The one state that stands apart in the Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred is Indiana. The state’s Thoroughbred breeding population is on a marked upswing, having seen its broodmare population more than double in three years since gaming was implemented at Hoosier Park and Indiana Downs in 2009.
Jet Phone has made the unlikely leap from teaser to commercial stallion after his lone starter, Aces N Kings, won the first five races of his career last year, including three stakes. A 10-year-old son of Phone Trick, Jet Phone has entered stud at Valor Farm in Pilot Point, Texas, one of the state’s premier breeding operations. He will stand for a fee of $1,500.
Shore Breeze is a stallion, not a racer, but his owner, John Haran, is betting big on this horse. Haran is the owner of some 40 2-year-olds of 2011, all of them Illinois-breds and all by Shore Breeze.
Carrol Castille's Whispering Oaks Farm is expanding into the stallion business at a time when many Louisiana breeders are pulling back on the sire front, but Castille says he is entering the stallion game with confidence.
Comedero, who won five consecutive stakes last year, and Strong Suit, who won the Group 2 Coventry in England, were headline acts for the Arkansas breeding program in 2010, and Bill McDowell was behind both horses.
When Thoroughbred numbers and prices go down, breeders and stallion farms are among the first to suffer downturns. But they’re not the only ones. In central Kentucky, Thoroughbred breeding and racing drive a less obvious but large economy, from the companies supplying farm equipment to horse van drivers to veterinarians.
Glenye Cain Oakford gets all the answers from Gainesway Farm president Antony Beck.
Smarty Jones, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner and champion 3-year-old male of 2004, will shuttle to Uruguay this year for stallion work.
Keeneland has cataloged 169 horses for its April 2-year-old auction, which will take place on April 11 in Keeneland’s sale pavilion in Lexington, Ky.
Chief Seattle, runner-up in the 1999 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, has relocated to a new farm in Indiana, The Stallion Company has announced.
