Mating Plans, Presented by Spendthrift: Nicoma Bloodstock

Headley Bell has run Nicoma Bloodstock for 40 years, planning matings for clients at his Mill Ridge Farm and beyond. “It's like being an artist,” says Bell. “You're crafting, and planning matings is part of that whole creation.” Bell said he uses various tools for his matings, including TDN's statistics on percentages of black type to foals, mare produce records, five-cross pedigrees, and examines patterns of broodmare sires with certain families. Finally, he takes physical traits of mares into consideration to determine, he said, “who that mare really is.” He does the same with sires. Bell then grades his clients' mares into A,B, and C categories, values them, and tries to find a stud fee of around one-fifth the value of the mare.
He shared matings with six Nicoma clients in a conversation with the TDN, which we share here.

JAMM LIMITED
This is the Tolie Otto family, and we raced Keeper Hill together. Sadly, Tolie died this year, but her daughter Audie has been running it for several years now, and they have four mares with us.

Justaroundmidnight (Ire), 17, Danehill Dancer (Ire)—Strategy (GB), by Machiavellian. To be bred to Up To The Mark.This is a mare that we bought back in 2012, and we bred Duopoly from her, who was a Group 1 winner by Animal Kingdom. She had a lovely Omaha Beach yearling that we sold this year, and she's currently not in foal, but we've chosen Up to the Mark with this mare. I didn't know the horse until the end of the year like most people probably because that's when he really did his thing, but he really was brilliant. And I believe Not This Time and Liam's Map are going to have a lot of influence, and this is a good son of Not This Time. And obviously, he ran on the grass, and it's a good pedigree blend that blends well with this mare, a first-year stallion. She's a commercial breeder, this is a Group 1-producing mare and it's a good value point.

Smart Shopping, 10, Smart Strike—Shop Again, by Wild Again. To be bred to Life Is Good.
We bought her dam, Shop Again, some years ago, and she was a foundation mare for the Ottos. And this is her 2013 daughter by Smart Strike that Ms. Otto raced, who was trained by Brendan Walsh. She showed form and we thought she was an Oaks filly, but she ended up injuring herself. Her first two foals are stakes-caliber, and show some quality. This is a foundation-replacing mare for Audie, and she's currently in foal to Life is Good. Life is Good and Flightline are the best two horses I've seen for a long time.

She's in foal to Life is Good and we're going to repeat the mating, not just because it's Life is Good, but, it blends very well with this particular mare and we pick up a lot of features that we like in that combined pedigree blend. And that's really all you can do, is try to put enough good ingredients into the stew and get lucky. Because the reality is that you don't look like your brother or your sister, and the idea to think that you can replicate something is not realistic. So you try to put as many things as you can into the stew, and that's what Life is Good, for me, does. So we're sending her foundation mare back to Life is Good.

NANCY DILLMAN
Nancy Dillman is a dear friend a client for 40 years. She bred Diminuendo from the first crop of Diesis (GB), and we bred Havre de Grace together.

Mademoiselle Coco, 11, Medaglia d'Oro—Easter Brunette, by Carson City. To bred to Cody's Wish.

She's a half-sister to Havre de Grace, and this family has always bred a little small, and so we want to try to put a little size into her, if we can. She's currently in foal to Essential Quality and has an Essential Quality '23 foal as well. We had obviously great luck with Havre de Grace and Nancy likes first-year stallions whenever possible. She's a commercial breeder, and so we're breeding her back to Cody's Wish. Again, it's a pedigree blend with Medaglia d'Oro and the Mr. Prospector line works well with other things within that family, and Cody's Wish is a brilliant horse.

Seastone, 7, Cairo Prince—Church By The Sea, by Harlan's Holiday. To be bred to Epicenter.
She's a half-sister to Significant Form. She has a Maxfield 2023 foal and is in foal to Epicenter, who is a son of Not This Time. We like that blend. And so we're going to go back to Epicenter with Seastone.

JERRY AND JOHN AMERMAN
The Amermans breed to race, one of those rare items today. And they've really built their entire program, of which there are about 10 mares now, off of two foundation mares–a mare called Miss Chapin, who's a very good producing mare, and then Devine Actress, who's the Dam of Oscar Performance and Oscar Nominated, among others.

Dream Fuhrever, 14, Langfuhr—Society Dream (Fr), by Akarad (Fr). To be bred to Oscar Performance.
One of the mares that I'm suggesting for Oscar Performance is the dam of Endlessly (Oscar Performance), who is a granddaughter of Miss Chapin. She's by Langfuhr, so the Northern Dancer line. Endlessly was the top two-year-old by Oscar Performance who was three-for-three before running in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf and ended up being beaten three lengths there after going off as one of the favorites in that race. But breeding back Dream Fuhrever to Oscar Performance is a natural thing to do. You had to get lucky the first time, and we did.

Catch the Eye, 8, Quality Road—Turns My Head (Ire), by Montjeu. To be bred to Oscar Performance.
Another is a 2016 Quality Road mare by the name of Catch the Eye, who's from a European family, a Montjeu mare from the family of Egyptian Queen.  She has a '23 Caravaggio foal and is in foal to Oscar Performance. Quality Road has done well with Oscar Performance, it seems, and so we're breeding her back to Oscar Performance.

CLOVER HILL FARM
Sadly, we lost Lynn Schiff whom I'd been working with for 15 years or so, and her daughter, Maggie Gieseke, now runs the operation. Mom (Alice Chandler) was a magnet for women because she was such a strong woman herself, and so a lot of our clients are women, which is fantastic. Clover Hill bred the Breeders' Cup winner Ria Antonia and has about five mares. They're commercial breeders. And a few years ago, while Lynn was still with us in 2017, we bought three mares, and two of which have really worked out very well.

Wild Silk, 11, Street Sense—Spun Silk, by A.P. Indy. To be bred to Cody's Wish.
One of those three mares is Wild Silk. We paid $70,000 for her, and she is the dam of Red Carpet Ready, by Oscar Performance, who has earned nearly $600,000. She is a daughter of Street Sense, but also has a blend of Wild Again in the family and she provided a Hyperion-line blend of pedigree that crosses so beautifully with Oscar Performance and really crosses beautifully with Kitten's Joy through Lear Fan. We've gone back to Oscar Performance a couple of times. She is in foal to Liam's Map now, and Not This Time and Liam's Map are very strong sources that I'm using quite a bit. They're going to go to Cody's Wish with this mare. She can use some size and blend-wise, we're happy with that.

Maya Princess, 11, Street Sense—Hartfelt, by Kafwain. To be bred to Jack Christopher.
Here is another daughter of Street Sense and we bought her in foal to Ghostzapper in 2017. We were very fortunate that she produced a beautiful Ghostzapper that Phil Bauer and Richard Rigney bought and named Mariah's Princess, who earned $250,000 as her first foal. She has an Essential Quality filly foal and is in foal to Charlatan and is going to Jack Christopher. They are commercial breeders. Charlatan was a brilliant horse, and again, provides a pedigree blend, and Jack Christopher also is a brilliant horse. And we would just as soon not be in a sire's first book. I said that Nancy Dillman wants to be in the first year, but I don't mind being in another year, because if you believe in the horse, it's worth the gamble, really, because you're not up there against 200 other foals.

FRANK GARRISON
Frank Garrison is an old college friend who owns a couple of mares together with us, and is godfather to Price. These are ones we share.

Humor Me Dixie, 6, Distorted Humor—Dixie City, by Dixie Union. To be bred to Oscar Performance.
Humor Me Dixie is a mare that we bought in 2020 with an outstanding blend of family. Distorted Humor is a great broodmare sire with the El Prado/Medaglia d'Oro line in particular. She's in foal to Upstart, and we are going to breed her to Oscar Performance. The Hyperion line that you're picking up through Oscar Performance, I think will blend well and add some size to the mare.

Proximity Bias, 8, Flatter—Sidle, by Seeking the Gold. To be bred to Liam's Map.
We bought this mare in 2016 from a family I'm very fond of, the Stroll family, which I think is a very tough family. We bought her in foal to Practical Joke in '20 and sold that Practical Joke to Steve Asmussen, and he's made her a stakes winner of $150,000 for which we're most appreciative. And she has a '23 Oscar Performance and in foal to Oscar Performance and is going back to Liam's Map.

BYRON NIMOCKS
Byron Nimocks is from Rye, New York and is fairly new to the business. We share five mares together, and last year was the first time we bought any mares.

Patna, 5, Into Mischief—Barbadia, by Speightstown. To be bred to Blame.
Most importantly, she is from the Willstar family of Juddmonte's, which is one of their foundation families. And it has Nureyev in it, and I can't get enough of Nureyev. Theatrical is by Nureyev, which is Oscar Performance's broodmare sire. She was a maiden at the time we bought her, and we bred her to Twirling Candy. We're going to go to Blame this year. Chris McGrath described Blame so well in his Value Sires, and we believe he is a value sire also, and we're going to go to Blame and see if we can breed a race horse.

Tea Olive, 5, First Samurai—Conquest Superstar, by Super Saver. To be bred to Aloha West.
We bought this mare last year as a maiden. Gatewood (Bell) had bought her as a yearling. Gatewood's a second cousin and worked with me at Nicoma for a while. It was in the slop at Keeneland, but she beat Gunite in her first start, which I thought was pretty impressive. She earned about a $100,000. We had bred her to Speaker's Corner. Unfortunately, she aborted. And we're going to come back to Aloha West. For us, we believe that Aloha West resembles his broodmare sire, Speightstown, more than his sire Hard Spun. He gives you a great pedigree blend with the Hard Spun–some Danzig, some Gone West, and some A. P. Indy. He was a very fast horse, obviously. He won the Breeders' Cup Sprint. And we're excited about his future and we're going to send what we believe is an exciting mare to him in Tea Olive.

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Taking Stock: Dr. Settle’s Dream is a Winner

Was it divine intervention?

As the story goes, sometime in late 1923 or early 1924, a Kentucky pastor, Rev. Dr. Thomas Settle, convinced some state legislators in Frankfort not to end legalized gambling in Kentucky by repealing parimutuel wagering, much to the relief of the Kentucky Jockey Club and other concerned horsemen. Most ministers may have taken the opposite tack at the time, but not Dr. Settle, and this made him stand out. A well-travelled Englishman who'd found his way to a small congregation on Main St. and Bell Ct. in Lexington, Dr. Settle had loved horses from youth and worked at a track early in life, and he also had personal and practical experience with gambling (which he regretted). He argued that repealing the law that made wagering at the track legal would lead to the proliferation of unregulated and illegal gambling with bookmakers, which he considered a greater evil.

Apparently his Oscar-like performance swayed enough lawmakers to put the brakes on the Bennett Bill. Dr. Settle's delivery was compelling without being over the top, and it was characterized with such words as “voiced,” “spoken,” “tell it,” “preach,” and “narrate.” For his efforts, grateful horsemen in the state and from across the country who'd heard of his defense raised money to build him a new church in Lexington, and inscribed on a plaque within its tower walls is this poignant acknowledgement: “To the Glory of God This Church Is Given to Him by the Lovers of the Horse From All Over the Country As A Token of Appreciation of Their Father's Goodness to His Children – Man.” It's dated 1926.

Religion, politics, and money have long been historically intertwined in horse racing in Kentucky, and what's actually known nowadays as Historical Horse Racing (HHR), Kentucky's equivalent to the slots that has propped up racing and breeding in other states, is very much a part of the present landscape in a state that's the center of the breeding industry in the U.S. HHR games have fueled purse monies in Kentucky to such an extent that the recent Kentucky Downs meet, for example, featured $150,000 maiden races, $500,000 Listed races, and several $1 million Grade ll and Grade lll events. HHR, to understate it, has been a boon to Kentucky horsemen, but horsemen take nothing for granted now. They know winds can change path in a heartbeat, and they have organized groups like the Kentucky Equine Education Project (KEEP) to advocate for Kentucky's most famous industry. Several of the movers and shakers behind the scenes are the younger generation like Case Clay of Three Chimneys, the chairman of KEEP, and Price Bell of Mill Ridge, a board member.

Kentucky, let's face it, is a socially conservative state, and despite its starring role in the racing/breeding industry as the home of the Gl Kentucky Derby–the most famous race in the country–and of such outstanding stallions, among others, as Gainesway's Tapit, sire of the undefeated Flightline, widely considered the best horse in training on the planet at the moment; Spendthrift's Into Mischief, sire of Flightline's chief challenger, Life Is Good; and Three Chimneys's Gun Runner, who is represented so far by a jaw-dropping six Grade l winners from his first crop of 3-year-olds, including two Grade l winners and five overall stakes winners Saturday, there's still plenty of opposition to HHR from those who view it as nothing more than a game of chance that's a contributor to moral and societal decay.

This friction between anti-and pro-gambling forces in Kentucky has existed for more than a hundred years, and horsemen have walked a tightrope protecting their interests for just as long. They're just better organized now than during the time of Dr. Settle, but, ironically, a parimutuel issue was once again at the center of the most recent storm that could have had dire ramifications. In February of 2021, HHR, which has been around for a decade, had to be legally written into law as a parimutuel game by Kentucky legislators after the Kentucky Supreme Court said parts of it were not and were therefore potentially illegal. After heated debate, both the House and the Senate passed legislation that included HHR within the definition of parimutuel betting, and it was signed into law by Gov. Andy Beshear on Feb. 22, 2021.

But Case Clay said it “came down to the wire,” and the final score–the votes to pass in both chambers were comfortable enough on the surface–didn't represent the closeness of the game.

“The HHR vote underlined the relevance of KEEP,” said Clay. “Relationship building with legislators is an important function of KEEP, and it's something we work on to advocate for the industry.”

Headley Bell, managing partner at Mill Ridge and Price Bell's father, understands relationship building. Mill Ridge threw a party on the Thursday evening after the first four days of selling at Keeneland, and guests included members of the Lexington community outside racing circles, as well as those within it. Linda Gorton, the mayor of Lexington, and Steve Kay, the vice-mayor, were also present, as were representatives of Horse Country Inc., a group of farms and businesses that provides educational tours “dedicated to sharing the stories of Kentucky's Horse Country.” Mill Ridge, with its storied history, is one of many destinations.

Dr. Settle's Dream

Oscar Performance (Kitten's Joy) stands at Mill Ridge and occupies the same one-stall stallion barn that once housed the excellent sire Diesis (GB) years ago. Oscar got his 10th first-crop winner Friday when first-time starter Dr. Settle's Dream won a New York-bred maiden special on turf at Belmont-at-Aqueduct for Byron Nimocks's Circle N Thoroughbreds. The win was particularly satisfying for Headley Bell, not only as another winner for the farm's sire, but also because he'd bought the colt for new friend and client Nimocks at OBS June for $30,000 through his Nicoma agency. And how about this? Bell is a longtime member of the Good Shepherd Episcopal Church on Main St. and Bell Ct. that Dr. Settle built, and Bell said that Nimocks's family “is very involved with the church” as well, hence the name of the colt.

Dr. Settle's Dream was bred by Scott Pierce in New York. His first two dams, Voiced, by War Front, and Spoken, by Unbridled's Song, respectively, haven't yet produced any stakes horses, but his Storm Cat third dam Tell It has a stakes winner to her credit, and his fourth dam is Preach, a Grade I winner by Mr. Prospector and the dam of the highly influential stallion Pulpit. The fifth dam is the Honest Pleasure mare Narrate. Not only that, the colt's first seven dams were bred by the Hancocks of Claiborne (the dam was bred by Claiborne in partnership with Adele B. Dilschneider), and Dr. Settle's Dream's seventh dam is Monarchy, a full-sister to Round Table. Bell was no doubt attracted to this long and deep line of Hancock mares, and perhaps their names elicited a smile when he'd zeroed in on the colt.

The gregarious Price Bell is general manager at Mill Ridge and runs the farm's day-to-day operations. I ran into him outside the Mill Ridge consignment on the Sunday before the Keeneland sale began, and we had a conversation about Mill Ridge's past. He reminded me that it was Bull Hancock who'd purchased Sir Ivor for Raymond Guest at the 1966 Keeneland summer sale, paying $42,000 for the future English Derby winner and European champion that Alice Chandler (as Mrs. Reynolds W. Bell), Headley's mother, had bred. Hal Price Headley, Alice Chandler's father, was one of the founders of Keeneland, and Bull Hancock's father, A. B. Hancock Sr., was one of its first trustees.

One thing led to another as we were discussing history and the relationships between the two families, and Price said he had an interesting article for me to read. From his phone he sent it to me right there. It was copy from the Indianapolis Sunday Star from Jan. 16, 1927, and it was about Rev. Dr. Thomas Settle and the church that he built after defending parimutuel wagering in Frankfort. Later that week when I spoke with  Headley and Price Bell at the Mill Ridge party, they convinced me to visit Dr. Settle's church the next day–on Friday, the dark day of selling. This was one week before the horse named after Dr. Settle won in New York.

The Church

Dr. Settle's dream was to build a magnificent church in the English Gothic style, and he realized that dream through the largesse of horsemen, who'd originally offered the minister $50,000 to put toward a house and car after his performance in Frankfort. As the story goes, Dr. Settle demurred and instead asked for donations to build a church for his community, and industry members from Kentucky and across the country responded heartily. One report states that the Thoroughbred Horse Association–Hal Price Headley was the organization's first president–alone raised more than $180,000. A.B. Hancock, Sr. was a big contributor, as were Col. E.R. Bradley of Idle Hour, J.E. Widener of Elmendorf, H.P. Whitney, Max Hirsch, and Charles Berryman (manager of Elmendorf), among many others.

Dr. Settle's attention to detail is evident in the structure as it stands today. The stained glass windows, for instance, are intricate, ornate, and expensive, and the museum-grade wood carvings are from Oberammergau, Germany, which is noted for its highly skilled craftsmen. (The well-known Oberammergau Passion Play's star at the time was the potter Anton Lang, who played Christ in the 1922 production. Lang toured the U.S. in 1923–he was on the cover of Time magazine that year–and brought with him craftsmen from Oberammergau who exhibited their carvings. It's highly likely that Dr. Settle saw or read about this and commissioned expensive works for Good Shepherd subsequently.)

There's a cautionary aspect to the Dr. Settle story, too. In his quest to realize his dream, Dr. Settle spent more than he had, and by the time he left Good Shepherd in 1929, he left the church so heavily in debt that it took years for the congregation to get clear.

But his dream survives as a magnificent house of worship for newer generations of Lexingtonians, and that's what matters.

It matters, too, that horsemen played a role in realizing Dr. Settle's dream.

Sid Fernando is president and CEO of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc., originator of the Werk Nick Rating and eNicks.

The post Taking Stock: Dr. Settle’s Dream is a Winner appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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