Virginia-bred millionaire Gigante is the winner of eight stakes to date in a career that began in 2022, highlighted, fittingly, by a victory in the Grade 2 Secretariat Stakes in 2023 – a race named for the state’s most famous son - at its only live Thoroughbred venue, Colonial Downs. Gigante will be honored Saturday as the 2025 statebred horse of the year at Colonial Downs, part of the festivities on a big spring card that includes the Virginia Derby and the Virginia Oaks. It’s a big week for the Old Dominion, which has posted encouraging numbers in its bloodstock activity with an increased racing investment – although the community faces another hurdle with the proposed sale of the Middleburg Training Center. Colonial Downs, in New Kent, first opened in 1997, bringing live, pari-mutuel racing of consequence to the state for the first time since prior to the Civil War. But disputes between ownership and horsemen’s groups led to the cancellation of the 2014 meet, followed by several years of no racing in the state. An uncertain future curtailed bloodstock activity in the state, magnifying the shrinking foal crop trend nationwide. The Jockey Club’s 2026 State Fact Book for Virginia provides statistics dating back to 2005. That year, 251 mares were bred in Virginia, which doesn’t tell the whole story of activity. There were 425 foals born in the state that year, including mares covered by stallions in other states and then brought to Virginia to foal. In 2015, there were 47 mares bred in the state, and 123 foals born in the state. With no in-state racing to incentivize activity, the Virginia-certified program was launched in 2016 to support farms and training centers by encouraging young horses to come to the state. Any horse conceived and foaled outside Virginia but maintaining residency in the state at a registered farm or training center for a mandated period of time became eligible for bonus money when winning at tracks in other Mid-Atlantic states. The program worked to keep infrastructure for the Thoroughbred industry in the state, even without live racing, while also holding on to jobs in the Thoroughbred industry and adjacent equestrian jobs, such as for veterinarians and farriers. In 2024, the Virginia Thoroughbred Association said a study showed that the program has generated $86.2 million in economic benefits for the state, while awarding more than $14.6 million to Thoroughbred owners. In 2018, Virginia enacted a law to allow historical racing machines at racetracks and at offtrack betting facilities, in an effort to make it economically viable to reopen the track, which had been purchased by new ownership. Colonial re-opened in August 2019, and quickly garnered praise from horsemen for its racing surfaces. With the product garnering national attention, Churchill Downs, Incorporated, purchased the assets from Peninsula Pacific in 2022, and has continued to raise the track’s profile. In 2023, the historic Arlington Million and its associated major races – the Beverly D. Stakes and the Secretariat Stakes – seemingly found a permanent home at Colonial, following the closure of CDI-owned Arlington Park and one year in which the races were run at Churchill. Last year, Churchill debuted a March racing festival along with the track’s traditional summer meet, shifting Colonial’s Virginia Derby and Oaks from turf to dirt and awarding them points in the qualifying series toward the Kentucky Derby and Oaks, respectively. Overall, more opportunities now exist at Colonial. According to The Jockey Club’s statistics, in 2020, 104 races were contested in the state with an average purse of $25,964. Last year, 454 races had an average purse of $67,169. Eight stakes will be contested at Colonial this Thursday through Saturday with total purses of $1.45 million, topped by the $500,000 Virginia Derby. The lineup includes two $150,000 Virginia-restricted handicaps, the Boston and the Stellar Wind, on Friday’s card, “With a record number of race days, growing crowds and purses, a Kentucky Derby qualifier race, and some of the most passionate fans around, Virginia is stepping into the sport’s global spotlight,” Frank Hopf, senior director of racing operations, said in a release. Bloodstock numbers have responded to the new era. The Jockey Club’s State Fact Book reported 46 mares bred in Virginia last year – a modest number, to be sure, but a major increase from 17 in 2022, when the effects of the pandemic on a number of smaller breeders were shown. The Virginia foal crop in 2024, the most recent year available in the book, numbered 168. The low point of the past two decades was 104 foals in 2020. But alongside these positive gains, the industry now faces another challenge to its jobs and infrastructure, as the U.S. Army is exploring the purchase of the historic Middleburg Training Center to house its famous Caisson Detachment, the team of horses and military riders that provide funeral honors for service members and high-ranking dignitaries. The Caisson Detachment is currently housed at the NOVA Equestrian Center in Aldie, less than 15 miles from Middleburg. The Middleburg Training Center, built in 1956 by Paul Mellon, has passed through a number of hands, most recently in 2017 to Chuck Kuhn of JK Moving Services. Kuhn made a number of upgrades to the facility, renovating the track, the 11 barns, and all the stalls and paddocks. According to land records, Kuhn placed the property in a conservation easement. Kuhn, in a statement to Virginia’s FauquierNow, said, “The Army has approached JK Land Holdings about purchasing the Middleburg Training Center to support its very important work that honors Americans who've done so much for our nation.” Last week, more than 100 horsemen held a community meeting to discuss the proposed sale and other options, including raising money to make a competing offer on the training center. FauquierNow reported that, including a tax assessment, this would need to be in the $4 to $5 million range. A petition is circulating noting the importance of the Middleburg Training Center to the Virginia certified program, which helps maintain the Thoroughbred industry in the state The training center “generates more than $7 million of economic benefit to the local community each year,” the petition reads, “and it is a significant contributor to the Virginia-Certified Residency Program which brought over 800 out-of-state horses through the training center from 2017-2023, in addition to almost $14 million in economic impact and 132 jobs. The storied Caisson horses are an important part of the equestrian heritage of our country, and we are excited to welcome them into our community at a different location that does not come with unnecessary expense. There is a place for everyone.”