Friend Or Foe flourishing in Virginia
Just shy of a decade after his sire won the Empire Classic, one of the top prizes on the New York-bred circuit, Mr. Buff will try to land that $300,000 event. Meanwhile, his sire Friend Or Foe is fashioning an unconventional stallion career in a new adopted state.
Friend Or Foe, who raced as a homebred for perennial New York leading owner-breeders Chester and Mary Broman, stands at Smallwood Farm in Crozet, Va. The farm, which is owned and operated by Phyllis Jones and her daughter Robin Mellen, has been in operation for more than 50 years. Friend Or Foe has learned to jump since his retirement from the racetrack, and is available as both a racing and sporthorse sire. He stands at Smallwood alongside the pony stallion Maple Side Wish List, whose son By4Now recently won the World Champion Hunter Rider Pony Challenge at the prestigious Capital Challenge in Maryland.
“We’ve bred everything from Clydesdales to event horses at Smallwood,” Jones told the Virginia Thoroughbred Association. “[Friend Or Foe’s] offspring have turned out to be wonderful and calm horses.”
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The Bromans send two or three mares from New York every year to support Friend Or Foe. From 21 foals of racing age since he entered stud in 2013, according to Equineline statistics, the son of Friends Lake has seven winners from 11 starters. His most successful runners are multiple stakes winner Mr. Buff and stakes placed Code Red, both bred by the Bromans.
Mr. Buff, who races in the Bromans’ colors, has earned $696,286 entering Saturday’s Empire Classic, a race he was third in last year. The 5-year-old gelding has won four stakes races, three this season.
Friend Or Foe won the 2010 Empire Classic as a 3-year-old in his most successful season of racing, when his victories also included the Mike Lee Stakes at Belmont Park, part of the Big Apple Triple. The son of Friends Lake was a stakes winner at 4 and stakes-placed at 5 in 2012. He also made several forays into graded stakes company, with his most creditable effort a fourth-place finish in the Grade 1 Whitney Handicap in 2011, beaten just a nose for third.