Oscar Performance returns home to Mill Ridge

Oscar Performance tossed his head and stepped sideways on the end of the lead shank, turning a white-rimmed eye toward the horizon, beyond the rolling hills surrounding Mill Ridge Farm. Oscar Performance’s familiar former stall in trainer Brian Lynch’s barn is less than five miles away at Keeneland – where Hal Price Headley, the father of Mill Ridge’s Alice Chandler, served as the first president.

But Oscar Performance was actually standing on familiar ground in that moment. The son of leading turf sire Kitten’s Joy was foaled at Mill Ridge on April 6, 2014, and spent his formative months there before heading off to training and the track. The colt is a homebred for John and Jerry Amerman, who became associated with Mill Ridge in the mid-1990’s and have maintained their limited broodmare band there since. That band includes their stakes-winning Theatrical mare Devine Actress, the dam of multiple Grade 1 winner Oscar Performance and multiple Grade 3 winner Oscar Nominated.

“We at Mill Ridge are so appreciative to Jerry and John Amerman for the opportunity to stand a stallion with the potential to contribute to the breed like Oscar Performance,” Mill Ridge managing partner Headley Bell said. “Since [former Mill Ridge stallions] Diesis and Gone West, we have been waiting for the special horse to carry on from their legacies and believe Oscar Performance has all the qualities to do so.”

Over the summer, Bell said that it only took about a week to syndicate Oscar Performance.

“We syndicated him in seven days on a basis of $75,000 for the shares,” Bell said. “We kept the other half, too. Rather than putting kickers on the deal, we just kept the other shares syndicated after he’s finished racing. We got a great syndicate . . . When you’re [doing business] you’ve got to think four years down the road. You’re in the moment and then the balloon goes off and you struggle. So, even in the syndicate, you got eight seasons in the first four years to make a very attractive deal. Because the bottom line is we want to give him a chance to be a stallion, and we’re willing to give a little bit up front to get something in the end.”

Oscar Performance won six graded stakes, highlighted by a quartet of Grade 1 events – the 2016 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, last year’s Belmont Derby and Secretariat Stakes, and this fall’s Woodbine Mile. His three other graded stakes scores included a virtuoso performance in the Grade 3 Poker Stakes this past June at Belmont, sizzling the mile on turf in a course-record 1:31.23. Not only did that break Elusive Quality’s course mark of 1:31.63 established in 1998, it tied the North American record for a mile on the turf established by Mandurah in 2010 at Monmouth Park.

“He is a trainer’s dream,” Lynch said. “Lasix-free, speed, stamina, and soundness.”

Mill Ridge previously stood stallions such as the late, great Gone West, the sire of champion sprinter Speightstown, Breeders’ Cup winners Da Hoss and Johar, and Belmont Stakes winner Commendable, among other standouts. Gone West continued to build a legacy to the breed via successful sons at stud, including Elusive Quality, Grand Slam, Mr. Greeley, Proud Citizen, and Speightstown.

However, Mill Ridge had just a one-horse roster in 2018. Valuable newcomer Oscar Performance joins regally bred Grade 3 winner Keep Up, whose oldest foals are 3, in the stallion complex.