In the Louisiana Cup series at Louisiana Downs over the weekend, one breeder's named came up again and again. Jay Adcock, who operates Red River Farm in northwestern Louisiana, was co-breeder of four of the six winners and stood the sire of a fifth.
The Red River Farm stallion Bind (by Pulpit) is now deceased, but he swept the juvenile stakes with Mirabeau and Chu Chu's Legacy; Is Too (Midshipman) won the Louisiana Cup Distaff; and Budro Talking (Tale of Ekati) won the Louisiana Cup Turf Classic. Farm stallion Calibrachoa is the sire of Saltee Stark, winner of the Louisiana Cup Sprint.
Adcock, contacted while working with horses at the farm, said that the weekend successes were “kind of surreal. You don't just get up in the morning and think, 'I'm going to be involved with four or five of the winners today.' That's not how this game works.”
Due to work on the farm and COVID-19 restrictions, Adcock's son Brandon represented the farm at Louisiana Downs for the Cup races.
“Realistically,” the younger Adcock said, “From nine horses that Red River bred or co-bred entered in the six races, it looked like we had a real good chance to win one. The Bind filly Mirabeau looked like our best chance of winning, then Budro Talking because he'd had some tough luck. Mirabeau is pretty nice. She looks like the best 2-year-old in Louisiana right now.”
In contrast to the juvenile filly Mirabeau (by Bind), who can do no wrong, the 5-year-old gelding Budro Talking (Tale of Ekati) could find trouble in a walkover. Jay Adcock said, “Budro Talking has had bad luck, and [trainer Karl] Broberg got frustrated and entered him for $17,500, and this kid [trainer Keith Austen] claimed him. [Broberg] didn't think anyone would claim the old horse, but this kid raced him twice and has now won both,” including the Louisiana Cup Turf Classic.
A winner of eight races from 24 starts and $221,184, Budro Talking had not won a stakes since he was a 2-year-old but has become a popular horse on the Louisiana racing circuit. It was not always so.
“I gave Budro away” at the yearling sale, co-breeder Hume Wornall said. “That was the only way to get the colt a new home. At the Fasig-Tipton October sale, Michael Netherland had bought another Louisiana-bred colt from me, and then this colt [Budro Talking] couldn't get a bid. Netherland took him, sold him as a 2-year-old for $20,000 at the Texas sale of 2-year-olds in training, and he's been in half the barns in Louisiana since then. Watching Budro race, you gotta love him. The horse likes firm grass and has one run; he slings wide and hauls down the stretch.
“The boy that has Budro Talking now is a young trainer and he's the fellow's first stakes winner; so he's probably got a life home there, and he's only a 5-year-old,” Wornall continued.
One of the benefits of the Louisiana-bred program is that even if a breeder has to give away a yearling, he might make some money if the horse is a good racer. Brandon Adcock said that “even a small breeder who has a limited financial window can breed a nice horse, and even if it sells for a loss at the sales, then there's a chance make a profit if the horse succeeds at the racetrack. There's a financial incentive to breed a nice horse, even if it's not a profitable sales horse.
“Three of our four horses that won Louisiana Cup races brought real modest sales prices,” the younger Adcock continued. “Budro didn't make a sales horse; the two 2-year-olds, [Mirabeau, Louisiana Cup Juvenile Fillies; Chu Chu's Legacy, Lousiana Cup Juvenile], were by our stallion Bind, and neither of those was a big price at the yearling sales.”
Mirabeau was a $5,000 yearling who has now won four of five starts and earned $105,350; Chu Chu's Legacy brought only $4,000 as a yearling; he's now won three of four starts, $90,800. The fourth Adcock-bred winner was Is Too, who was a private sale.
Brandon Adcock noted that “Mirabeau was a nice yearling, and when I saw her this weekend at Lousiana Downs, I could see that she has grown into a beautiful filly. She looks a little bigger than Chu Chu, and both are a lot like their sire, Bind. He was the nicest stallion that I've ever been around. He was bred and raced by Claiborne Farm and had the best manners you could imagine. He was easy to handle around mares, the vet, the farrier. Nothing fazed him, and he was powerful, big stallion. He could have been a bear if he'd wanted to.
“Unfortunately, we had to put him down because of complications from a snakebite. Two or three years ago, the vets thought that a snake had bit Bind on a leg, and we sent him to the clinic. They were able to improve the situation some, but we had to keep his leg bandaged. He was such a generous individual that he let us do whatever we needed to do to help him, but eventually, he developed laminitis, and the only solution was euthanasia.”
Even without the fine young sire, Red River Farm has plenty to continue with in the dams of the four Louisiana Cup winners. Smittystown (Speightstown), dam of Mirabeau, has a Mo Tom foal of 2020 and was bred back to Maximus Mischief. Bond's Babe (Johannesburg), dam of Chu Chu's Legacy, has a Mo Tom filly and was bred back to Tapiture. American Placed (Quiet American), the dam of Budro Talking, has a Good Samaritan and was bred back to Takeover Target. Tensas Salt (Salt Lake), the dam of Is Too, has a Broken Vow and was not bred in 2020 after seven foals in a row.
Jay Adcock said, “I'm going to breed those mares that went out of state this year to a stallion here in Louisiana, and those will go to one of my stallions,” such as Takeover Target (Harlan's Holiday) or Grade 1 winner El Deal (Munnings). The breed-back rule for Louisiana has recently been changed so that breeders will be able to take mares to out-of-state stallions every year, rather than the previous every-other year option.
Breeders such as Adcock, who stand stallions as well as raise state-bred racing prospects, are uncertain what the future holds for that part of their breeding operations. But for today, the Adcock family and their Red River Farm will bask in the bright sunshine of the winner's circle in front of the home folks.
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