Winner of the 2022 GI Preakness S. for Klaravich Stables and Chad Brown, Early Voting retired with three wins from six starts and earnings in excess of $1.3 million. Though he successfully stopped his mares and though his sperm were fertile, he was later found to be unable to continue his career and was subsequently diagnosed with Anejaculatory Syndrome, an inability to ejaculate.

According to a release, a member of the Early Voting management team was acquainted with the work of a New Zealand-based veterinarian and scientist named Dr. Padraig (Paddy) O'Casaigh, who had treated males of the rarest species of birds in New Zealand–the Kakapo–for precisely the same condition. O'Casaigh had developed his diagnostic and treatment protocols along with Professor Sir Graham ('Mont') Collingwood Liggins FRS, a pioneer in the research of human fetal development and birth. O'Casaigh and Liggins together formed the Mont Liggins Trust to further fertility research.

“Early Voting has a very rare condition that is difficult to diagnose and treat,” said Dr. O'Casaigh. “Because of the work of the Mont Liggins Trust with the Kakapo and Tuatara (a native New Zealand reptile that is the closest living relative to the dinosaur), we have developed a very unique diagnostic suite for this exact scenario. I feel very fortunate to be involved and have had the assistance of our many international colleagues. It is such a credit to all the interested parties who have gone literally to the end of the earth for Early Voting's welfare.”

Added Taylor Made's Duncan Taylor: “We were contacted by Dr. O'Caseigh to stand Early Voting and we are very happy to have the opportunity.”

This story will be updated

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When Saint Ballado came to the farm, Duncan Taylor recalls Les Brinsfield telling him to try Mari's Book mares.

“Mari's Book!” he exclaims now. “It's not like there were Mari's Book mares all around, out there in the population. But Les was a smart guy, very analytical.”

And it was easy to see the logic: Mari's Book was by Northern Dancer out of a Maribeau mare; and Maribeau, like Saint Ballado's sire Halo, was out of Cosmah–whose half-sister Natalma, of course, gave us the sire of Mari's Book. Plenty of genetic wheels within wheels there, then.

“So we bought this mare by Mari's Book, Goulash, [for Aaron Jones] and bred her to Saint Ballado four times,” Duncan resumes. “And we got like three stakes winners, one of them being Ashado. And it really made the stallion. But then Mr. McNair had a mare with very similar breeding, and I kept saying, 'You've got to breed her to Saint Ballado, got to!' So he did. And he got a swayback.” He chuckles. “Named it Duncan.”

Just one snapshot, this, of the breadth of experience that have given the Taylor brothers their plain-talking sense of how to make the best of a difficult game; and a wholesome, hard-headed scepticism about any theory or system purporting to make it easy.

And that, in turn, is why we've seized the pretext to visit two of them, Duncan and Mark, in a rather different capacity from the usual: to hear how the family ended up breeding an elite sprinter in Sibelius, winner of the G1 Golden Shaheen in Dubai.

Taylor Made is obviously far better known as the largest consignor in the business, and also for standing the likes of Not This Time, the sire of Sibelius. But anyone familiar with the energy and imagination they have always brought to their principal roles can only be curious to hear how they adapt their know-how to the kind of challenge that occupies the majority of their clients.

“Anytime you're big, you get exposed to more people, with more theories and more thoughts,” reasons Duncan, who formally handed over to Mark as President and CEO last year but remains a vital influence as Senior Consultant. “So you're able to soak those in, and get to talk about lots of different aspects. Where a guy that's out on his farm with his 15 broodmares, that's all he is focused on. He can read all the books, but–well, we're not even trying to hear stuff and we hear it.”

And that ties into a parallel conviction: that the best breeders, historically, have been able to weave many different strands of horsemanship together.

“I'm not knocking anyone else,” stresses Duncan. “But in my lifetime, just watching what's gone on, there's been two or three people that you just thought really knew what they were doing. John Nerud was one, Alec Head was another. There was a guy named Bob Bricken at Elmendorf that was a guru of breeding. And, like Tesio himself, what did they have in common? They basically had a 360-degree view of every horse. They knew how to train, knew how to raise horses. And they were around every single one, watching and looking and trying to figure out what worked best where.”

Mark Taylor | Keeneland

“Nobody is going to breed a terrible stall-walker to a terrible stall-walker,” agrees Mark. “Nerud, if he trained the sire and the dam, would know that this filly had a lot of talent but wasn't so good between the ears. So he'd need to give her something to balance that out. But a lot of these people doing matings on a computer, honestly they may never even have seen the mare or the stallion and they certainly have no idea about any of these other characteristics.”

And even when a Nerud or a Head noticed a recurring motif, they didn't make sweeping extrapolations.

“Say they see a Nodouble mare coming through this, this and this, and they could all run,” Duncan says. “Well, if I brought up a Nodouble mare that looked the exact opposite, they would know: 'Just because that S.O.B. is by Nodouble, it isn't the Nodouble that I want. I want one that looks like this one over here.'”

And seeing the bigger picture cuts through the whole program. “When you have control over the entire operation, you're not sending your horse to Trainer X,” Duncan says. “Because Trainer X is thinking, 'I could probably back off this horse and he would be okay later on, maybe win a stake or two. But he might be my only chance ever to win a Kentucky Derby. So I'm going to keep training hard on him.' And then he breaks down.

“Whereas if Nerud had him, he'd have said, 'Nope, we ain't running in the Derby. Back to the farm, and give him all he needs.' Because when that horse hits, it affects the value of eight others in his operation.”

The Taylors' own remarkable story, of course, attests to the fruitful combination of nature and nurture. Their father Joe literally wrote the book on farm management, having supervised Gainesway for 40 years; and any congenital flair for horses was further underpinned by the discipline and faith of their upbringing. And whatever they have in common, even this closest of clans are hardly cookie-cut, whether in aspect or outlook.

Duncan Taylor | Keeneland

“Well, we had eight in our family,” muses Duncan. “And you can see a common look. But we're all different–and it's a 100% nick. It's the exact same with horses. The evolutionary scheme of genetics has so many variables.”

No guarantees, then, but nonetheless there are plainly rewards available if you put the work in. Another thing Duncan did when Saint Ballado arrived, for instance, was create a scoring system on every mare ever bred to his full-brother Devil's Bag.

“Let's say the ancestor was Buckpasser,” he explains. “Anytime Buckpasser was in the first six generations, I said, 'Okay, was it a stakes winner or not?' So if it was one-for-49, I know I don't like a lot of Buckpasser in there. And so on, for all the relatives. I had them in an alphabetical order and knew the rate that they hit at. And as Saint Ballado came through the ranks, we started keeping the same statistics. You're trying to see which ancestors are going to go with the horse, and sometimes you'd find others carried along the same way.”

But only sometimes.

“And what you find in this business is that most people want a simple answer,” he continues, in exasperated tones. “If there's 12 pies here, they want to be told that this one will taste best because it has half the ingredients my grandmother used, and she baked a hell of a pie. But the other half of the pie, we don't know what the damned ingredients are. And when I eat it, it doesn't taste like grandma's. But that pie brings more.”

“It's the microwave mentality, unfortunately,” Mark adds. “Whether it's accurate or not, they don't care, they just want something they can understand. So I get into fights all the time with people that just get fixated on one tool, which a lot of times will send you in totally the wrong direction. To me, if you look at what works on 'blood' then you find a lot of times it makes sense as a physical mating, from a conformation perspective.”

Sibelius wins the G1 Golden Shaheen | Erika Rasmussen

But we're forgetting why we troubled these gentlemen in the first place. And this Sibelius (targeting his first start since Dubai in the GII True North S. at Belmont on June 10) is a nice story, bringing together some of the most cherished stalwarts of this remarkable family firm.

He's out of Fiery Pulpit (Pulpit), an unraced half-sister to graded stakes winner Clamorosa (Seattle Dancer), acquired as a 7-year-old for $55,000 at the Keeneland November Sale of 2011. There's quite a gang involved: Pat Payne, who might almost be another brother; Jeff Hayslett, who's been working here for over 30 years; and two of the farm's oldest clients, in Louis Brooks and Sam Pollock.

“This mare is a good example of any breeding success that we've had,” Mark says. “Because most of the mares we own are in partnership with customers. We've never aspired to go out and say we're going to build some world-class broodmare band, become great breeders. It's more just coming alongside partners, who like to be commercial breeders. And in this mare's case, it was an interesting group. Pat was a partner of ours. Jeff was our farm manager and then our first Thoroughbred Advisor. The Pollocks have probably been with us 30 years, and the Brooks family maybe 40. The first yearling I ever took to the sales ring was a Secretariat filly [co-]bred by Louis.”

(That was the old July Sale at Keeneland in 1983: Wayne Lukas gave $525,000 for her and, as Fiesta Lady, she ended up a Grade I winner.)

Fiery Pulpit had managed to produce a minor stakes performer by Broken Vow, a son of Unbridled, so they tried her with Unbridled's Song. The result was a $400,000 Keeneland September colt who won seven times. Next came a colt by Graydar, this time a son of Unbridled's Song: Peter O'Callaghan bought him as a Keeneland November weanling for $185,000, and he became a hard-knocking, 11-for-48 campaigner. Then a colt by Will Take Charge made $250,000 at Keeneland September.

The late Unbridled's Song, a cornerstone of Taylor Made's stallion barn | Taylor Made

“Before we got ahold of her, her babies weren't bringing anything at all,” Mark notes. “But just by knocking on this Unbridled's Song thing, she became a slot machine, paying off every year.”

Typically, however, the one exception was her foal from the first crop of Not This Time–who has turned out to be her best runner. Offered as a short yearling at Keeneland January, he was a $62,000 RNA and it was a similar story after he had been moved on, returned at $75,000 in the same ring that September. Bottom line, however, is that Sibelius currently has a 19-7-3-3 record: pretty robust, for a horse that didn't vet.

“He was a beautiful horse,” Mark emphasizes. “Just sesamoiditis. We got him sold privately. It's like Duncan's just been saying about breeding theories. Vetting, X-rays, they're a tool, get you part of the way. But people want to be told that it's simple.”

That said, commercial breeders nowadays tend to think about the ring sooner than the racetrack–a reality in which Mark cheerfully acknowledges complicity.

“My winning post is making money,” he accepts. “The one thing I don't have the luxury of doing is breeding something that might come out ugly, and the market's going to reject it, but it might be a great racehorse. I can't afford to do that. I'm trying to breed a good-looking horse.”

Sadly it feels as though age may be catching up with Fiery Pulpit herself. She required colic surgery and, donated to one of the Taylor Made sales team who has a small farm, successfully conceived to Catalina Cruiser. After Sibelius won in Dubai, Mark called and said: “Hey did you see that? She just got a Grade I winner!” Unfortunately the reply was: “Didn't you get my text last night? She had a dystocia, the foal died.”

So much can go wrong, at any time. But just as people shouldn't pretend that the game is easy, nor should we make the simple things complicated. A lot of it is common sense.

“Basically, when we're breeding a mare, we're looking at the value and we're looking at the conformation,” Duncan says. “And not only the conformation of the two horses. If the mare's had foals before, you look at those too. Because she might not be toed-in herself, but three of the first four foals have been. So you're not going to breed to one that toes in.”

Maybe you'd have bred her to Unbridled, though, as he toed out somewhat. Duncan, indeed, remembers the team more or less having to beg people to support the horse pending his first runners.

“And then Unbridled's Song comes out of his first crop, and Grindstone,” he recalls. “Well, if Unbridled's Song had died foaling and Grindstone broke down before the Derby, maybe he'd have been in Turkey or something.”

The margins are always so fine. Duncan remembers deciding that Mutakddim mares might work with California Chrome, whose damsire was a half-brother to that horse's dam. That was a Mari's Book type of call. But sure enough, just about the best runner Chrome left behind was Cilla, whose second dam is by Mutakddim.

“Of course all the knockers of my theory can say, 'Cilla's out of an Into Mischief mare, you can breed anything to that horse,'” he admits. “But Mutakddim, I picked a random horse. Most of his horses are in South America. And he ends up in the pedigree of California Chrome's best horse. So there's something to it. But if you bred every Mutakddim mare to California Chrome, it still might only be three or four out of 100 foals. And then two of them, the trainers mess up, and another one gets loose on the track.”

Current Taylor Made stalwart Not This Time | Mary Ellet

Back we come, then, to the holistic approach. Because it's no good getting everything else right, and then having the whole thing unravel because you haven't matched the horse to the right trainer.

“If you want someone to coach a bunch of egomaniacs that all want to be the star, and turn them into the Bulls, you get in Phil Jackson,” Duncan reasons. “Somebody else is coaching them, it probably would never have happened. Same with trainers. The mating's one key factor. But you could have the smartest mating in the world, and you have a bad trainer or a bad foaling man, it's never going to come to fruition. So you need a team.”

He mentions one highly successful program. Could just be lucky, maybe, but he ticks off the quality of its land, farm management, sales scouts, trainers. “And if that gets a stallion from 10% stakes winners to 15%, that's a hell of a change in the economic value of that stallion,” he says. “Because he becomes the superior horse.”

Conversely, some stallions face adverse odds from the outset. At a given market level, they will only tend to get mediocre mares–and that won't just tell in the genes.

“Mortality and conception rates are hugely important to a stallion,” Mark says. “With lesser stallions, the conception rate tends to be just not as good because most of their mares come from farms that don't have the same resources or organization. So from the very beginning that stallion has more to overcome.”

“There's so many variables,” concludes Duncan. “But if that's a curse, it's also a blessing. Because if it was easy to do, these rich people wouldn't be intrigued as they are. They know it's hard, and that's just what keeps everybody interested.”

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“We welcome Mark Taylor to the Keeneland Board, where his lifelong experience in the horse industry and his business acumen will be invaluable as we navigate future opportunities and challenges,” Keeneland President and CEO Shannon Arvin said. “We also thank Louis Haggin, Charlie Nuckols and Duncan Taylor for their decades-long service and commitment to the Board.”

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“It was a natural extension of what we were already doing: a lot of customers you boarded for needed to sell,” Taylor says. “And I thought, well, if Lee Eaton could sell a horse for $100,000 and make $5,000, that's more than I could get boarding a horse for a whole year. At that time people were charging commission for RNAs. They probably hated me but the first thing I said was, 'Hell, you can't take a guy's horse over there and run it through the sale, and it goes through for $200,000, and you want $10,000 when he didn't even sell his horse!' So we needed a minimum commission; and then if we sell, we get paid. Well of course our customers loved that, and now everybody does it.”

Success, however, brought its own challenges. Taylor remembers customers waiting in line at the sales, wanting to talk reserves, discuss the action on their horse. But he sought some expert counsel, and was told that Taylor Made—which had meanwhile also opened a stallion operation, starting with the arrival (or strictly the return) of Unbridled's Song in 1997—had developed in isolated “silos.” The solution they came up with was assignation of Thoroughbred Advisors to different clients, maintaining continuity across the board. “From problems come opportunities,” Taylor remarks. “Every customer now had their point person. And that was what allowed us to continue to grow, while keeping that family feel, that family touch.”

Even with such delegation, the brothers maintain a conspicuous front-of-house presence: if the help are wearing the tie and livery, so are their bosses. “We want them to share the kindred spirit of the family,” Taylor says. “We're not on any pedestal, we're in there beside them working. And the fact is we're not just one business owner but five of us trained by the same master, united so that when I win, Frank wins, Ben wins, Mark wins and Pat wins: we all win together.

“It's all about those innate, core values that have helped us, whether in terms of scale, or how we keep our dominance. We're always looking to get better, internally, externally, not because it's some big strategic plan but because it's in our nature to ask how can we do that better.”

First of three key values, he suggests, is honesty. “It's not that I never told a lie in my life, but if I ever did, I felt like crap after; beat myself up forever,” he says. “And then we want to care for our customers and their horses and each other like family. And the other thing is to always look for a better way, so that just because we're doing something now doesn't mean we'll be doing it two or three years from now.”

Fasig-Tipton photo

But while Taylor Made will unquestionably continue to absorb his ardor as it faces the future, it's up to the wider industry to heed some no less imaginative and dynamic input in doing the same. For Taylor is grieved by the obstinacy with which our sport resists the kind of adventure that has long sustained own business.

“I'm full of ideas,” he says, sounding rather exasperated. “I don't know if they're any good, but I've told them to every track executive I can and there's something about this business, people don't seem to use common sense.”

His opening premise is simple: purses go up when handle goes up, and that's obviously key to doing the best we can for horse owners. But too many racetracks have been so obsessed with becoming a casino that the core product is neglected, and offered with bad grace.

“Say we were in the popsicle business,” he says. “It's like we have the licorice popsicle stand and say: 'If you don't like our licorice, we don't want you as a customer. We're not going to give you cherry, orange, grape, we're not going to give you the flavors everybody loves. We're just here to sell our licorice, screw you, go someplace else.'”

Any novice who does try the track is bewildered. “It's like you need to learn Chinese or Russian to play the game, and it's going to take you too long to learn it,” Taylor complains.

While not a gambler himself, and therefore not presuming to design alternatives himself, he is appalled that the wagering product has basically remained unchanged for a century. “No bets for people who just want to bet and have fun,” he says. “They don't care about learning how to handicap. Like the slot machine player versus playing at the craps table: one is intellectual; the other is. 'Let's bet and have some fun.'

“And I'll tell you the problem with not being customer-focused. In 1890, Dan Taylor was born. That's my granddad. Everybody had a horse, everybody loved horseracing, that's the culture he grew up in. In 1924, Joe Taylor my dad was born: the car's just invented, but Joe rides a pony to school, and you go to the Hawthorne Derby in Chicago and there's 100,000 people watching. Everybody's still part of that horse culture. In '56, Duncan Taylor is born. And it's all about the damned car. Out of 100 kids in my class at Lexington Catholic, about four liked going out to the track. Go forward 30 years, and my son Marshall is born. And the kids in his class know as much about a giraffe as they do about a horse. As the horse's usefulness diminished, as a mode of transportation and an agricultural tool, so we have lost our competitive advantage.”

Taylor deplores a complacency he traces to the long years when horseracing was the only gambling game in town. “We're like the little kid at the table, whose mom always brings him food, never makes him work,” he says. “And he turns into a big fat kid who doesn't know how to do anything and can't get a job anywhere. With the monopoly we had, we got lazy and fat, we got a bad culture and never thought about the customer.”

Who, after all, is that customer? Not the horse's owner. “Because he's like the sports player, providing the talent,” reasons Taylor. “He's Wilt Chamberlain, he is putting on the show. The customer is the one who comes to the races, who's betting on the owner's horse. Yet we look down on him like he's a tramp and an idiot, we don't esteem him at all. And no business can treat customers like second-rate citizens and last very long.”

Taylor said he suspected that some people don't actually want to expand the sport's reach: that they don't want to build our industry into Mount Everest, but are happy just to be kings of the anthill. But he looks around the game and sees people of prodigious wealth and influence, amply competent to reboot betting technologies and run racetracks altruistically.

“I still think we have a great product,” Taylor stresses. “That's the thing, we have something so special. How much better to be around these beautiful horses, with a really good atmosphere, than sitting pulling a lever in some dungy casino with lights going on and off.”

According to Taylor, the person who has done most to evangelize our walk of life is Michael Behrens of MyRacehorse.  “Those 60,000 people he signed up now have a reason to try and 'learn the Russian',” he said. “They have a hook. Our entry level to have horse ownership was way too high before. A percentage of those 60,000 will become millionaires, even billionaires. Who knows? One of them could be the next John Magnier.”

A new generation: Brooks Taylor, Logan Payne, Marshall Taylor, Katie Taylor, Joe Taylor, Alex Payne | Laurel Donnell photo

Or even the next Duncan Taylor. Happily, for Taylor Made, and for our industry, he isn't going anywhere. He'll still be in the office every day, mentoring his brother Mark in the role he has relinquished, and everyone else on the team; and he'll never stop aspiring, both for the good name of one business and for the viability of its trading environment.

“We're not perfect at Taylor Made, by any means,” he said. “I'm sitting here now, retired from being CEO, but I've a lot of thoughts how we can improve still. You know, I'm not the greatest horseman. I'm not the greatest businessman. I'm not the greatest anything, really. But I have a streak in me that I just try really hard, whatever I do, to keep focused, keep working. I think that's really been my gift to the company: I've always looked out for it, and always tried to keep the big picture in mind.”

But the real key, he emphasizes, remains the same as it was the brothers sought to live up to the example of Daddy Joe: doing things the right way, doing things together, sharing that Taylor-made family feeling.

“There are so many people that have worked with me through the years—customers, team members, vendors, family—that have been part of Taylor Made's success,” he says. “I am thankful for each one of them. The person I owe the most to is my beautiful wife Carol. She has been a lot like my mother, always putting our family first. She has raised five beautiful children, and that's worth more than all I have accomplished.”

As a new cycle opens in this remarkable dynastic tale, then, an apt final word is offered by Taylor's brother and successor as CEO. Mark Taylor recalls how John Gaines, such a pivotal influence on their father, celebrated Daddy Joe not just as the complete horseman but also as “an agronomist, builder, geneticist, caretaker, nutritionist, salesman, entrepreneur, executive, promoter, accountant, arborist, midwife, dealmaker, diplomat and handyman.” Joe, Gaines said, was “truly a man for all seasons but anyone who knows him understands that his real business is helping people.”

That was the template, and Mark feels that is exactly how his brother has presided over Daddy Joe's legacy. “In many ways, Duncan has been all these things and more for our family, our team members, our customers, and their horses,” he says. “Our plan is to free him of many of his prior duties as CEO, while harnessing his drive for customer service and innovation heading into our next chapter.”

To read part I of this story, click here.

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True, the old school can't have been enamored by his every flourish. There was the famous occasion at the Keeneland November Sale, for instance, when a mare had been prematurely scratched by the veterinarians. Taylor, thinking fast as always, got onto the airfield across the street to see if anyone could trail a banner announcing that she had been reinstated in the sale. But he had tried a similar stunt a few years previously, at the Woodbine Breeders' Cup, when he was repatriating A. P Jet from Japan.

“That horse didn't run well on the grass but he ran, like, 1:08 for six furlongs on dirt,” Taylor recalls. “So I hired this plane to fly a banner saying 'A. P Jet 1:08-and-change' over the crowd. Well, the guy flew so high you could hardly see it. I paid him his money, but I'd learned my lesson. So this time I sat down with this pilot and said: 'Now I don't want you flying up there where nobody can read it, you need people to be able to see what the hell all this is about.' Well, I don't know what kind of plane he had, but it sounded like a 1955 tractor. It was popping and spewing and sputtering, and he was swooping over the barns, back and forth, and everybody's horses were going crazy. And Mike Cline from Lane's End ran over and said: 'Duncan take that damned plane down! I'll buy your damned horse from you before you kill all mine!'”

Nor was that the only time Taylor reached for the stars in his publicity. With an important dispersal going through his barn, another November, he rented a plane to get the big spenders back from the Breeders' Cup at Gulfstream, dressing up in a pilot's uniform to record a video wishing everyone a comfortable flight.

Mark, Ben, Frank and Duncan Taylor | Jon Siegel photo

It's not as though such literal flights of fancy directly account for the giddy evolution of Taylor Made, from its unobtrusive foundation in 1976 when Taylor was still only 19, into so dominant a force that its consignment has ranked No 1 in a staggering 26 years of the past 28, while processing $2.7 billion of bloodstock. But his receptivity to innovation and experiment–undiminished even as he hands over to his brother Mark, as CEO, and embraces a new role as Senior Thoroughbred Consultant–has pioneered many of the services nowadays taken for granted on the sales ground.

“You know, one of the things I've found in business–and in life–is that if you don't start on the course of trying to do something better, then you never get the benefit of other opportunities that emerge along the way,” he reflects. “Opportunities that are often better than the things you originally set out trying to do. And that's about the force of human passion. When people start driving towards something, good things start to happen.”

As is often true of Taylor's perspectives, this one dovetails with his Catholic faith. “Because it's about hope,” he says. “When I was young I understood faith, and I understood charity. But hope? Where did that fit in? It was only as I got older that I understood how hope is really the greatest of the three. Because it's a real blessing if you can get up every morning and think, I need to get this done, that done, because you're always chasing that brighter future.”

Taylor Made has met two extremely delicate challenges during its perennial expansion. One was to maintain due intimacy with customers, even as the scale became ever more industrial, so that their slogan can still credibly remain: “With us, you're family.” The other was to maintain a vital equilibrium between fraternal affection, among Taylor and his brothers Mark, Frank, Ben, and their partner Pat Payne, and the hard-headed administration of what has become such a huge business.

Taylor and Pat Payne | Keeneland photo

Taylor stresses that he has “the best hard-working brothers and a tremendous business partner in Pat Payne.” But to have somehow always made it all work tells you much about their upbringing. Their mother Mary was a woman of iron faith; and “Daddy” Joe commanded respect across the Bluegrass not just for the horsemanship that sustained 40 years as farm manager at Gainesway—on which vocation he literally wrote the book—but also for the probity he demanded of his children. “Don't ever do anything you wouldn't want to read about in the Herald-Leader,” he reproved them.

“He would always try and help the underdog,” Taylor says. “In his early life he experienced the Depression. A lot of those people in that generation, they had really tasted poverty, and they were geared to make work central to their lives. Mom let my dad work as long hours as he needed, and always had a hot meal for him when he came home. And from the time we were just young boys, he was taking us with him and teaching us.

“Like any young kid, we weren't a lot of help at first. But by the time we were 10 years old most of us could drive a tractor; and by the time I was 14 or 15, I was about half a veterinarian for the cattle, I knew how to plow, if the tractor got dirt in the lines I knew how to bleed the lines. I thought, 'Man, I have to work all the time while my buddies are playing ball.' But that was just the way that my father operated.”

Taylor was already the fourth of what became eight children in what he humorously likes to describe as “the Catholic business plan.” But he would lose two of his brothers, in 1968 and 1981.

“And I think that also had something to do with how you can stick together, as a family, even when you have all the pressures of being in business together,” Taylor muses. “Yes, you can still fall out over little piddling stuff, that might not seem piddling at the time when everybody's emotions get high. But if you did get mad, you'd be over it the next day, didn't harbor any grudge.

Joe Taylor at Gainesway | courtesy Taylor Made

“I was 12 years old when my older brother got killed in a car crash. My mother's faith kept her strong, but my dad was just all torn to pieces. I remember going out there with him, where the wreck had been, seeing him walk around saying: 'Oh man, why? Why did it have to happen?' And finally, he realised that he couldn't get it off his mind, so he went out to some old country roads in Jessamine County and bought 170 acres at $600 an acre. From then onwards, my sisters Emily or Mary Joe would haul us out there to work. They helped us greatly, by being the younger boys' transportation. If they didn't take us, then whatever time Daddy Joe clocked off at Gainesway, he came through and picked us up.”

They were set to work on the tangled wire fences, the fallen trees, the dilapidated barn. And that site eventually became the cornerstone of the little operation started by Taylor with his buddy Mike Shannon, a Texas schoolteacher working at Gainesway who had resolved to start a boarding farm.

“At that time of my life, I was just a kid with long hair. I was a hard worker, but if you saw me you'd think me a hippie,” Taylor recalls. “I was in U.K. and majoring in trying to get out. I had nine hours left and I quit. I'd saved up some money. When you worked for other farmers, you got paid! Cutting tobacco and baling hay, stuff like that. Mike and I both had a pick-up truck, and we put in our $10,000 apiece, and we started the farm.”

With Gainesway servicing its world-class stallion roster, Daddy Joe was sending mares to maybe a dozen different farms. The new venture received a couple mares and, between the oversight of the old man and the good work of the kids, gradually more followed. Mike also had a group of southwestern contacts sending us horses that helped us greatly in our early years.

Taylor Made at sunset | Taylor Gilkey photo

“Mike taught me a lot,” stresses Taylor. “I was a shy kid, I'd never talked on the phone to an owner, but he just got me in there to finally get used to that. And he was a risk-taker, too: we bought some mares from John Nerud, spent about $125,000 when we didn't have any money. Breaking up that group and selling them gave us a bit more of a nest egg. And meanwhile we basically built up the farm one customer at a time. You know, I don't want to knock any other farm. But being broke and hungry, when I boarded a horse, that customer meant a lot more to me than if Leslie Combs boarded a horse. I didn't have Caro!”

Having initially rented a number of different tracts, they expanded a core for what has become a 1,600-acre footprint around the new land in Jessamine: if Taylor Made had to lease stalls, then they might as well pay their own family. The game-changer, however, was a game-changer for the whole industry.

Tomorrow: Part II: Ideas, and more ideas

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“He is booked to over 160 mares now,” reported Taylor Made's Duncan Taylor. “We've been really satisfied with the reception from breeders. We're not taking every mare he gets offered. We're picking through and trying to get the best mares we can. We probably could have stood him for more money because he has been so popular, but we wanted to make sure we got a good book to him to get him off to a good start.”

Hailing from a highly-successful Juddmonte family, the son of champion sire Tapit is the first foal out of Champion Older Mare and five-time Grade I winner Close Hatches (First Defence). The mare descends from blue hen Best in Show (Traffic Judge) and is from the same family as G1 Irish 2000 Guineas winner Siskin, a young sire in Japan who is also by First Defence.

Taylor gives high regard to the line breeding traced in Tacitus's pedigree through First Defence, a grandson of Unbridled out of a Seattle Slew mare, and Tapit, a member of the Seattle Slew sire line out of an Unbridled mare.

“I really like the way he's bred with the Unbridled and Seattle Slew line breeding,” he explained. “They're both through a male and a female, so it's a very well-balanced pedigree. Then the females in his family are unbelievable. You have Weekend Surprise, Narrate, Gana Facil, Crimson Saint and Best in Show. When you look for what I call a blue-blood Kentucky pedigree, this one hits the bullseye.”

“There's a lot of things you can line breed to with him and try to come up with some clever matings,” he said, adding that the new stallion's first book is replete with mares by the sire lines of Candy Ride, Arch, Indian Charlie and War Front.

One of two graded stakes-winning grays joining the Taylor Made roster this year along with champion Knicks Go (Paynter), Tacitus may share the coloring of his sire, but Taylor said his physical better reflects his female line.

“He's bigger [than his sire] and you can really see the Unbridled coming through,” Taylor said. “He has a big, deep shoulder and a good neck on him.”

Tacitus all alone in the GII Suburban S. | Sarah Andrew

Campaigned by Juddmonte and trained throughout his career by Bill Mott, Tacitus was a top contender on the Triple Crown trail. After breaking his maiden as a juvenile, he claimed consecutive victories in the GII Tampa Bay Derby, where he set a stakes record, and the GII Wood Memorial S.

The colt did not see the winner's circle again as a sophomore, but ran in the money in each of his next five starts in 2019, placing second in the GI Belmont S., GII Jim Dandy S. and GI Runhappy Travers S., and finishing third in the GI Kentucky Derby and GI Jockey Club Gold Cup S.

“He was right there through the major 3-year-old races,” Taylor said. “[To finish] third in the Kentucky Derby was a real credit and then he came back and ran well in the Travers. While he never got the Grade I win, he was a Grade I-caliber horse. I think just pure ability made him as good as he was.”

Tacitus was competitive again as a 4-year-old, gaining a third graded-stakes score with an 8 3/4-length romp in the GII Suburban S. at Belmont and later placing in the GI Woodward H. and GI Jockey Club Gold Cup S.

He retired after his 5-year-old season with earnings of over $3.7 million, competing exclusively against graded stakes company after breaking his maiden and running in the money in all but five of those 15 graded starts.

“Tacitus was such a good racehorse,” Taylor said. “He won the Wood Memorial, the Tampa Bay Derby and the Suburban. Two of those used to be Grade I races so he just didn't win them at the right time. He has a beautiful pedigree and we think he could be a great stallion. We're very fortunate to have a royally-bred horse like him at Taylor Made.”

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The colorbearer for the Korea Racing Authority cemented his status as the top older dirt male in the country with his gate-to-wire Classic victory. Now, the favorite for Horse of the Year honors is preparing for one last dance to defend his title in the GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational S. before he takes up stud duty in 2022.

Meanwhile, the team at Taylor Made is counting the days until they can welcome the famed grey back to their stallion facility.

“We are fired up about Knicks Go,” Duncan Taylor said. “He's the epitome of a racehorse. When you have a horse that wins the GI Breeders' Futurity at two, comes back and wins the GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile and then the next year wins the GI Breeders' Cup Classic, it doesn't get any better than that.”

Knicks Go was able to get an early taste of his future career during his short stay at Taylor Made as a steady stream of breeders dropped in to visit the new stallion.

“I think his conformation is definitely a plus,” Taylor said. “He reminds me a lot of Blushing Groom and Awesome Again. They're not overly big horses, but they're very well-balanced and have plenty of hip. I think those types of stallions cross well with a lot of different mares. He's very correct and he's one of those horses that have that look in their eye.”

The Taylor family is familiar with their new addition's sireline through their involvement with now-pensioned stallion Tiznow, whose female family is also responsible for Grade I-producing sires Paynter, Oxbow and Awesome Patriot.

Knicks Go takes in the scenery upon his arrival at Churchill Downs on Nov. 17 | Coady

“If you look at this year's Breeders' Cup, you have [Filly and Mare Sprint contestant] Bella Sofia, who is by Awesome Patriot, [Classic contestant] Hot Rod Charlie by Oxbow and Knicks Go by Paynter,” Taylor explained. “So this sireline can get you a runner. We had Tiznow and everybody thought, 'A son of Cee's Tizzy. Why do you want him?' But he turned out to be a great stallion for us.”

Bred in Maryland by Angie Moore and daughter Sabrina Moore, Knicks Go is out of the stakes-winning mare Kosmo's Buddy (Outflanker). A debut winner at two, the colt went on to win the GI Claiborne Breeders' Futurity and was runner-up in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile.

“Sometimes when horses race until they're five, you sort of forget about their 2-year-old career,” Taylor joked. “But the fact that he won a Grade One at two, that says everything. Everybody's looking for that.”

At three, Knicks Go failed to make it to the winner's circle and was transferred to the Brad Cox barn for his 4-year-old season. He ran undefeated in three starts that year by over 20 lengths combined, with his season culminating in a record-breaking performance in the GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile.

This year, Knicks Go was five for seven against graded company, accumulating Grade I wins in the Pegasus World Cup Invitational S., Whitney S. and the Breeders' Cup Classic, where he defeated a pair of leading sophomores in GI Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit (Protonico) and GI Belmont S. winner Essential Quality (Tapit).

Knicks Go earns a 112 Beyer Speed Figure in the 2021 Breeders' Cup Classic | Horsephotos

“Knicks Go's best quality as a racehorse is speed,” Taylor said. “I remember Mr. [John] Gaines used to say that we're trying to breed the horse that has the most speed, that is the best looking and that can carry the speed the farthest. That's the kind of horse everybody is looking for. Not only can Knicks Go run fast, but he can carry the speed. Setting the track record in the Dirt Mile, that was quite an accomplishment that shows he has the speed. Then to go under two minutes for a mile and a quarter [in the Classic], that takes a special horse. Those two achievements set him apart from other racehorses.”

Taylor said that their team first started speaking with the Korea Racing Authority regarding their superstar's stud career as the colt was training up for the Whitney S. this summer.

“We knew they weren't wanting to sell part of the horse and they knew we do good marketing and work hard,” he explained. “When we started doing our research, we found that he was a perfect fit for us so we went for it.”

Knicks Go will begin his stud career with a $30,000 stud fee. He joins the growing Taylor Made roster alongside MGSW Tacitus, a regally-bred son of Tapit who will stand for $10,000.

“For us, it's hard to go out and buy a horse like this,” Taylor said. “We have to have some breaks in getting our stallions. You haven't ever seen us standing 20 or 25 stallions because we don't have the financial power to do that. But we do have the hustle and we do a good job with our stallions. We're aggressive and we're always trying new things.”

At a farm once home to the likes of heralded Unbridled's Song, as well as Saint Ballado and Forestry, Taylor Made's stallion program has welcomed several promising new additions in recent years.

“When you run a stallion operation, horses help each other,” Taylor noted. “Now we have Not This Time, who has shown that we have a proven stallion on the rise, and then with Instagrand, Instilled Regard, Mshawish and Midnight Storm, we have new blood at Taylor Made. So we have faith and we think Knicks Go is going to be a good one.”

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It came as no surprise when The Jockey Club's Stud Book cap on foals born in 2020 or later was formally taken to the courts on Tuesday. The only question was who would be the one to throw the gauntlet down, and when they'd do it.

Now that the bell has officially been rung, there's potentially a lot more on the line than just how many mares a stallion can breed in a year. The very nature of what a Thoroughbred is, and how one is made, could hang in the balance.

In the complaint filed by Spendthrift Farm, Ashford Stud, and Three Chimneys on Tuesday, one of the demands from the plaintiffs reads as follows:

“For an injunction requiring the [Kentucky Horse Racing Commission], through its Chairman and Executive Director, to permit Thoroughbreds to race in Kentucky regardless of their inclusion in the Jockey Club Registry.”

Taken at face value, this reads like a simple request to allow stud farms to continue breeding as many mares to its stallions as they want, beyond the 140-mare cap. For all we know, that might be the only thing the plaintiffs had in mind when the document was written up.

However, the open-ended nature of its language could potentially prop open the door to sidestep other longstanding rules that define what a Thoroughbred is anywhere in the world – namely, that they must be conceived on a live cover.

A horse of Thoroughbred blood conceived via artificial insemination, embryo transfer, cloning, or any other means besides the only one that's allowed, is not a true “Thoroughbred” by The Jockey Club's definition, and it would not be included in the registry. This is one of the building-block rules of the breed.

If Thoroughbreds are allowed to race in Kentucky regardless of their inclusion in the Jockey Club registry, the lock to Pandora's Box would seemingly be left unfastened for whatever interpretation one would want to use.

The live cover issue is one that's being debated and litigated on a global scale, and blowing open the American Stud Book would be a huge precedent with potentially vast ripple effects. The plaintiffs are aware of that global balance, noting in their filing that foals conceived after a stallion's 140^th mating of the season would not be eligible for registration in any reputable jurisdiction in the world once it's deemed unable to be registered domestically.

This is a court case that could change the process of Thoroughbred breeding worldwide. It's also an incredible opportunity to reinforce the legal standing of the Stud Book cap and, in turn, the very definition of a Thoroughbred, assuming The Jockey Club and its fellow defendants prevail.

If this conflict was inevitable, which it was as soon as the cap was announced, it's best to get it over with.

Speaking with some prominent figures in Kentucky's stallion industry, I wasn't alone in this thought process.

“I think everybody thought it would come to some kind of challenge, be it stallion farms or an individual breeder who couldn't breed to the horse they wanted to because he was over 140,” said John G. Sikura of Hill 'n' Dale Farms. “While it's frustrating and takes a long time, I think the legal challenge is a good one to answer the question. When something's legally held, whether you like it or don't like it, the future is defined. It's better than being muddled or uncertain.”

The question of whose job it is to regulate Thoroughbred breeding, The Jockey Club or the individual state commissions, is one of the core issues of the lawsuit. Settling the matter in the courts would not only firm up the legal standing of the Stud Book cap, a win for The Jockey Club would also better establish its authority to set and enforce rules in an industry where so many other guidelines vary from state to state.

There are enough drums beating for a central national authority in horse racing, so I won't add my mallet to it here, but it's hard to argue that the industry would be helped in any way by a weakened Jockey Club – arguably the closest thing we have to that central office.

Duncan Taylor of Taylor Made Farm said he understood the reasoning behind the suit, specifically noting the cap's restriction on the idea of free-market capitalism, but he also noted that hardly any industry goes completely unregulated. Any form of regulation is ultimately a man-made restriction to the marketplace, and if man-made rules are created in any venue, they tend to be challenged.

Even if the lawsuit's demand language did explicitly state that it only wanted to overturn the Stud Book cap, Taylor said a defeat of that magnitude in court could make it easier to pull apart other pillars of The Jockey Club's rulebook.

“I would say that I could file today and say we should have artificial insemination, and if their case wins, then the AI case ought to definitely win,” he said.

This case could be seen as a potentially helpful one for proponents of the cap, immunizing it from future legal challenges, but it's only helpful if The Jockey Club and the other defendants win. Otherwise, there will be a lot of open-ended questions suddenly needing answers.

If you're looking for past performance, there is a bit of precedence in this matter, and it looks good for the cap staying in place.

When the United States Trotting Association worked toward instituting its own stud book cap for Standardbreds in the mid-2000s, and ultimately implemented it in 2009 (Spoiler alert: Everything was fine), there were several legal challenges that the measure had to overcome from parties claiming it violated antitrust laws.

I wanted to get some perspective on what to expect from the legal challenges, so I spoke with USTA president Russell Williams, who was a board member at the time the Standardbred rule was implemented. He was one of the cap's most vocal supporters, despite running top breeding operation Hanover Shoe Farms, which took one of the biggest hits from the new rule.

Williams, himself a lawyer, said the rule was created with the expectation that it would have to prove itself out in court, so steps were taken ahead of time to make sure it would stand up to the barrage. An intensive study by the University of Kentucky's Dr. Gus Cothran was commissioned to establish scientifically that there was a looming issue with genetic diversity. Then, the language was given the green light by one of the country's leading law firms specializing in antitrust.

Williams said he expected The Jockey Club would come out on top in the end, even if the case and the argument aren't quite apples-to-apples with what the USTA faced. The burden of proof in the scientific backing will rest harder with The Jockey Club, given it hasn't publicly produced a similar go-to study to hold up against the claims that the science isn't there, as accused by the plaintiffs.

With that being said, the diminishing variety in the Thoroughbred gene pool doesn't take a PhD to deduce in the annual Report of Mares Bred.

The foal crop is at its lowest point in decades, fewer stallions are standing at stud, and the number of stallions covering 140-plus mares per season has exploded since the turn of the century. These trends have been a part of The Jockey Club's platform for the cap since it first went public with a proposed rule change in the summer of 2019.

Putting names behind the numbers further shows just how compounded the top of the Thoroughbred market could become if the trend continues. Of the 42 stallions that covered 141 or more mares last year, 15 were by one of five sires: Curlin, Into Mischief, Uncle Mo, Speightstown, and Tapit. Of those five stallions, all but Tapit were also in the group themselves.

Though the odds appear to tilt toward the defendants, one can't expect this will be resolved quickly, or even necessarily in the defendants' favor. If it goes before a jury, as the plaintiffs requested, juries have done crazier things. Either way, this won't be settled as quickly and neatly as a one-hour episode of Law and Order.

Meanwhile, the first foals affected by the Stud Book cap will go through the sales ring as yearlings this summer and fall. It would be nice for everyone involved if they knew exactly what kind of blue sky they were buying into at that point in the calendar, but we can only venture a guess as to what might happen in the months between then and now.

If all goes as expected, I figure the breed will emerge from this lawsuit better off for it. Now, let's just see if it all goes as expected.

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Leading the charge was Airdrie Stud's Creative Cause, whose average jumped 71.94 percent during this year's Keeneland September sale to $20,420 from 35 horses sold. As the broadest yearling auction in North America, both by duration and the scope of offerings, a big swing in performance at the Keeneland September sale can be a strong indicator of public favor toward a particular stallion.

Creative Cause nearly doubled his average sale price with his sixth crop, but he more than doubled the number of horses sold from year to year, with the previous crop featuring 17 yearlings selling at the Keeneland sale for an average of $11,876.

The yearlings of 2020 were conceived in 2018, when Creative Cause's oldest runners were 4-year-olds. At that point, he already had first-crop runner Pavel blazing the trail with a win in the Grade 3 Smarty Jones Stakes and a third against older foes in the G1 Jockey Club Gold Cup Stakes. By the end of the 2018 breeding season, he'd also run fourth in the G1 Dubai World Cup.

Creative Cause's second crop was also doing work to build their sire's fledgling on-track reputation in the eyes of potential breeders, led by My Boy Jack. A stakes winner at two, the colt became a factor on the Kentucky Derby trail after victories in the G3 Sham Stakes and Lexington Stakes. My Boy Jack then became a wiseguy pick for the 2018 Kentucky Derby, where he finished fifth as the betting public's third choice.

Also from her sire's second crop, Significant Form, was a Grade 3 winner as a 2-year-old in 2017, and she ran fourth in that year's Breeders' Cup Juvenile Filles turf.

“This year's crop of yearlings came from a strong, deep group of mares,” said Cormac Breathnach of Airdrie Stud. “He got about 145 mares that year on the back of horses like Pavel and Significant Form, all the headline horses he was represented by. He got the biggest, and probably best, book of mares he's bred. Between his yearlings and the foals of this year, he's got some really outstanding physicals.”

The slate of offerings by Creative Cause at this year's Keeneland September sale was led by Hip 1998, a colt out of the winning Tapit mare Tamboz who sold to Kenny McPeek, agent, for $180,000. Consigned by St George Sales, agent, the colt is a half-brother to Grade 2-placed Battalion Runner, Grade 3-placed Oceanwave, and stakes-placed runners Tiznoble and Late Nite Mischief.

Airdrie Stud also got into the high-priced Creative Cause game, consigning Hip 1707, a filly out of the winning Teofilo mare Catsbury who sold to Deuce Greathouse, agent, for $95,000.

“It's nice to see him get respect, because he's doing very well on the track in terms of getting winners every weekend, and getting some stakes horses, and staying high on the lists with his contemporaries,” Breathnach said. “He's got a lot in the pipeline to sort of have a resurgence.”

Creative Cause was joined at the top of the list by fellow Giant's Causeway heir Not This Time, whose stock has been skyrocketing with the success of his first juveniles in 2020.

The 6-year-old resident of Taylor Made Stallions saw his average sale price at the Keeneland September sale jump 46.41 percent this year to $116,500 from 26 yearlings, hailing from his second crop. His debut crop saw 39 members change hands at last year's Keeneland sale for an average of $79,569.

Not This Time's first crop of runners has been led in practically every sense of the word by Princess Noor, who sold for $1.35 million at this year's Ocala Breeders' Sales Co., Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training, and has gone undefeated in three high-profile starts. After breaking her maiden by a front-running 2 1/2 lengths, Princess Noor won the G1 Del Mar Debutante Stakes by 6 1/2 lengths, and she most recently took the G2 Chandelier Stakes by 8 1/4 lengths, making her status as the favorite for the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies all but certain.

Princess Noor's exploits have played a big part in putting Not This Time at the top of the freshman sire list by progeny earnings, but below the surface, the stallion is represented by stakes winner Dirty Dangle and Grade 3-placed Hopeful Princess.

Taylor Made's Duncan Taylor said the early commercial acceptance of Not This Time, paired with the high-level performance of his first runners, has set the stallion up well for long-term success.

“They got such an awesome reception at the 2-year-old sales, even before he started getting winners,” Taylor said. “Then, Princess Noor brought $1.3 million, and I think when a horse shows that people think enough of their offspring that someone would go beyond a million dollars…When you're trying to market a stallion, it's so hard to break through the clutter. You can run ads, but when you say something brings a million, that starts getting people's attention, and then they really start looking at who he is and what he is, and you get people diving in. When you dive in on this horse, you keep finding better stuff.”

The top seller for Not This Time at this year's Keeneland September sale was Hip 66, a colt out of the unraced Ghostzapper mare Belle's Finale who sold to Repole Stables and St. Elias Stable for $450,000. Taylor Made Sales Agency consigned the colt, as agent.

The mantle is still wide open for a formal North American successor to the Giant's Causeway sire line, and both Creative Cause and Not This Time will be in the hunt for that title as more of their runners hit the racetrack and mature into breeding careers. The race became more urgent after Giant's Causeway died in 2018, and it's easy to argue that these two sires have gotten hot at the right time.

“I always thought Giant's Causeway was a little different [son of] Storm Cat,” Taylor said. “He's not quite as compact and one-dimensional-looking. The typical Storm Cat, to me, though he did get further distances, looked more like sprinters. Giant's Causeway was a little leaner of a horse, and Not This Time's the same way. Who knows how far they're going to go – Princess Noor just won at 1 1/16 miles, but they look like two-turn horses. They don't look like just sprinters, and I think that's another reason why people are excited about the sire.”

Another stallion with a big first crop who made a commercial leap during this year's sale was WinStar Farm's Constitution, who has seen his flag planted in the winner's circles of the Belmont Stakes and Travers Stakes thanks to Tiz the Law.

Constitution's Keeneland September average for his third crop rose 44.13 percent to $159,619 from 21 sold this year. His second crop brought an average of $110,743 from 35 sold.

Leading the way for Constitution was Hip 904, a filly out of the unraced Candy Ride mare Candy Fortune who sold to Solis/Litt for $725,000. The filly is a half-sister to Grade 1 winner Hog Creek Hustle and Grade 3-placed stakes winner Majestic Dunhill.

The biggest year-to-year jump in average in terms of dollars was Into Mischief, who firmly established himself as a top-tier commercial sire, with 57 yearlings sold for an average of $445,632 – the second-highest average of the sale behind Medaglia d'Oro at $599,722. The resident of Spendthrift Farm achieved a 30.72 percent increase from last year, when he had 70 yearlings average $340,900.

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