each other at the sale, and then they run one-two in the Belmont. You just can’t make that stuff up.”

Two days after Nest’s run in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Keeneland, her dam, Marion Ravenwood, and Mo Donegal’s dam, Callingmissbrown, will be in the spotlight as heralded offerings in Book 1 of the Keeneland November sale. Callingmissbrown, dam of three winners from as many starters, burnished her credentials this summer with the impressive Saratoga debut winner Prank. She sells in foal to Uncle Mo for a full sibling to her Belmont winner.

Marion Ravenwood is offered in foal to Curlin, carrying a full sibling not just to Nest, but to last year’s Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap winner Idol. The mare’s five winners from six starters also include Breeders’ Cup Juvenile hopeful Lost Ark and stakes-placed Dr Jack.

“To me, she’s potentially a Broodmare of the Year,” Gray Lyster said. “We’ll see what Lost Ark does and what happens in the next few weeks.”