Kentucky Downs and the stallion Stormy Atlantic have both reached new heights

Kentucky Downs was built in 1990 as Dueling Grounds Race Course and spent the better part of its early existence running in relatively quiet fashion over its European-style course in Franklin, Ky. The track has experienced a renaissance in recent years, spiking in popularity both with horsemen, due to its soaring purses, and with horseplayers.

Kentucky Downs opened its five-day Runhappy meet, the first under new leadership for the track, last week with projected per-day purses of $2.3 million. The track reaches another milestone this weekend with its first Breeders’ Cup Win and You’re In qualifying event. The race is expected to feature an Eclipse Award champion who has led a renaissance for his sire – who, in similar fashion to the early days of Kentucky Downs, quietly had success for years before garnering additional appreciation in recent seasons.

Reigning Eclipse Award champion turf male Stormy Liberal is the highest-earning runner, and the most brilliant from a Beyer Speed Figure standpoint, for his sire, Stormy Atlantic. The 25-year-old Storm Cat horse stands at Hill ‘n’ Dale Farm near Lexington, Ky.

Stormy Liberal enters the Grade 3, $700,000 Runhappy Turf Sprint on Saturday at Kentucky Downs – which offers the winner a fees-paid berth into the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Santa Anita – with earnings of $2,164,330 from a career record of 34-12-10-3. The 7-year-old gelding, who races for Rockingham Ranch and David A. Bernsen LLC, has eight stakes victories, including consecutive wins in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, in 2017 at Del Mar and 2018 at Churchill Downs. He earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 119 in last year’s edition, one of the top figures of 2018.

Florida-bred Stormy Atlantic raced as a homebred for Arthur I. Appleton and won 6 of 15 career starts. That included a pair of dirt sprint stakes in his 4-year-old season – the Havre de Grace at Pimlico and the Damitrius Stakes at Delaware. Appleton retired Stormy Atlantic to his Bridlewood Farm in Ocala, Fla., where he stood for his first four seasons, before moving to Hill ‘n’ Dale beginning in 2003.

Stormy Atlantic, who stood for an advertised fee of $10,000 in 2019, is one of two sons of the late, legendary Storm Cat remaining active in Kentucky. The other is Tale of the Cat, also 25, at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Versailles. Stormy Liberal was the first Eclipse Award champion for Stormy Atlantic, whose résumé also is highlighted by 2013 Canadian Horse of the Year Up With the Birds, a Grade 1 winner, Canadian classic winner, and millionaire.

Stormy Atlantic also is the sire of Canadian champions Conquest Typhoon, Leonnatus Anteas, and Maritimer; Puerto Rican champion Storm Allied; Mexican Horse of the Year Dahy; millionaire and multiple Grade 1 winner Get Stormy; additional Grade 1 winners Next Question, Stormy Lucy, and Stormello; and Argentinian Group 1 winner Victor Security among his 111 career stakes winners. Through Aug. 29, Stormy Atlantic had 954 overall winners for career progeny earnings of $95,566,512, according to Equineline statistics – putting milestones such as a 1,000th career winner and $100 million in progeny earnings realistically within reach.

Further bolstering his reputation, which is on the rise after years of steady service, Stormy Atlantic’s talents are beginning to carry into the next generation. His sons at stud are led by Get Stormy, standing at Crestwood Farm in Lexington. The stallion’s daughter Got Stormy had a breakout meet at Saratoga, winning the De La Rose Stakes before returning just one week later to defeat males and shatter a course record in the Grade 1 Fourstardave. The filly earned a 108 Beyer in the Fourstardave, the second-highest figure on turf in 2019.

Keyed by Got Stormy, Get Stormy has had four individuals this year record triple-digit Beyers and is tied for seventh among living North American sires in that regard in Daily Racing Form’s Beyer Sire Performance Standings. With a fee of $6,500, the stallion also is the biggest bargain among those leaders.