Stallion Bodemeister gives Audley Farm connection to Preakness

The young classic sire Bodemeister will be represented in Saturday’s Preakness Stakes by Bodexpress, looking to become the first maiden to win the second jewel of the Triple Crown since 1888. But regardless of the result, Bodemeister’s ties to a century-plus of racing history already run deep. The young stallion was bred by Audley Farm of Berryville, Va., less than 100 miles from Pimlico, and the former home of 1919 Triple Crown winner Sir Barton.

A century ago this spring, Sir Barton won his maiden in the Kentucky Derby in his first start as a 3-year-old. He then won the Preakness Stakes, for good measure added the Withers Stakes, and finally won the Belmont Stakes to complete the first sweep of what would become known as the Triple Crown. After concluding his racing career with 13 wins from 31 starts, Sir Barton retired to Audley Farm for the 1921 breeding season. His best runner was Easter Stockings, the 1928 Kentucky Oaks winner and that year’s champion 3-year-old filly for Audley Farm. Sir Barton later served as a U.S. Army Remount Service stallion in Nebraska, breeding cavalry horses. He died in Wyoming in 1937.

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Audley Farm was acquired by the late German breeder Hubertus Liebrecht in 1978, and his family still owns the 3,000-acre farm, which also raises Angus cattle. A statue of Sir Barton was erected in front of the farm’s stallion barn in 2008.

“[That history] makes you get up every day,” Audley equine manager Jamie McDiarmid told Pimlico this week. “He obviously started kind of a crazy history with [the Triple Crown] if you think about it, because we’re all desperate to win it.”

The successful runners bred and sold by Audley Farm in its modern history have included Mandy’s Gold, who won seven stakes, including the Grade 1 Ruffian Handicap in 2002. But the farm’s first taste of success in the modern Triple Crown series came a decade later with Bodemeister.

Audley had purchased the young mare Untouched Talent, then carrying her first foal, for $1.2 million at the 2007 Keeneland November breeding stock sale. The daughter of Storm Cat had never finished worse than second in her brief racing career while racing exclusively in stakes, including a win in the Grade 3 Sorrento Stakes and a runner-up effort in the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante. Audley cashed in in a major way on its investment in Untouched Talent, breeding and selling Grade 1 winner Bodemeister and Grade 1-placed Fascinating, the latter a seven-figure yearling, out of the mare before eventually selling her for $5 million to Coolmore at the 2012 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky fall selected mixed sale.

Bodemeister, by Empire Maker, was a $260,000 Keeneland September yearling purchase by Zayat Stables and never finished worse than second in six starts. After winning the 2012 Arkansas Derby by 9 1/2 lengths in his fourth start, he finished second in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, beaten a neck in the latter.

Bodemeister retired to WinStar Farm for the 2013 breeding season and promptly became another classic stallion for the Unbridled sire line, producing 2017 Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming from his first crop. Always Dreaming, who also won the Florida Derby, now stands alongside his sire at WinStar.

“Bodemeister is out of a Storm Cat mare, and I think that speed, blended with Empire Maker’s distance, makes him a very formidable package,” WinStar executive Elliott Walden said at the time of Always Dreaming’s Derby. “The Unbridled sire line is carrying on strongly, and it’s the most formidable sire line for two-turn dirt in America.”

Bodemeister’s other top runners include multiple graded stakes winner American Anthem, who has earned more than $696,000. He won the Grade 2 Woody Stephens Stakes, Grade 3 Lazaro Barrera Stakes, and placed in two Grade 1 events in 2017, and last year, he won the Grade 2 San Carlos. American Anthem recently came off a nine-month break to finish second in an allowance/optional-claiming race at Churchill Downs, beaten less than a length. Bodemeister is also the sire of Grade 3 winners Once On Whiskey and Yuvetsi.

Bodexpress, a maiden after six starts, was second in the Florida Derby to Maximum Security. He finished 14th in the Kentucky Derby but was elevated to 13th after he was forced to take up sharply when caught in the chain reaction behind the disqualified Maximum Security.