Cactus Ridge to Royal Vista Ranches in Oklahoma

Grade 3 winner Cactus Ridge will relocate to Royal Vista Ranches in Wayne, Okla., for the 2014 breeding season, standing for a fee of $5,000 with special consideration for Quarter Horse mares.

The 13-year-old son of Hennessy previously stood at Three Chimneys Farm in Midway, Ky. for a private fee. He is the sire of eight crops of racing age with 250 winners, highlighted by Canadian champion sprinter Hollywood Hit, Grade 1 winner Hot Cha Cha, Grade 2 winner Madame Cactus, and Iowa-bred standout Boji Moon.

Cactus Ridge was campaigned as a homebred by country music artist Toby Keith’s Dream Walkin’ Farms, winning all four of his career starts for earnings of $187,850. Three of those victories came in stakes races, with his biggest win coming in the Grade 3 Arlington-Washington Futurity.
Cactus Ridge is out of the Grade 1-placed Lycius mare Double Park, whose six winners from as many foals to race also include Grade 3-placed stakes winners Sebastian County and Harriet Lane.

"We are very excited to have this outstanding Thoroughbred stallion join our roster for the upcoming breeding season," Royal Vista Ranches Farm Manger Laura Wipf-Erickson said. "He has sired a sprint champion and his connection to leading Quarter Horses through his sire should make him a great outcross."

Hennessy, the late sire of Cactus Ridge, was quite successful with a very limited sampling of Quarter Horse offspring. The son of Storm Cat sired six Quarter Horse foals. Four of them raced, and two of them were Grade 1-level competitors.

Hennessy’s greatest Quarter Horse foal, Check Him Out, was a multiple Grade 1 winner, and Masters Call was a multiple stakes winner and a finalist for the Grade 1 Champion of Champions Stakes and the Los Alamitos Winter Championship. All four of his foals to race earned the American Quarter Horse Association’s Register of Merit, meaning they each received at least one official Speed Index Rating of 80 or higher.