Bravo, my friend!

The discussion on the impacts of public accusations, even before any form of due process takes place, cannot be understated. I liken the scenario to a judge telling a jury to “disregard that last statement” painting a vivid picture of the harsh reality we face. This metaphor cogently emphasizes the irreversible harm that can befall individuals and organizations alike when accusations are prematurely thrown into the public sphere.

The court of public opinion, bolstered by the immediacy of today's media landscape, can irreversibly tarnish a reputation in the blink of an eye. This should serve as a wake-up call to us all. It is our collective responsibility, as part of this industry and society, to uphold the principles of due process and to tread with caution when dealing with potentially reputation-damaging information.

We must always seek to ensure fairness in our dealings, refraining from passing judgement before a comprehensive and fair process has taken place. Swift conclusions and reactions can lead to lasting damages, often affecting those who've devoted their lives to the industry, and once tarnished, a reputation can rarely be fully restored.

The integrity of our industry depends on our commitment to these principles. Our actions today will shape the future of horse racing, and we must navigate these complex issues with wisdom, patience, and a dedication to justice.

Clark Shepherd

Shepherd Equine Advisers, Inc.

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Rumor has it that Mike Repole said he was going to get out of the business if things didn't change. Well, I can see how Mr. Repole could feel that way; he's had some real kicks in the behind this year. But the racing industry needs more people like Mike Repole. He goes to the sales, buys nice horses, goes to the races, and takes his chances. He spends more than most and has Todd Pletcher for a trainer (there is no better), and so his chances are better than most.

Everything has changed so fast this year. All of a sudden, we have this new entity (HISA) that has taken complete control of our industry. They basically have the power to shut anyone down at any time. I don't like it and neither does anyone else trying to make a living with racehorses, especially those that are “hands on”. We have people controlling our lives and our livelihoods that don't know anything about us or our horses. Perfect example of the tail wagging the dog.

This is America, or what's left of it. Blaming the cheaters (1%} for our problems is a load of crap. They are essentially using the media to slander individuals, our livelihoods, and our whole sport  with no recourse, even if they're wrong. The damage is done by that point, which is their goal. This is a gambling game. Our purse money has always come from some form of gambling. The best way to save this industry is to fill those gates; our racetracks needs to realize this. Our economy is such that it is going to hit the horse business sooner or later. During the Great Depression, racetracks were one of the few businesses that thrived. Every time a track closes, be it large or small, it weakens us all. The people trying to control us act like they couldn't care less. This won't do.

Dr. Allday, one of the best racetrack vets in the world, says a horse can run. But a vet that has been out of school for a very short amount of time says it cannot. They, of course, listen to the least qualified person which may have cost us another Triple Crown winner. Come on, get real. Where is the reality in our sport anymore? PETA does not control us. Give into that bunch… well, don't get me started.

The small breeder, the small trainer, the small owner… they are the backbone of this industry and don't you ever forget it. Get down to where the rubber meets the road. Support the HBPA–the people that support you. Tracks, support your horseman. Our business is not run by PETA or any other power group. No more tail wagging the dog. I love this business and its people.

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When you have spent as much time as Beau Lane among these unerring vehicles of humility–from the Appaloosas of his youth, to two Kentucky Derby starters in the last seven years–you tend to develop total immunity to self-importance. Even at 80, you never know what's coming next; nor, when something does happen, whether it will turn out for better or worse. So when his peers selected Lane for the 2020 Breeders' Hardboot Award, his initial reaction was the one he just shared, seated beside his consignment at the recent September Sale.

But then he started looking down the previous recipients. One of the first, back in 2001, was Robert E. Courtney. He remembered seeing the old sage in 2009, when perilously exposed to the market slump.

“How you doing, boss? I'm going to be lucky to make it.”

“Oh, you'll make it,” Courtney replied. “Hard times make a monkey eat red peppers.”

Lane chuckles at the memory.

“He was a great guy,” he says. “And when I saw some of those names that had won that award, people like him, and Henry White, I thought, 'Whoa, man, this is quite an honor. These are some best horsemen I ever knew.'”

He grins wryly. “And most of them are gone! But I was raised in an era when to have the reputation of a horseman, that meant something. You had to earn that title.”

Though his draft was lurking way out under the water tower, no true connoisseur was going to neglect checking over the youngsters raised by such seasoned hands. Among those to swing by were Spendthrift Farm, who gave $335,000 for a Constitution colt; and Donato Lanni, who had $250,000 for a Tonalist filly. While Lane emphasizes the credit due to his daughter “J.B.” and her husband Michael Orem, he remains wonderfully spry in body and soul, full of enthusiasm and humor. And for all his self-deprecation, he is prepared to make one concession regarding his career.

“Well, I'm different from a lot of folks down here,” he acknowledges. “I came from the bottom up. I didn't get here from the top down. When I got to Kentucky, I had $60 and six old mares. I paid my first month's rent, and told my wife, 'Honey, I think we're broke.' And she said, 'Game's not over yet, Beau.' She was a basketball coach, and none of her teams ever quit. She still had faith in me, and we went to work.

“I've never been able to go out and buy a mare for half a million, and breed her to Tapit every year, and then feel good about what I raised. I have to buy a $25,000 mare and breed her to a $15,000 stud. And then, if the foal runs, hey, I'm on the right track. I mean, I'm glad those folks are here, doing as well as they are. But I come from a different school.”

That school, as already intimated, was in rural Virginia where his grandfather had started manufacture of the iconic Lane cedar chests.

“He was a lot smarter than me,” Lane says. “And he would tell me, 'Beau, if you keep fooling with these horses, you're going to be scratching the poor man's ass the rest of your life.' And you know what? For most of my life, he was right!”

Though Lane had been riding since boyhood, for a time he explored other ways of fracturing bones: playing football for Virginia Tech, for instance, albeit not all five of his broken noses were necessarily confined to the field of play. Nonetheless his heart was early set on a career with horses.

Having started with Appaloosas and Quarter Horses, his first experiment with Thoroughbreds was, candidly, a disaster. He quickly established that you couldn't run one of those down with a rope from a jeep; but soon gained subtler insights and found a niche buying mares for friends standing Quarter Horses out west.

“Because their horses could only run 330 yards, holding their breath,” he says. “Bugs Alive In 75, I must have bought 200 mares for that horse. Any mare that ran :21-and-change, from Narragansett in Rhode Island all the way down to Charlestown. I was selling them as fast as I could buy them. I got to know everybody out there [in the West], a lot of wonderful people.”

And the package would include delivery. Lane would load seven, eight mares onto a trailer and drive 125,000 miles 10 years straight. In addition, there were long overnight commutes to Kentucky, to get his own mares bred. He didn't want to admit it, but in his chosen walk of life the sun was setting on his home state.

“Nobody worked harder to stay in Virginia,” Lane says. “My great-, great-grand-daddy was killed at Gettysburg, in Pickett's Charge. I've been a Virginian since John Smith. That was when the first Lane was here, as one of his soldiers. I didn't want to leave and I stayed too long. The blood was no longer available, to prove my mares. I had to follow the stallions.

“All the big people died and nobody took their place: Taylor Hardin, Paul Mellon, Elizabeth Dodge Sloan. Trying to make it in Virginia was like trying to knock a wall down with your head. And I needed the better land. I was in southern Virginia, where all the hard work is done! Well, it's red clay and you cannot raise a top horse on red clay. You have to be able to train him hard. When I was racing Quarter Horses, I had some that qualified for $1-million races. But next morning, you'd have slab fractures, hairline fractures. You just couldn't get them there. But here you can raise the best horses in the world.”

The final straw came when Lane played up everything he had made, driving across the continent, in a public offering of Newstead Farm that fell apart with an untimely change in the tax regime. He lost $600,000 and fled “flat broke” to the Bluegrass. Of those six mares, a couple were so mean that they had been given away; others had cost him no more than a couple of thousand. Yet one delivered a G1 Oaks d'Italia winner and the daughter of another won $300,000 in Lane's own silks.

“A lot of breeders won't race a horse,” he says. “But sometimes they'll come through when you need it the most, and that filly got us rolling again.”

So his cherished coach had been right: the game wasn't over. By 2006, Lane had rallied sufficiently to acquire 160 acres in Bourbon County, aptly adjacent to Stone Farm: E.H. Lane III and A.B. Hancock III were now neighbors, just as the first to bear their respective names had once shared fences in Virginia. Sure enough, Lane delved into his family's Turf roots to name Woodline Farm for the horse that won the Clabaugh H. for his great-grandfather exactly 100 years before.

It was not long, however, before the 2008 financial crisis returned Lane to an uncomfortable brink. (Moreover he lost his invincible coach, soon afterwards, albeit has since found touching consolation in remarriage to Gail, a boyhood sweetheart.)

Just around that time, Lane had bred a Dixie Union filly.

“The most beautiful thing I'd ever raised,” he recalls. “And I got really cocky. I put a $240,000 reserve on her. And didn't get it. Well, then here comes a couple really sharp horsemen, offering the $240,000. But I said, 'Nope. You had your chance to buy her.' That was in July. In September the bottom fell out of everybody and I didn't have a dime.

“But for a horse at Charlestown that made me $140,000 at the track, I wouldn't have made it. But I did, see. All the time I kept thinking, 'I can't believe I didn't take $240,000 for that filly.' And guess what? I sold a million-and-a-half worth of foals out of her. She bought my farm for me.”

Actually that mare's first foal had to be sold privately as an identical RNA, at $240,000. Willie Browne took the colt home to Ireland and sold him for 1,150,000gns at the Newmarket breeze-ups the following spring. Another famous pinhook wagered on this dependable nursery followed in 2013, when a Giant's Causeway colt made $525,000 as a September yearling for clients Bob Cummings and Annette Bacola of Coffee Pot Stable. He was sold on by Northwest Stud for $1.6 million at OBS in March and, as Carpe Diem, won Grade Is at two and three before derailing in the Derby.

This year another Woodline graduate, Zozos (Munnings), also made the Derby after chasing home Epicenter (Not This Time) in the GII Louisiana Derby for breeders Barry and Joni Butzow. Another from the same crop, meanwhile, is homebred Best Actor (Flatter), sold to Gary and Mary West for $330,000 as a yearling and winner of the GIII Smarty Jones S.

Patrons and purchasers alike know that Woodline horses won't be hot-housed, but raised with their vocation in mind: first to trust their handlers; and then, no less so, their own physical zest.

“We treat a horse like a horse,” Lane explains. “And it can be hard in this industry to do that. Because we raise them in large fields, 14 head together, and when you do that, they're like kids: they wrestle and kick and throw each other down.”

The sales ring, of course, has become increasingly fastidious about that kind of thing, with every bruise hunted out and magnified by nervous veterinarians.

“Hell, they got better X-ray machines in the back of these trucks than in the hospital,” Lane says. “It's a different business today. I'll tell you who changed it: a guy named D. Wayne Lukas, when he said he'd keep his catalogue closed, all he'd do is look at the horse. And everyone says, 'Whoa, wow, okay. Well, this horse here toes in a little bit; and that one's a little offset. We can't use them.'

“I remember when, if you had a horse that toed in a little, you told the blacksmith to trim him natural. And when we did that, we didn't have any sesamoiditis. We kept them the way God made them. If they could walk through it, it was no big deal. A lot of good horses are ruined by people putting screws in their knees and ankles when they're babies. Because guess what? God didn't make that foal to move that leg like that. We used to raise racehorses, not show horses. I showed the Grand Champion Stallion in Chicago, in 1971. I've been there. I ain't going back.”

Tellingly, asked for the most important lesson learned from other breeds, Lane replies: “Well, it was a different way of doing things, no doubt about it. But it taught me early that anytime you treat a horse like anything but a horse, it doesn't work. He won't be happy. You try to make something else out of him, next thing you know, he's got a belly full of ulcers. But treat a horse like a horse, keep them happy and healthy, they'll give you all they got.”

Perhaps this commercial instinct to standardize the animal reflects a wider timidity?

“You got to take a shot,” Lane agrees. “And that's what worries me about a lot of the younger generation: they won't take the chance. This is a gambler's game. And the only thing that's going to save this industry is to fill those gates. Gamblers can't make money on four-horse fields. Don't think that you can B.S. your way with these gamblers. I remember when Charlestown had four or five big-time gamblers coming out of Washington every night to bet five or 10 thousand bucks. Then one night the State Police came in and told them to hit the deck and spreadeagle. After that, they never came back–and that track went downhill for 20 years. And it would be gone now, but for the casino deal.”

Every last one of us with a stake in this game, after all, is also a gambler of sorts.

“I've bred to Gun Runner,” Lane says. “That's enough gamble for me. They tell me, 'Pop, you could lose a lot of money doing that.' And I say, 'Hey, I could make a lot of money, too.' It's like the share I bought in Silver State. I know that's a gamble, but I also know that Olin Gentry put that family together and lined up all those 'fours' [i.e. family number] one after another. It'll surprise me if he fails–but if he does, it will be because Hard Spun didn't do his job.”

Here at the sharp end, then, it's ultimately a case of standing toe-to-toe with Lady Luck. A lot of people, with each of her slaps, grow merely in cynicism and bitterness. Happily, our community also has people like this, who rock on their heels only to bounce forward again, instead gaining only in warmth and insight.

Lane remembers the last time he saw the late Billy Turner, a forgotten man after training one of the greatest horses that ever lived, and shakes his head. “I mean, this industry's hard on you, buddy,” he says. “You've got to ride it out. But I keep saying, 'I got to keep living, so I can win the Derby.' And if I have another 10 years, you can bet your ass that's what I'm going to do! I'm breeding the best mares now that I've ever bred, to the best horses I've ever bred. I've got a shot. That's what keeps me going, and that's what keeps those guys over there going too.”   He gestures to the adjacent consignment. “They all got a shot.”

Lane points to his 17-year-old grandson, showing a yearling.

“He can foal a mare as good as me or better,” he says proudly. “I just hope we have a business to leave; that with all our wisdom, we don't screw it up. Don't get me started, how we're making it tougher on the little man.

“But gosh, I've had a wonderful life. And I'll tell you this, there's nothing better than this industry, than these horses. You get the lowest of lows, as well as the highest of highs, but I feel sorry for a guy that goes to work every day and sits in the same office chair and has the same B.S.

“I just want to raise a great horse. I've raised a lot of good ones, but I've never raised that great horse. Yet. But I'm still here.”

A pause, another chuckle. “I'm still here. And I got probably 25 mares in foal. And any one of them could be carrying it. Right?”

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Unicorn Girl, who is in foal to leading sire Into Mischief, and her weanling son both are consigned by Beau Lane Bloodstock, agent, in the premier Book 1 on opening day.

Catalog pages for the two horses will be released later this week.

In Saturday's Grade 1 Champagne Stakes at Belmont, Jackie's Warrior dominated his rivals with a front-running 5 1/2-length victory. The effort solidified the colt's status as a favorite in the Nov. 6 Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Keeneland and set the graduate of Keeneland's 2019 September Yearling Sale on course for an Eclipse Award as division champion.

“It was a very impressive victory for Jackie's Warrior in the Champagne, and Unicorn Girl in foal to Into Mischief on one cover and carrying a colt will be well received at Keeneland November,” said Carlo Vaccarezza, who owns the mare and weanling with John Williams. “Also selling the weanling half-brother to Jackie's Warrior by American Pharoah will show what she's capable of moving forward. John and I are extremely excited for this opportunity.”

The Champagne continued Jackie's Warrior's roll this year. He won his June 19 career debut by 2 1/2 lengths at Churchill Downs and next took the Aug. 7 G2 Saratoga Special Presented by Miller Light by three lengths. On Sept. 7, Jackie's Warrior captured the G1 Runhappy Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga by 2 1/4 lengths in stakes-record time.

Unicorn Girl, by the A.P. Indy stallion A. P. Five Hundred, is in foal to the powerhouse Into Mischief, whose stud fee recently climbed to $225,000 for 2021. His recent headliners include Kentucky Derby hero Authentic and Test Stakes winner Gamine. Into Mischief was the leading sire by gross sales at the recent Keeneland September Yearling Sale, where 19 of his sons and daughters commanded $500,000 or more. Five sold for $1 million or more, including the $1.9 million sale-topping filly.

“There is no telling what Unicorn Girl can do with a foal by Into Mischief,” Beau Lane said. “She is a powerhouse. She tried her heart out every time she raced. She's a quality mare who was an overachiever, and she passes that on to her babies. They have the same attitude. She is the kind that can give you that special horse.”

Unicorn Girl has a pedigree page loaded with quality. Out of stakes winner Horah for Bailey, she is a half-sister to eight winners, including stakes winner Bernie the Maestro, who earned $694,317, and a pair of stakes horses who banked nearly $200,000 each.

On the race track, Unicorn Girl was competitive, classy and sound. Racing on the East Coast, she won 19 races and earned $483,508 in 54 races.

“Jackie's Warrior proved his star power with his dominating performance in the Champagne, and we look forward to seeing him at Keeneland for the Breeders' Cup Juvenile,” Keeneland President-Elect and Interim Head of Sales Shannon Arvin said. “Keeneland is especially excited to offer his dam, Unicorn Girl, who is in foal to the popular stallion Into Mischief, and his weanling half-brother in the November Sale.”

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Since then, the veteran horseman has grown his band of breeding stock and now has 30 broodmares at his Woodline Farm near Paris.

While he’s never been able to sign tickets on million-dollar broodmares, he said he doesn’t find it necessary.

“I usually don’t spend over $40,000 for a mare. I don’t think you have to,” Lane said. “I’ve never been able to afford those $500,000 mares, but I’ve had to compete with them. I see the advantage of buying a hard-knocking race mare.”

This year, Beau Lane Bloodstock’s offered six yearlings for Book 1 at Keeneland September. While none approached the coveted seven-figure mark, for Lane it was a successful two days of sale.

His first yearling to go through the ring, a colt by Flatter bred by Lane in partnership, brought $330,000 from Ben Glass, on behalf of Gary and Mary West.

“This colt was about as nice of a Flatter that you’re ever going to see,” he said. “He had a way of moving that would catch your attention. A lot of people looked at him because they knew the family.”

The colt is out of the Smart Strike mare Abraqat, a daughter of dual Grade I winner Spun Sugar (Awesome Again). Lane picked up the mare in foal to Albertus Maximus at the 2016 Keeneland November Sale for $55,000.

“I thought she was a beautiful mare and I love the way she’s bred,” he recalled. “I thought she would bring more than she did.”

The mare had gone through the ring during the 11th of 13 sessions of the sale. Lane said he had not been planning on bidding that day.

While recounting the purchase, Lane nodded toward the back walking ring at Keeneland and said, “If you just wait up there until you see ‘that one,’ it doesn’t have to be the first day, the second day, or even the first week, but when you see that one walk up and you get that feeling, go for it. They’re the ones that will make you money.”

Hip 29 was easily the most expensive of the mare’s three foals Lane has led over to the sales thus far. The Albertus Maximus filly Abraqat was carrying at the time of her purchase made $20,000 here two years ago, while the mare’s colt by Carpe Diem fetched $65,000 last September.

During the second day of Book 1 this year, a yearling filly by First Samurai out of the unraced Unbridled’s Song mare Team Hansen sold for $250,000.

Lane purchased Team Hansen in 2014 at the Keeneland November Sale for $75,000. Two years ago, her Into Mischief filly brought $600,000, the highest-priced yearling Lane has ever sold, and last year, her Awesome Again filly brought $185,000.

Of this year’s First Samurai yearling purchased by Frankie Brothers as agent for Bruce Lunsford, Lane said, “Frankie trained First Samurai [for Lunsford and Lansdon Robbins III] and when we pulled her out he said, ‘Woah, she looks just like the old man.’ She was the real deal–a lot of presence, a lot of class. We knew she was going to be one of the top-selling First Samurai yearlings.”

The filly was the only representative for her sire in the first two books of the sale.

Lane said he prefers to match his mares to stallions that will complement the mare best, rather than always breeding to the traditional commercial sire.

“I spend a lot of time on it. I try to take a young mare to a proven horse when I can, but I will sometimes do the opposite if the pedigree fits,” he explained. “My son-in-law is always telling me I need to breed to more freshman sires because that’s where the market is. I will do that, but I have to see the types match and have the pedigree come together. If you can get on a stallion’s train, like Into Mischief, like Constitution, they will take you far and fast.”

On finding the right mares for his program, Lane said he relies on advice he received years ago from the late Marvin “Junior” Little of Newstead Farm in Virginia.

“Junior told me many years ago, ‘Beau, you can buy mares that aren’t stakes producers, but you’ve got to have a great family.’ So all the mares in our operation are from great families,” he said.

A Virginia-bred himself, Lane got his start in the horse world with show horses.

“I once had the national champion Appaloosa stallion,” he recalled. “I got started breeding Appaloosas and Quarter Horses. But then I found the best Quarter Horses I had were out of Thoroughbred mares. I just kept looking for better and better horses, and I think somebody that does that will end up with a Thoroughbred. The business has been awfully good to me. I’ve been very blessed that I’ve been around good horses and good people.”

For Lane, his greatest pride comes when people seek out horses from his consignment.

“We had a lady come by the other day shopping through Book 2 and she asked what we had,” he said. “When I told her we didn’t have anything, she said, ‘That’s a shame. I’d rather buy a horse from you than anybody because you raise good horses.’ So that always makes you feel good. We really take pride in the horses we raise. We try to be straight with people and we’ll tell them anything we know. We want to represent a good horse,” Lane added.

Beau Lane and wife Gail at their consignment at Keeneland | Katie Ritz

The Beau Lane Bloodstock consignment is a family affair. His daughter J.B. Orem can be found at the end of a shank throughout the day, while Lane’s wife Gail and son-in-law Michael assist with the many tasks of running the consignment. Before long, the next generation will be lending a hand.

“I have a grandson learning the business and I’m trying to keep him in it,” Lane said with a proud smile. “I feel there’s no better business in the world than the horse business.”

Even in the current climate, Lane said he has confidence in the horsemen and women that make up the industry.

“The way the market is going now, I think it’s going to correct itself if we don’t make it more difficult,” he said. “There are a lot of young people coming in that are very intelligent. I see a lot of people that started 15 or 20 years ago that have really sharpened their tools and have gotten really good at what they do. I’m tickled to death for them.”

He cautioned that the industry needs to do better in supporting the underdogs of the business.

“There’s a lot of really good horsemen that feed this industry,” he noted. “From what I can see, we have a tendency to make it harder for them. They have a right to enjoy this just as much as anybody because they work just as hard. To me, money should not qualify you to have a good horse.”

Lane has raised several graded stakes contenders, including dual GISW Carpe Diem (Giant’s Causeway) and this year’s talented undefeated juvenile Jackie’s Warrior (Maclean’s Music). But he’s still searching to find a top-class horse to race under his own banner. Luckily, he has a few prospects in the pipeline.

When his Gun Runner colt out of the Grade II-placed Blip n’The Bye (Tale of Ekati) did not meet his reserve and was led out unsold at $435,000 during Book 1, Lane said he was a bit relieved.

“I’ve had that family for four generations and I liked him so much from the time he was born. I really didn’t want to sell him so I put a high reserve on him,” he admitted. “We came within $5,000 of our reserve. But he’s one of the very nicest horses I’ve raised in the last 25 years. I don’t think I’m going to wait for the next one, so I want to keep him and race him.”

The 78-year-old horseman said he finds no place for himself in an “old folks home” until he has reached his ultimate goal.

“I came from a little red-clay farm in southern Virginia. I had a dream. I wanted to raise a really great horse. I’ve raised a lot of really good horses, but I still haven’t raised that great horse yet. I’m running out of time, but I’m getting closer.”

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