Shawhan Place Riding High After Memorable Weekend

What started out as a normal, busy Saturday in February at Shawhan Place quickly turned into an unforgettable day for the Paris-based farm when two horses foaled and raised at Shawhan celebrated breakout victories. First, fan favorite Senor Buscador (Mineshaft)–owned by Shawhan's longtime client Joey Peacock Jr.–won the $20 million G1 Saudi Cup. A few hours later Lemon Muffin (Collected) broke her maiden in the GIII Honeybee S.

The entire Shawhan crew was ecstatic, but two team members in particular were especially over the moon.

Let's start with Teddy Kuster, who co-founded Shawhan nearly 20 years ago. Lemon Muffin's win at Oaklawn was particularly memorable for the octogenarian as he co-bred the filly.

“When you've been in the horse business for as long as I have and you have two horses like that in one day, it's phenomenal,” Kuster enthused. “I mean, you don't do that as a small breeder. After Senor Buscador I said, 'Well this is good even if we just hit the board with the other one.' When Lemon Muffin came on at the end I was just flabbergasted. I was by myself hollering and having a good time.”

Sold by Shawhan Place as a yearling for $20,000 and pinhooked for $140,000, Lemon Muffin had been knocking on the door of getting that maiden win for some time. She ran second four times over the course of three months before earning 50 points on the road to the Kentucky Oaks with her three-and-a-half length Honeybee score for trainer D. Wayne Lukas and owner Aaron Sones.

Lemon Muffin breaks her maiden in the GIII Honeybee S. | Coady

“She would run second all the time, just keeping running second, but I said that Wayne Lukas will get her going somewhere and he did,” Kuster said proudly. “You break your maiden in a Grade III race, that doesn't happen very often.”

Lemon Muffin is a second-generation homebred for Kuster, who was KTFMC Farm Manager of the Year in 1986.

In 1990, Claiborne's farm manager Gus Koch–the father of Shawhan's co-founder Matt Koch–wrote Kuster a letter telling him about a well-bred, unraced filly that was going to go through the ring at the Keeneland January Sale. Kuster purchased that Claiborne homebred, Fee (Spectacular Bid), for just $9,500.

Fee was responsible for several stakes horses including MGSW High Stakes Player (High Brite). Kuster sold the majority of her offspring but retained the last filly she produced, Pelt (Canadian Frontier).

Now 18 years old, Pelt is responsible for five winners, with Lemon Muffin being her first stakes winner. The mare has a yearling filly by Complexity and is barren this year, but was just bred to Cairo Prince.

Lemon Muffin ranks near the top of the list of talented horses that Kuster has bred, but he is also the breeder of Hilda's Passion (Canadian Frontier), a Grade I winner and the dam of former WinStar sire Yoshida (Jpn).

Kuster sold Hilda's Passion as a yearling before she went on to become a five time graded stakes winner, including the 2011 GI Ballerina S., and then sell for $1.225 million to Katsumi Yoshida. Kuster figured he probably wouldn't have much connection to the mare again, but pretty soon her son Yoshida rose to the top of the game in the U.S. Kuster is now a strong supporter of Yoshida, who has his first 3-year-olds this year.

For Kuster, the results of this weekend were dimmed only by the absence of the person who has always watched races alongside him. Last June, his wife Betsy passed away at the age of 80.

“My wife and I were in this together and we always bred as Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Kuster,” he said. “She and I were very close and had been married over 55 years. She liked the horses and enjoyed going to the races. [This weekend] she would have been very excited and would have said, 'I told you so. It would happen. I told you so.' She was always my number one supporter.”

Asked about the possibility of seeing Lemon Muffin get to the Oaks, Kuster said, “I thinks she's got a good shot at getting there and if so, I'll be there.”

Senor Buscador and Rose's Desert | courtesy Shawhan Place

So what about the other star of the show for Shawhan Place, Senor Buscador?

Courtney Schneider, Shawhan's broodmare manager and director of sales, has long been regarded as president of the Senor Buscador fan club. Schneider foaled the son of Mineshaft, like she has for all but one of his siblings, and has tuned in to every one of his races over the past five years. The Saudi Cup victory was no exception.

“You go into weekends like that hoping for the best, but you don't expect to come out with wins like that,” Schneider said. “For myself personally, when Senor Buscador hit the wire I was in instant tears. He's very special. With Lemon Muffin as well, I foaled and raised her, so to have a weekend like that was just truly unbelievable.”

Senor Buscador has amassed seven wins from 18 career starts and boasts almost $12 million in earnings as he now points to the G1 Dubai World Cup.

Schneider said she's itching to book a plane ticket to Dubai for next month if foaling season will allow her to get away.

“I've traveled to follow him from very early on,” Schneider said. “I flew to New Orleans when he ran in the Risen Star. I was at Churchill when he won the GIII Ack Ack S. in 2022.  It's very special for me to have clients that will allow me to still be a part of everything and to follow these horses, because that's why I do it–for the love of the horse.”

Senor Buscador's dam Rose's Desert (Desert God) has been the broodmare of a lifetime for the Peacock family. A homebred for Joe Peacock Sr., Rose's Desert was a seven-time stakes winner in New Mexico, but her resume continued to expand every year of her breeding career as her first four foals all earned stakes victories.

The Peacock family has never sold one of her foals, although they did send her first foal Runaway Ghost (Ghostzapper) through the ring as a yearling only to snap him back up after he RNA'd and race him in their own silks.

The winner of the 2018 GIII Sunland Derby, Runaway Ghost was pointing for the GI Kentucky Derby until he suffered a fracture to his shin. The Peacock family had already traveled from their home state of Texas up to Kentucky, so when they no longer had a Derby contender to watch they stopped by the farm to visit their star mare. Rose's Desert was due to foal any day and she of course waited until the morning after they left, but in their family photo with the mare, she is carrying none other than Senor Buscador.

The Peacock and Rose's Desert, with Senor Buscador in utero | courtesy Shawhan Place

The mating proved to be a special one in more ways than one as it was the last of Rose's Desert's matings that Joey Peacock Jr. picked out with his father before his passing.

Schneider said this foal was a standout from the start.

“I found a text that I had sent to Joey when he was just a few weeks old saying, 'Oh my gosh, he's out here running laps around everybody else in the field.' For him to run laps around everybody else in a $20 million race is just mind blowing now. But he was always one that was forward and he was a little bit of a different model from her typical foals. He had a little bit more leg, a little bit leaner, a little more athletic than the rest of them.”

But all of Rose's Desert's foals have proven their talent on the racetrack. After her four straight stakes winners, the mare was barren for two years. Her 3-year-old of this year, Aye Candy (Candy Ride {Arg}), won on debut on Nov. 28 at Zia Park and that filly's 2-year-old half-sister Rose A (Hard Spun) recently joined the Todd Fincher barn.

Rose's Desert has a yearling colt by Authentic called The Hell We Did (named after how when Joe Peacock Sr. heard what the family had named Senor Buscador, he exclaimed, 'The hell we did!'). She is currently in foal to Into Mischief and will be bred back to Uncle Mo.

“I think she gets knocked a little bit being a New Mexico-bred, but if you go and look at her pedigree, it's deep with Fappiano and all these really good racehorses,” Schneider explained. “Her foals all normally come in plain brown wrappers. I wouldn't say necessarily right off the bat that they would win any beauty contests, but they're big, strong individuals and they've proven that they run.”

Rose's Desert's legacy now continues as her oldest daughter Our Iris Rose (Ghostzapper), a dual stakes winner for the Peacock family, is now a producer. She recently had her first foal, a colt by Curlin.

“I'm very exciting for what the family has coming,” Schneider said. “Rose's Desert has been such a special mare for the Peacocks. It's great because we've had the entire family. To have a client like that who keeps the family here and keeps us involved is incredibly special. It says a lot about their trust in us that they've had this much success and they've stuck with us just as they've stuck with Todd Fincher. I think that speaks volumes to the character they have.”

For a farm with less than a dozen employees that will foal around 50 mares this year, these resent results are significant. Schneider admitted that they aren't quite used to the limelight.

“It's exciting though, because everybody here has worked so hard for so many years,” she explained. “Not that we necessarily didn't get the recognition we deserved before, but just to see this come through, it's a little bittersweet but just very humbling as well. We do this because we love the horses. We all work hard and it's nice to see all that pay off.”

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First-Crop Yearling Previews: Yoshida

The ever-growing depth and caliber of the Japanese breeding and racing industry was on full display at last year's Breeders' Cup World Championships when Japan captured its first two Breeders' Cup victories in a span of just a few hours.

One year before future champions Loves Only You (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) and Marche Lorraine (Jpn) (Orfevre {Jpn}) were both foaled, WinStar Farm's Elliott Walden and SF Bloodstock's Tom Ryan attended the 2015 Japan Racing Horse Association's yearling and weanling sale. They came home with a group that included Yoshida (Jpn) (Heart's Cry {Jpn} – Hilda's Passion, by Canadian Frontier)–a ¥94 million (approximately $850,000) yearling purchase, eventual multiple Grade I-winning 'TDN Rising Star', and now, a WinStar Farm sire with his first crop of yearlings pointing for the sales ring.

Bred by Katsumi Yoshida's Northern Farm, the grandson of the Japanese breed-shaping sire Sunday Silence is the second foal out of Hilda's Passion, a multiple graded stakes winner who culminated her career with a victory in the 2011 GI Ballerina S. and then sold to Katsumi Yoshida for $1.225 million at the Fasig-Tipton November Sale.

“Yoshida is very prototypical of the Japanese breeding program,” said WinStar's Liam O'Rourke. “He's out of an elite American race mare and he is by a son of Sunday Silence. We've seen it come to fruition in recent times that in the Japanese program, they breed for class and versatility. Those are two of the big qualities that Yoshida represents.”

Campaigned by WinStar Farm, China Horse Club and Head of Plains Partners, Yoshida raced from age two through five under Bill Mott's tutelage, claiming four stakes wins headlined by the GI Old Forester Turf Classic S. on turf and the GI Woodward S. on dirt.

Debuting in his career at stud with a fee of $20,000 in 2020, the durable earner of $2.5 million bred 148 mares in his first year at WinStar. With a $15,000 stud fee, he saw another 84 mares last year.

“His first book was ranked third by CPI among [incoming] sires that year,” O'Rourke noted. “We're very proud of the types of mares that he has gotten. He's been supported by a variety of breeders, both commercial and racing types.”

As Yoshida's yearlings now work through their sales prep, O'Rourke said that he has heard optimistic reviews from breeders.

“They have a lot of his physical qualities,” he reported. “They have that class and strength. In watching them as foals early on out in the field, you could see that they were high energy. They were assertive types, kind of rambunctious, and were really aware of their surroundings. The one really common piece of feedback that I get as I've been visiting farms is that you can't give them enough work. That's a great quality when they have the desire to work and to be competitive.”

O'Rourke said that Yoshida's ability on multiple surfaces, along with Japan's growing success on a global scale, has retained breeders' interest throughout the stallion's first three years at stud.

“It's unique that he was so successful on dirt and turf,” he said. “I think he brings a different dimension to the stud barn that we're very proud to offer breeders. He was a very convincing winner of the Woodward, which is a great sire-producing race. In the Old Forester Turf Classic on Derby Day, [he beat] a great field. I think there was eight graded stakes winners in that field. He also beat Horse of the Year Bricks and Mortar in the GIII Hill Prince S.”

Last year, Yoshida was represented by 36 weanlings and short yearlings at the fall and winter breeding stock sales. 23 youngsters sold to average $38,279. His colt out of GIIISW Catherinethegreat (Uncaptured) sold for $150,000 at the Keeneland November Sale while in Japan, a colt out of Curlins BFF (Curlin) brought $181,235.

Yoshida has seven yearlings cataloged for the upcoming Fasig-Tipton July Sale on July 12, including a colt out of Moon and Stars (Orb) that sells as Hip 19 with the Shawhan Place consignment.

“He's very strong with tons of bone, good hip and a strong shoulder,” said Shawhan Place's Director of Sales Courtney Schneider. “He's built like a bull; he's just so strong. He's very easy to work with and he's a little bit more forward than our others so that's why we wanted to showcase him a bit earlier in the July Sale.”

Shawhan Place has a special connection with Yoshida as the birthplace of his dam. Bred by Shawhan partner Ted Kuster, Hilda's Passion did not meet her reserve as a weanling, but was sold early in her racing career and went on to claim five graded stakes for Starlight Racing.

“Yoshida was a stallion we were really excited to support here on the farm,” Schneider said. “He was a dual-surface Grade I winner and has all the qualifications of bringing back the Sunday Silence line. We have several on the farm that we're really excited about.”

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KTFMC Meeting: Labor Crisis in the Thoroughbred Industry

LEXINGTON, KY-The ongoing labor crisis in the Thoroughbred industry was the focal point of discussion at the Kentucky Thoroughbred Farm Managers' Club's monthly meeting, which was held on Tuesday and brought in a large audience for a discussion on the talk.

A panel of five industry participants and educators was on hand to give their perspective on the history of the issue and how the situation has worsened over time. They also spoke on projects currently in the works that have potential to bring in skilled labor and shared their thoughts on the best methods for effectively recruiting a new generation of workers.

“We had a board meeting and discussed what would be relevant for this meeting and this is a topic that pertains to every farm right now,” KTFMC President Courtney Schneider said. “You hope that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, but it's an issue that needs to be addressed and we need to be educated about what we can do to bring in new people and keep them in the industry.”

“Our goal for the club is to refocus on issues that are important for farm managers–be it health and disease, operational issues or the bigger challenge of labor,” KTFMC Treasurer Gerry Duffy said. “It's an issue affecting every farm and everyone you talk to. Some people are in a desperate situation. Not only are you changing how you do things due to the absence of help, but it's putting an extra burden on the people you do have. It's not sustainable and we need to really get in front of the issue to try and solve it.”

Fasig-Tipton

Chris Baker was the first member of the panel to speak. The Chief Operating Officer of Three Chimneys Farm briefed the audience on the state of the issue when he first joined the industry through an entry-level position as a groom in 1986.

“It was a different time with 50,000 foals on the ground, the market was strong and input and labor costs were relatively low,” he said. “But even at that time, when labor was more abundant than it is today, I can still remember lamenting about finding the next group of people coming up to do this. The problem of identifying, recruiting and retaining a workforce isn't a new one, but it was less of an issue then.”

According to Baker, the connection with the horse–or lack thereof–is a main cause for today's limited employee pool and poor job retention.

“Finding help seemed easier [in 1986] and I think some of that was because we were less removed from an agrarian society. When you look now at the composition of the workforce, with a lot of Latinos, many of the people who have immigrated here are less removed from or are coming from an agrarian society. I think that's a big part of it–the connection with the horse. Without that, it can be hard to make sense of what you have to do and the sacrifices that need to be made in order to have a career in this industry.”

Baker emphasized that in order to recruit a strong, skilled workforce, finding the right person to fit the job is crucial.

“If you're going to come to work in the Thoroughbred industry, you probably have a different realistic financial ceiling than if you were going into medicine or finance,” he explained. “So why do you come to the horse business? It all comes back to the horse. I think if we can put the horse first in all we do, make people aware and make that focus on the horse as part of your recruiting, you're going to get the kind of people you want who are doing it for the right reasons.”

He continued, “We need to focus on a fair wage, a good work environment where people and horses are treated with respect, because that's part of making people feel like they're a part of something special, and then we need to train, develop and encourage so there is infrastructure in place for people to grow.”

Frank Taylor, Vice President of Taylor Made Farm, also shared his experiences as an employer. Taylor Made has several programs that Taylor said have been key to keeping their operation fully staffed.

This year, Taylor Made has started a pilot program called the Taylor Made School of Horsemanship. Created in partnership with Shepherd's House, a transitional residential drug addiction treatment center in Lexington, the program set a goal to bring in five trainees every 90 days. The workers spend their days on the farm and then return to the Shepherd's House every evening, where in addition to food and housing, they are also provided with counseling services.

“We have one barn set up where they are all working together and we also have a director there, someone who is good at teaching,” Taylor said. “I think it could be huge in the future. It's such a win for everybody. Obviously it's a win for society, it's a win for the horse business and a win for Taylor Made, and if we can give these people second-chance employment and help them get on their feet, I think we can do a lot of great stuff.”

While the project is still in the beginning stages, Taylor said he envisions future expansion.

“When you give these people a second chance and they are fully recovered, they become an example for everybody else,” he said. “For people dealing with addiction, one of the things that keeps them going is helping other people. So our hope is that we grow this and help a lot of people, who in turn help a lot of other people. We want to take this, get it perfected and show it to other farms. This has a lot of potential and we could envision 50 to 60 people a year graduating from this program and going out into the industry.”

Taylor said that his farm has also been a part of the H-2A Temporary Agricultural Workers program for four years.

“This program has been a godsend,” he said. “The thing about these guys is they're coming in and they're grateful and they love what they're doing. They can do two times as much work as the average person, maybe three.”

The Kentucky Equine Education Project (KEEP) Foundation and the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Workforce Center has joined forces to launch the Equine Workforce Initiative in an effort to address the shortage of equine workers on a state level. Laurie Mays, another member of the panel, serves as the initiative's Equine Talent Pipeline Project Manager.

“We are in year three of this initiative,” she said. “We bring employers together and give them a safe space to discuss their struggles in terms of workforce development. We look at things like what skills go along with specific positions and how many people an employer might need in these positions.”

One problem her team has encountered, Mays said, is that accurate research on employment in the equine industry is difficult to pinpoint quantitatively due to the broad scope of data the state agency has to offer on employment in agriculture as a whole.

“One of the things we're doing is trying to get hard data for the needs of the industry,” Mays said. “This information and data can feed into our state's statistical agency so we can have a better idea of what our true needs are. This gives us a better way to talk to training programs when we can show them the actual number of positions we need to fill.”

The program at Blackburn Correctional Complex currently has seven graduates working in the industry. | EquiSport Photos

The Equine Workforce Initiative is in the process of developing several other programs that could prove to be valuable resources for employers. In partnership with the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation and the Blackburn Correctional Complex in Lexington, Mays and her team are working to create meaningful connections between inmates who have undergone training on the farm and potential employers so that graduates of the program have a job as soon as the time comes.

“As of yesterday, we've placed seven people in Lexington at farms and vet clinics and it's going very well,” May reported. “We've heard great feedback from the employers who have hired them. We're going to look at doing an educational tour for employers to meet the instructors and the gentlemen, see the facility and learn more about what they learn.”

Savannah Robin serves as the internship coordinator for the University of Kentucky's Equine Program. She joined the panel to speak on the growing population of higher-education graduates seeking a career in the equine industry.

Robin shared that seven institutions in Kentucky offer an equine program. At the University of Kentucky, 300 students are in the program at any given time and on average, 89% come from out of state.Each student is required to complete an internship in order to obtain their degree at UK, and Robin said that on average, 21% of these internships focus on horse and farm management. However, only 9% of the UK Equine Program's alumni base currently works in that same field.

“We need to figure out how to tap into that 21% and help retain them within an industry than can provide them with leadership experiences,” Robin said.

Katie LaMonica, the Charities Manager for Godolphin, closed out the panel by reminding the audience about the upcoming Thoroughbred Industry Employee Awards.

“We are heading into the sixth year of the TIEA Awards,” she said. “If we're looking for ways to reward and recognize our staff, this is a great way to do it. This year, all seven award categories have a sponsor. Our nominations are now open and we also have a new award. The Support Service Award is for your maintenance crew, gate grew, night watch team, farriers-people who don't necessarily work on the end of the shank, but they keep you going.”

The audience present at the meeting consisted of a diverse group of both well-established and up-and-coming industry participants, with UK Equine students and Kentucky Equine Management Internship (KEMI) members on hand. During the 'Q and A' session at the end of the meeting, much discussion was brought forth on the topic of work-life balance and the incoming generation's emphasis on the subject.

“Millennials and Gen Zers get beat up sometimes in terms of their work ethic, but the values of their generation won't disappoint you in what they can bring to the workforce,” Robin said. “These students need different things. They need different things than what I needed when I graduated. They're looking at work-life balance early on so that they don't burn out and can go on a long time within a career and be sustainable within that career.”

Baker and Taylor agreed that better working conditions and increased job flexibility are areas they could see evolving in the future, but said that participation in the Thoroughbred industry would always require hard work and sacrifice.

Baker said, “Do we need to adapt and provide opportunities to broaden the people that come to this business for a career? Yes. But on some level, I think the people that do the best, go the furthest and accomplish the most are those that embrace the lifestyle and the sacrifices that come with it in their personal life.”

“It is a lifestyle and it's not a job,” Taylor echoed. “If you're getting in the horse business and you want to be successful, it has to be a lifestyle. If you're going to get in this business, you better love it and be dedicated to it.”

“It's a matter of figuring out a way to make our industry available to the incoming generation who, quite rightly, doesn't want to work seven days a week,” Duffy said in conclusion. “We have competition from other industries who are paying more and making variable work times and conditions available to people, but behind that there's some great work going on here and some great initiatives. We have to keep the conversation going. We're here to get a discussion going and not necessarily present the answers, but just to get the industry talking and collaborating. As an industry, we need to come together and try to solve our issues together.”

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Case Clay, David Ingordo Added To Leadership Of Kentucky Equine Education Project

The Kentucky Equine Education Project (KEEP), Kentucky's equine economic advocate, announced the new leadership of KEEP's Board of Directors.

The Board of Directors unanimously approved the promotion of Case Clay to become the Board's Chairman. David Ingordo was unanimously approved to become the Board's Vice Chairman. Clay and Ingordo replace Doug Cauthen and Ken Jackson, who will both continue serving on the KEEP Board. Additionally, Courtney Schneider was added to the Board of Directors.

Clay is the Chief Commercial Officer of Three Chimneys Farm. Ingordo is the owner of Ingordo Bloodstock. Schneider is the Director of Sales at Shawhan Place and is the current President of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Farm Managers Club.

Elisabeth Jensen, KEEP's Executive Vice President who oversees the daily operations of the organization, commented, “I am thrilled to have Case and David taking on the leadership roles of the KEEP Board. Doug and Ken did an incredible job over the past three years, shepherding KEEP through an evolution that led to our investment in workforce development and our recent legislative successes in Frankfort. I know that Case and David will build on this success and take KEEP to even great heights.”

Clay added:: “I am very excited to continue working with the staff and the Board at KEEP and building on the momentum that we have at the moment as a result of tackling the challenges we recently faced with historical horse racing. I was encouraged to see the industry come together for the greater good in a short amount of time. I think we have opportunities ahead of us with regard to growing our relationships in Frankfort, as well as engaging and including all horse breeds and disciplines in the Commonwealth.”

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