The name says it all with Uptowncharlybrown Stud: the operation built upon, and geared toward continuing, the success of veteran Pennsylvania sire Uptowncharlybrown.
Through the first four months of 2023, the plan has worked as well as any in the state, with the operation leading the way by breeders' incentive earnings, totaling $182,856. Northview Stallion Station was second, with $119,365.
For horses bred and sired in Pennsylvania, breeders earn a 50 percent bonus on purse earnings for maiden races run within the state. Runners bred in the state but sired by a horse standing elsewhere are eligible for a 25 percent bonus. For all other races within the Keystone State, runners bred and sired in Pennsylvania can earn a 40 percent bonus, while those by out-of-state sires earn their breeders a 20 percent bonus.
Of Uptowncharlybrown Stud's top 10 runners by breeder's award earnings through the end of April, eight were by the operation's flagship stallion.
Uptowncharlybrown, a Grade 2-placed stakes-winning son of Limehouse, stands at WynOaks Farm in Delta, Pa. He's developed into a perennial upper-tier sire in the state, where he currently third among Pennsylvania sires by progeny earnings, trailing only veteran sires Jump Start and Weigelia.
However, the runner that has generated the most breeder's award monies for Uptowncharlybrown Stud is by a different sire.
For the Dreamers, a 4-year-old gelding by Talent Search, produced $25,872 in breeder's awards through April 30 to lead the way.
Racing as a homebred, under the guidance of trainer Edward Coletti Jr., For the Dreamers won two of three starts during that timeframe, all at Parx Racing.
He took his seasonal debut on Jan. 11, when he bid three-wide and kicked away in the stretch to win a six-furlong allowance optional claiming race by 1 1/4 lengths. Two starts later, For the Dreamers led at every point of call to win a March 20 six-furlong claiming race by two lengths.
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Among Uptowncharlybrown Stud's runners by its flagship sire, the earners of breeder's awards are led by Rolls Royce Joyce, who made $23,676 in incentives for her breeder.
The 6-year-old mare won two of five starts through the end of April, and she finished in the money in two other starts, all coming at Parx.
Like For the Dreamers, she won her seasonal bow – a 6 1/2-furlong starter optional claiming race on Jan. 4, where she held on to win by a neck. On March 6, she added another victory in another starter optional claimer at the same distance, this time rallying from the middle of the pack to prevail by three-quarters of a length.
Rolls Royce Joyce races for owner Richard Malouf and trainer Scott Lake.
Leading Earners Of 2023 Pennsylvania Breeder's Awards, Through April 30
Ryan Campbell couldn't have known how important the 2010 Florida Derby would be to his career in the Thoroughbred business, even if he thought he did at the time.
His professional interests were tied to Pleasant Prince, the son of a stallion he stood in Indiana, Indy King. Getting a Grade 1 winner in a major Kentucky Derby prep would have been a huge boost for his recent acquisition.
His personal interests were with Lentenor, a full-brother to the ill-fated Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro who he'd followed closely since the colt's earliest days. A solid effort in the Florida Derby would have given one of his favorite horses in training a clear path to the Kentucky Derby.
Ice Box beat them both, catching Pleasant Prince by a nose at the end of a screaming late drive, with Lentenor in fourth. Another deep-closing effort saw Ice Box finish a gaining second at Churchill Downs in his ensuing start.
Over a decade later, Campbell would have ties with all three horses.
Ice Box and Lentenor, both 16 years old, reside today on opposite ends of the barns at Indiana Stallion Station in Anderson, Ind., both owned by Campbell. Indy King was later sold to stand in New Zealand.
Standing Lentenor was always the dream for Campbell, who was one of many to fall for the horse after following Barbaro's convalescence from a broken leg suffered in the 2006 Preakness Stakes. Campbell had grown up loving dual classic winner Swale, and the crushing news of his sudden death in the days following the 1984 Belmont Stakes was a familiar refrain as he followed Barbaro and his younger siblings.
Ice Box was a welcome member of Campbell's stallion portfolio, but that same bond just wasn't there. How could it be when Lentenor tapped into a core memory from when Campbell was eight years old?
That changed when both stallions moved to Indiana Stallion Station and Campbell, an Anderson native, got to have his hands on Ice Box every day.
“Ice Box had a lot to come into, because Lentenor was hands-down my favorite,” he said. “Lentenor's meant a lot to our family, but Ice Box is my buddy. We go out and mess around. When you see him walk across to get to his paddock, he just hangs his head and you can reach out and pet him as he goes along.
“When we first started seeing him, we never would have dreamed that we would have gotten him,” Campbell said. “I've had many stallions before, and I never would have said before he moved back to Indiana that he would have been my favorite, just from a handling standpoint. Some horses, you make a connection with and they can be kind, they can be mean, whatever, and you still have a connection with them. Ice Box is one that he's a mild-mannered, good-brained stallion.”
Campbell purchased Ice Box in 2020, but their paths had crossed frequently before the ink was put on the paper.
He recalled watching Ice Box in the 2010 Kentucky Derby, where he broke from the second post and spent the entire first mile of the race eating mud in second-to-last place under jockey Jose Lezcano. He searched desperately for a seam at the top of the stretch and was forced to check repeatedly, eventually swinging widest of all and making up tons of ground, but he was unable to catch a rail-skimming Super Saver before reaching the wire.
“You watch him come up and he gets stopped on the rail, and he has to pull back and swing out, and he gets stopped again, and then he gets stopped one more time, and he has to pull back and swing way out,” he said. “Then, one last time, he stopped and he had to swing out, and he was still half a length from getting Super Saver. You go another 30 yards, and he's there. We think if he'd not been stopped one of the three times, or if he'd gotten the rail ride that Super Saver got, there would have been a very interesting difference at the end of the Derby.”
The way he gained ground in the stretch, many bettors pegged Ice Box as their Belmont Stakes horse, and they sent him postward as the heavy favorite. However, he was never able to unfurl his signature late run, and he finished a non-threatening ninth.
The colt never quite found his stride after the Derby, racing through the end of his 4-year-old campaign, but never winning again after the Florida Derby. Ice Box retired with three wins in 16 starts for earnings of $948,068 for owner Robert LaPenta and trainer Nick Zito.
Ice Box retired to Calumet Farm in Lexington, Ky., for the 2012 breeding season, and Campbell was among the breeders that inspected the new arrival to consider for his mares. He ended up sticking closer to home to support the stallions he owned in Indiana, but he continued to follow the horse's career with interest when he relocated to Three Chimneys Farm the following season, and later when he moved across town to Millennium Farms in 2015.
He stood at Millennium for five seasons, his longest stint at a Kentucky farm, before his path crossed with Campbell once again.
“When he went to Millennium, we've historically had a good relationship with the people there,” Campbell said. “We bought Swagger Jack off of them. They contacted me and said 'Ice Box's owners are wanting to do something with him. Would you be interested?' We'd always liked him, and love sons of Pulpit, and he produced.”
At that point, Ice Box had established himself as a sire of durable runners, but he was still looking for a breakout U.S. runner. He scraped graded success with the likes of Grade 3-placed Dubby Dubbie, who has earned over $667,000 over seven seasons, while his international runners included Puerto Rican Group 1 winner Heladero and Panamanian Group 2-placed El Ajustador.
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Campbell, a network architect for a major plastic packaging company, purchased Ice Box from an ownership group that included country music star Toby Keith's Dream Walkin' Farms and LaPenta, and the original owners still maintain a share of the breeder's awards.
Ice Box debuted for his new owner at Cabin Creek Farm in Pennsylvania for the 2020 breeding season. Campbell said interest was strong from breeders before the opening of the breeding shed, but restrictions tied to the COVID-19 pandemic led to none of the contracts being filled, and the stallion's standing didn't recover in the seasons that followed.
Campbell moved Ice Box to Indiana Stallion Station in mid-April of this year, and he said the response from breeders was immediate. In an abbreviated season, he's expected to cover 10 to 12 mares.
“We pretty much chalked up that moving him here in the middle of April was a wash,” Campbell said. “Surprisingly, within a week and a half of people finding out he was here, the phone started ringing. For coming in April, he's had really good support from Indiana, and probably is going to cover the same amount of mares that half the stallions in the state of Indiana cover, period, whether they've been here five years or six months.
“I see next year being much better for him in number of mares from the people that are reaching out already for next year's breeding season,” he continued. “Several people were upset that he came in so late, because they'd contracted their mares to somebody else, they would have bred to him to this year.”
The spring move from Pennsylvania to Indiana also included Lentenor, continuing the close link between him, Campbell, and Ice Box. Lentenor retired to Calumet Farm in 2013, the year after Ice Box's lone season there, and he later stood at Indiana Stallion Station as Calumet property. Campbell got plenty of face time with Lentenor in Indiana, and he bought the stallion from Calumet in 2022 to stand in Pennsylvania.
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Horses that have been through the Triple Crown spectacle gain a degree of experience around crowds and media unlike anything most horses will see in their lifetimes. Though it's been 12 years since Ice Box competed on the racetrack, Campbell said he's still got the “big horse” routine down.
“When he got here, he stepped off the trailer, stopped, took a step, raised his head, looked around like 'I'm here,'” he said. “Never made a sound, and just walked himself in.
“I think all the good horses know they're special,” Campbell continued. “You can definitely tell the difference between a racehorse that was a big deal and the ones that weren't. You can tell it when you grab the lead. When you grab his lead, there's just class that comes through the lead. You know who you have. I've led tons of horses my entire life. There are very few where when you grab the shank, you know. He is something special.”
Ice Box resides at the end of the row in the Indiana Stallion Station barn, with a view of the indoor arena. He'll occasionally be joined in the rafters by P the peacock, belonging to farm owner Joyce Baker. The bird's high-pitched cry can echo from one stud barn to the other.
With the summer months making the evenings a cooler option, Campbell said Ice Box is on night turnout, which fits perfectly with his own schedule.
“I like it better for him at night, because I work a normal job, so I get to handle him,” he said. “He loves his bath. It's no different than any stallion that's in Kentucky. He gets groomed every day, he gets his bath every day, and he gets his turnout every day. It's not like Kentucky where you breed every day, but things are picking up.”
Introducing a stallion to a new regional market can be tricky if there's not a large offering of foals and runners already appearing nearby for breeders to get an impression of what he has to offer, but Campbell has ensured that potential customers have all the photos and videos they need to make the connection.
However, he said what makes Ice Box a contender in the Indiana stallion ranks are the things that don't show up on a camera.
“There have been a lot of mediocre-level mares bred to Ice Box throughout his career that have not produced anything until they got their Ice Box,” Campbell said. “Babies don't know where they're born. Whether they're born in Indiana, or Kentucky, or New York, he still has the ability to throw that big horse. Over the years, when we first started in Indiana, the mare quality was really, really poor. It's a totally different game in Indiana now. We have mares that come in that made half a million dollars, stakes-winning mares.”
Two Phil's, who scored his third career graded stakes win on Saturday with an overpowering 5 3/4-length victory in the Grade 3 Ohio Derby at JACK Thistledown, came out of the race with an injury to his right front ankle that likely will need surgery, Marcus Hersh reported on Sunday in Daily Racing Form.
The Kentucky Derby runner-up was bet down to 3-5 favoritism in the Ohio Derby and justified those odds, tracking the early speed under Gerardo Corrales, taking command into the stretch and drawing away from 7-5 second choice Bishops Bay. The latter was coming off a narrow defeat to Arcangelo in the G3 Peter Pan at Belmont Park, a result that looked even better after Arcangelo won the final leg of the Triple Crown, the G1 Belmont Stakes on June 10.
Two Phil's earned a 105 Beyer Speed Figure in the Ohio Derby, equalling the figure he received when second, beaten a length by Mage, in the G1 Kentucky Derby.
On Sunday morning, however, Rivelli told Daily Racing Form that a problem was detected in the Hard Spun 3-year-old colt's right front ankle. He was vanned the 325 miles from Thistledown to Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Ky., where he will be evaluated by Dr. Larry Bramlage.
“It probably puts him out for the rest of the year,” Rivelli was quoted as saying, though he admitted not knowing the extent of the injury.
Produced from the General Quarters mare, Mia Torri, Two Phil's was bred in Kentucky by Phillip Sagan and is owned by Sagan in partnership with Patricia's Hope LLC and Madaket Stables LLC. Mia Torri was a two-time stakes winner and second in a pair of G3 stakes.
Rivelli indicated to Daily Racing Form that there has been interest from stallion farms and that it is possible Two Phil's – whose earlier G3 victories included the Street Sense at Churchill Downs and Jeff Ruby Steaks at Turfway Park – may not race again.
“He doesn't owe us anything,” Rivelli told Daily Racing Form. “In my experience, they aren't usually the same after something like this.”
Max Player, a Grade 1 winner who competed in all three legs of the out-of-order 2020 Triple Crown series has been retired from racing, with his future at stud to be determined.
The 6-year-old son of Honor Code finished his career with four wins in 16 starts, earning $1,551,266 for Annestes Racing and majority owner George Hall, who confirmed the horse's retirement to the Paulick Report on Friday.
“He gave us a very exciting 3-year-old campaign, being in all the Triple Crown races, as well as being third in the Belmont and the Travers, so we're really proud of him for his 3-year-old career,” Hall said. “He had a very good 4-year-old season, winning the Suburban and the Jockey Club Gold Cup, and we were very proud of him.
“We ran him a few times as a 5-year-old and it didn't work out for him, so we've retired him, but I still have a lot of faith in the horse, a lot of faith in his physical attributes and capability, and we're going to now try to generate some interest in him as a sire,” he continued.
Bred in Kentucky by K & G Stables, out of the stakes-winning Not For Love mare Fools in Love, Max Player began his on-track career with trainer Linda Rice, for whom he broke his maiden at Parx Racing in his second career start as a 2-year-old. He then established himself as a contender on the Kentucky Derby trail with a 3 1/4-length score in the Grade 3 Withers Stakes.
Max Player's Withers score came just weeks before the racing calendar was turned upside down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and his next start came in the Belmont Stakes, which was rescheduled and shortened to 1 1/8 miles. He finished third to Tiz the Law in the Belmont, and he finished third again to the same horse in the G1 Travers Stakes at Saratoga Race Course.
The colt was moved to trainer Steve Asmussen ahead of his start in the Kentucky Derby, rescheduled to September, where he finished fifth. He finished fifth again in the Preakness Stakes, held in October.
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After a winter sojourn overseas to contest the G1 Saudi Cup in his 4-year-old bow, Max Player got back on the winning track in the summer, catching Dubai World Cup winner Mystic Guide by a neck in the G2 Suburban Stakes at Belmont Park. He followed up with a dominant four-length triumph in the G1 Jockey Club Gold Cup Stakes in Saratoga.
“The race that really got me excited was the Suburban,” Hall said. “He had a few less-than-stellar races, and then he came into the Suburban and that led him to the Jockey Club Gold Cup and he won that to show the Suburban wasn't a fluke. Those two races were probably the most memorable for me.”
After a seven-month layoff, Max Player made his lone start of 2023 on Feb. 25 in an Oaklawn Park allowance optional claiming race, where he lost action and was vanned off in what would be his final race.
The horse was sent to Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Ky., after the race, where he was treated for an infection. He then spent time at Spy Coast Farm in Lexington for rehabilitation, and Hall said Max Player has since made a full recovery.
In the weeks to come, Max Player will ship to one of Hall's farms in Kentucky or New Jersey, both called Annestes Farm, while long-term plans are made for his stud career.
“I have a little time,” Hall said. “I think we'll probably sponsor it, our group and myself, whether we do it at my farm in Kentucky or whether we get an offer from another stud farm is still up in the air, but if we don't get a good offer from somebody else, I'll just effectively do it with my partners. We're excited about the prospects, and we'll spend the next few months trying to get organized and finalize the road map.”
