The 2022 racing season continued to showcase the power of the partnership, with champions such as Flightline, Nest, Forte, and other major runners being campaigned in partnership. That theme of teaming up continues into a number of facets of the industry nationwide, including the Ohio stallion ranks. Kentucky-based WinStar Farm and Ohio-based trainer Tim Hamm’s Blazing Meadows Farm have teamed successfully with a number of runners over the years. They ventured into the stallion ranks when graded stakes winner National Flag entered stud at Blazing Meadows in North Jackson under the WinBlaze banner for the 2019 season. The young stallion made a solid start at stud for the partnership. National Flag, by Speightstown, recorded five winners from 11 first-crop starters in 2022, led by Excitement, a Winblaze homebred who finished second in the Loyalty Stakes. National Flag’s progeny earned $160,101, easily outdistancing the state’s other freshman sire, Rivers Run Deep of Poplar Creek Horse Center. That four-time Ohio-bred champion sprinter and millionaire is the sire of Glacial Princess Stakes winner In Troubled Waters from his first crop. National Flag was a $600,000 Keeneland September yearling purchase before winning 3 of 6 starts for the prominent partnership of WinStar Farm, China Horse Club, and SF Racing. That included the Grade 3 Bay Shore Stakes in the spring of his 3-year-old year under the tutelage of trainer Todd Pletcher. When National Flag retired for the 2019 season, he stepped into another established partnership for WinStar. Hamm has built a successful career in the Midwest, with some 70 Ohio-bred divisional champions. He also has ventured onto the national stage in a number of capacities, as he pinhooked eventual champion Wait a While and developed and originally trained Ohio-bred Too Much Bling before that colt went on to become a multiple graded stakes winner. More recently, Hamm trained Grade 1 winner Dayoutoftheoffice, who was second in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. Hamm and WinStar entered into a partnership where mares were bred to young WinStar stallions and then sent to Ohio to foal at Blazing Meadows. The resulting foals were campaigned in partnership in Ohio-bred stakes, with Hamm as the trainer. The program has produced Ohio-bred horse of the year honoree Esplanande, along with stakes winners including Alexandria, Awaken, Candy Exchange, Christmas, Coincidentally, Corner Office, Diamond Dust, Grand Isle, Liberate, and Tantrum. The team now has its own stallion, and stakes horses such as Excitement could be cause for just that. “It’s a business venture based on two main points,” WinStar executive Elliott Walden said at the founding of WinBlaze. “The first is the health of the Ohio program, and it looks to be strong. The second is the opportunity to get National Flag off to a solid start as a stallion. . . . This partnership provides a great opportunity, not only for us but it should be exciting for guys up there who breed to race.” Leading Ohio sires Although Canadian champion Mobil continues to be a stalwart in his adopted home state of Ohio, the state’s leading sire list may continue to shift around him with a number of accomplished runners moving to the state in recent years. Dominus, who leads the Ohio earnings list regardless of progeny conception area, moved to Ohio from Kentucky for the 2022 breeding season, and therefore, his statistics are from his larger Kentucky books, with state-sired foals just arriving this year. Runner-up Itsmyluckyday moved to Ohio for 2020, meaning his first foals race this year, and third-place Sky Kingdom stood his first Ohio season in 2022. Mobil is next – and, in fact, is the only stallion in the top five with state-sired progeny on the racetrack. Rounding out the quintet is Fort Larned, who arrived in Ohio for the 2020 season. Mobil was led in 2022 by the older runners Mobil Solution and Relish the Ride, who each added additional stakes victories to his résumé, and stakes-winning juvenile Sammy and Shorty. Mr Freeze to stand in Ohio Ohio brings in another new stallion for 2023 as multiple graded stakes-winning millionaire Mr Freeze will stand at Raimonde Farms in Wooster. Mr Freeze, by To Honor and Serve, won the Grade 3 West Virginia Derby; the Grade 3 Ack Ack as a 4-year-old; and, the following year, the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Mile and Grade 2 Fayette. His four graded stakes placings included multiple Grade 1 efforts, including a second in the 2020 Pegasus World Cup. “I’m always looking for quality additions to my stallion roster, and given his success on the dirt, Mr Freeze fits perfectly into Ohio’s program,” owner Brian Raimonde said in a press release. His farm also stands Ohio top 10 sire Drill, along with Botswana Taps, Callide Valley, Greek Sun, Hostile Takeover, and Sky Fire. “It’s rare to find a stallion prospect that maintained his form so long into his career, winning graded stakes at ages 3, 4, and 5.”