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Letruska the Star of Terrazas Thoroughbreds

Five-time Grade I winner and 2021 Eclipse Champion Older Dirt Female Letruska (Super Saver) produced her first foal, a filly by Curlin, on Feb. 4 at Terrazas Thoroughbreds in Lexington, KY.

Farm owner Eduardo Terrazas reported that the foaling was normal and that as the leggy filly has flourished in her first few weeks of life, she seems to have adopted her sire's physical and her dam's personality.

“Her mama is a very secure type of mare, very sure of herself, and the baby definitely shows that,” he said. “Ever since day one, she'll come straight to you. She's very independent and curious. She's a little bit of a handful. I think my night crew spends a little too much time with her, but my daughter is the night watchman and she likes to play with all her kids, so it makes sense.”

It's fair to say that everyone at Terrazas Thoroughbreds gives just a little bit of extra attention to the talented Letruska and now her young daughter.

While Terrazas did not foal Letruska, she was raised on their farm and spent well over a year growing up there before she was sent to race in Mexico, where she would be named champion 3-year-old filly. The St. George Stable homebred made the move to America with trainer Fausto Gutierrez in 2019 and soon rose to the top of the game in the U.S. Some of her more memorable wins came in a battle against champion Monomoy Girl (Tapizar) in the 2021 GI Apple Blossom H. and her near six-length victory in the 2021 GII Fleur de Lis S. The winner of 19 races from 28 lifetime starts, Letruska retired in 2022 with over $3.05 million in earnings.

Sara Gordon

Terrazas Thoroughbreds is also home to several of Letruska's family members, including her dam Magic Appeal (Successful Appeal), who was purchased by St. George Stable for $100,000 in 2015 with Letruska in utero. This year Magic Appeal has an Into Mischief yearling filly and is in foal to Gun Runner. Letruka's half-sister Mixteca (Tapizar) also resides at Terrazas and she recently produced a Charlatan filly.

“We have always been attached to Letruska's siblings, but we get attached to everything,” Terrazas admitted. “With all of her brothers and sisters that we have had, we know them like family. Having Letruska here is great, just to be able to say that you had something to do with a horse of that quality.”

Terrazas said they are in conversation with St. George Stable as they close in on their choice for which stallion Letruska will visit in 2024.

St. George Stable is owned by Mexican billionaire businessman Germán Larrea. His racing and breeding operation has a massive presence in Mexico and up until recently, he would race only a handful of his best horses in the U.S. Terrazas said those numbers have grown substantially over the past few years now that St. George Stable's trainer Fausto Gutierrez has planted a base in the U.S.

“In the past Mr. Larrea would probably breed around 10 or 12 mares here and most of them would be used to race in Mexico,” Terrazas explained. “Nowadays we are producing roughly 20 to 22 foals for them each year and the vast majority of them are staying here to race.”

St. George Stable has been active at the Kentucky breeding stock sales in recent years. At last year's Keeneland November Sale they bought nearly a dozen mares, including the $300,000 purchase of Ambassador Kelly (Pioneerof the Nile), a daughter of GISW Rachel's Valentina (Bernardini). At the 2022 Keeneland January Sale they went to $390,000 for Siempre Mia (Scat Daddy), the dam of MGSW Consumer Spending (More Than Ready).

The operation will also send mares who were successful in Mexico north to breed in Kentucky. Jala Jala (Mex) (Point Determined) and Malinche (Fast Anna) were both champions in Mexico before they joined St. George Stable's broodmare band at Terrazas Thoroughbreds.

Terrazas said it is a privilege to work with a client like St. George Stable that breeds exclusively to race.

“There are not a lot of people like that anymore,” he noted. “Everybody is so gung-ho on the market. This allows us to cater to him from a different perspective. Over the past few years, he has accumulated a really strong group of quality mares. We spend normally in the $250,000 to $300,000 range. That makes me really think high for the future. He's the type of owner that we need in the industry.”

Terrazas decided to launch his own boarding operation because of the changes in the commercial breeding industry. He served as stallion manager for Overbrook Farm and Taylor Made Farm for almost 30 years before opening Terrazas Thoroughbreds in 2005.

Eduardo Terrazas | Sara Gordon

“Frank Taylor is the one who talked me into going on my own,” Terrazas said. “At the time I decided that I needed a bit of a break. As a stallion manager there is a lot of pressure. I started noticing that the books for the stallions kept getting bigger and bigger. All of that pressure comes to you. When you're a stallion manager, you have to find a happy medium between the horse and the business side of it. We started stressing more about [the book sizes] and I said, 'Well, maybe I don't want to do this for the rest of my life. It's not fun anymore.' That's when I decided to try it on my own. I never had any big plans and I still don't. We all know this is a finicky business. We're fine today. Tomorrow, who knows?”

But Terrazas Thoroughbreds had found plenty of successes over the years. Along with St. George Stable, their client list has included White Fox Farm and Corser Thoroughbreds, who recently bred 2023 GI Pacific Classic S. winner Arabian Knight (Uncle Mo).

Terrazas credits their operation's success to keeping things simple and hands on. He and his daughter, Jenny, take their time with each and every horse.

“My daughter and I do all the dirty work,” he said. “We foal every single horse. When we are raising horses, we just try to stay out of their way. Our horses come in each morning, eat, and an hour later they go back outside.”

Terrazas Thoroughbreds will consign horses, but only those that they foaled and raised themselves. Terrazas said he wants buyers to have the confidence factor of speaking to a consignor that has known the horse for his entire life.

“I've never run an ad; it's all by word of mouth,” he shared. “I turn down mares every year because I'd rather say no than do a bad job.”

Terrazas said that being able to share his passion for the business with his daughter is what gets him out of bed for those late night foalings and the early morning feedings.

“I've always joked to people that if it wasn't for my daughter, I probably would have quit a while ago and just gotten a real job,” he admitted. “I tried to steer her away from a young age, but it didn't work out. She loves it. She's a very hard worker. She's a lot like me. You can be out here with triple pneumonia or whatever and still show up. I'm very proud of her. To see these horses doing so well is just unbelievable and to see our clients do good is really what we're here for.”

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Taylor Made’s Foaling Season Starts with Flightline’s First Foal

Foaling season is off to a flying start at Taylor Made Farm as they're already up to nearly a dozen foals on the ground. Everything has gone smoothly so far, but a real showstopper came early when they welcomed the first foal by Horse of the Year Flightline. A star-faced bay filly with a bit of chrome on her hind legs, the new arrival is also the first foal out of Grade I winner Juju's Map (Liam's Map).

“It's really a blessing to have such a well-bred horse here,” said Frank Taylor. “She's got a great attitude and she is strong and healthy. Everything is going great so far. The mare is by Liam's Map, who is a half-brother to Not This Time. Those are two of the best horses we ever raised, so it's really exciting to have this filly on the farm.”

Bred by Fred W. Hertrich III, Juju's Map was a $300,000 Keeneland September purchase for the Albaugh family. She broke her maiden in her second start for Brad Cox and went on to claim the 2021 GI Darley Alcibiades S. and run second to Echo Zulu (Gun Runner) in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies. A winner and three times graded stakes placed at three, Juju's Map was sent through the ring at the Keeneland November Sale in 2022, but she RNA'd for $1.9 million and stayed with the Albaugh family.

Taylor said the mating of Flightline and Juju's Map produced a good blend of both Grade I-caliber horses.

“The filly has the looks of Flightline, but she also has some of the mare,” he explained. “The mating matches up well physically and pedigree-wise, and you're just breeding the best to the best and hoping for the best.”

Taylor added that Juju's Map will visit Curlin in 2024.

Sara Gordon

As for the foal, Taylor hypothesized that for now, it's a coin toss as to whether the youngster would one day see the sales ring or race in the Albaugh silks. The filly's broodmare sire and his family carry a well-known story on just that subject.

“We had Liam's Map here as a yearling and the Albaughs really never sold many of their horses,” Taylor recalled. “He was by Unbridled's Song and he was the best yearling on the farm, so we talked them into selling him. He brought $800,000 and we were all very excited about the way he sold until he won the GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile and they syndicated him for a lot more than $800,000. Then fast forward and Mr. Albaugh was back here and we were showing him the Giant's Causeway colt out of same mare and we said, 'Man, this one could bring maybe $1 million or $2 million.' His response was,' Not this time.'”

Not This Time, who was runner-up in the 2016 GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile for Dennis Albaugh and his family, stands for $150,000 this year as a fifth-crop sire at Taylor Made and is now embarking on a career as a sire of sires with 3-year-old champion Epicenter beginning his second year at Ashford Stud and MGISW Up to the Mark debuting at Lane's End.

Plenty of superbly bred horses will hit the ground at Taylor Made in the coming weeks, but Taylor said there is no denying that having the first foal by a horse like the undefeated Flightline–who stood for $200,000 and covered 152 mares in his debut season–is a special honor.

“You dream about these horses become great racehorses and this filly is really bred to go a distance, so maybe someday we'll see her in the Oaks,” he said. “That'd be a dream come true.”

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Symbiosis of Breeders, Gluck Equine Research Center Reaches New Heights

When Dr. Emma Adam took on the role of equine outreach veterinarian in 2018, the University of Kentucky's Department of Veterinary Science hoped that the renewed position could continue to bridge the gap between their research and diagnostic laboratories and the industry that they serve.

With five years now under her belt in the role, Adam is pleased with the strides that have been made in fostering relationships with the equine community–particularly within the Thoroughbred business in Central Kentucky–and she is optimistic that those connections will lead to further advancements in the coming years.

While Adam's role encompasses outreach for both UK's Maxwell H. Gluck Equine Research Center and the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, she said the Diagnostic Lab has always been more outward facing by nature so her initial goal was to bring more external emphasis to the research center.

“Our entire community wants to be better connected with our industry stakeholders, but bandwidths can limit that reality,” Adam explained. “I think everyone recognized the need for someone who had practice and industry experience and could bring that to the Gluck Center to connect it with what we do within the building. Researchers are so busy trying to fund their projects and write papers that the time available to get out there and interact with our industry was getting less and less. We needed to take a step back and say, 'What do we need to do to remain connecting what is happening in our industry with what is happening in our academic community and vice versa, so that we can help each other?'”

Adam's background in racing has served her well in her position, which was spearheaded by Nancy Cox, UK's Vice President for land-grant engagement and Dean of Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment. A native of Newmarket, England, Adam was immersed in the racing and breeding industry from a young age as she grew up on a commercial farm and was first familiarized with the racing side of the business when she worked for champion trainer Sir Michael Stoute. As a practicing veterinarian, she worked in various racing and breeding-related positions around the globe before deciding to return to academia and earn her PhD at UK's Department of Veterinary Science. From there, she stepped into her current role.

Making connections with farm managers and veterinarians has proven to be invaluable as Adam has worked to get the word out on the Gluck Center's mission and increase awareness among owners and breeders on the resources that the research center has to offer.

“Our research community is brilliant, but reaching them is sometimes difficult,” Adam admitted. “We have a fantastic network here through the Consignors and Commercial Breeders Association, the Kentucky Thoroughbred Farm Managers Club and our veterinary community. While we'd always love for it to be bigger, we're developing a stronger network of people that know we're here to help.”

Dr. Emma Adam | photo courtesy Emma Adam

When breeders have issues arise, such as pregnancy loss, the Gluck Center's team coordinates with the Diagnostic Lab, veterinarians and farm managers to investigate those problems.

“We will go through lots of different parameters with the veterinarian and the farm manager and take some colleagues that might help with such things as examining the pastures,” Adam explained. “We'll do hay, soil and water analysis, and examine records for each mare. We'll work closely with our colleagues in the Diagnostic Lab so we can connect any dots that might be available to look at from the perspective of those unfortunate pregnancy losses.”

“We may not always arrive at an answer, but along the way we'll have often found out some other things that we can be more vigilant for,” she continued. “Those things might include checking to make sure that we're testing our pastures for things like tall fescue or trying to avoid stress when moving mares to different pastures. Everybody brings something to the table and we chew it all over and see if we currently have what we think is the best possible plan for that farm and then offer help to implement it if we can.”

Adam stressed that confidentiality and trust are important aspects of the work they do with commercial breeding farms.

“We have very strict confidentiality obligations and we take them very seriously,” she said. “All samples and veterinary and farm interactions are completely confidential. We recognize that it is vital that people can trust everything we do, not only with the quality of our science but in how we handle those interactions. We're very fortunate that people are generous with their information and we respect that they have entrusted us with it.”

Building relationships with more breeding farms throughout Central Kentucky has been an ongoing goal that Adam said she believes will lead to mutually beneficial results for both the research center and breeders.

One example of how this reciprocity has led to research findings is in the Gluck's studies on nocardioform placentitis, a cause of late-term abortions and perinatal deaths. Recent studies on this disease have been made possible in large part by the samples researchers have received from local farms. Efforts are ongoing with the goal of developing an early-warning diagnostic test for the condition and better understanding how and when mares are exposed.

The breeding industry supports the Gluck not only in supplying samples, but on occasion, in providing much-needed financial support. When a rash of neonatal foal diarrhea broke out in the spring of 2021, the general consensus was that the cases behaved like Equine Rotavirus A, however diagnostic tests were coming back negative. Upon closer examination, UK virologists Drs. Feng Li and Dan Wang were able to perform genomic sequencing on samples to determine that a new strain of Rotavirus had emerged.

The Kentucky Thoroughbred Association, Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Foundation, The Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation, Coolmore America, Consignors and Commercial Breeders Association and the William S. Farish Fund provided gifts to develop a research plan to develop a vaccine. This summer, work is being done to test new vaccine candidates that are hoped will provide protection to foals against Equine Rotavirus B.

“That is a perfect example of how our industry is really trying to help itself by helping us,” said Adam. “We're very fortunate to have a relationship where they recognize that we're here and trying to help and where they support us in that effort because there is so little money for equine research. When it comes to things that are a bit more niche like foaling mares, it is even harder to get funds to do the kind of work that is relevant to our industry.”

Adam explained that the concentration of mares bred and foaled in Central Kentucky can oftentimes lead people to falsely believe that the area has more problems than other places. Instead, she described how the community's outstanding veterinarians and farm managers endow the region with a culture of constant vigilance and a drive to understand every problem encountered.

“Everything is so close here,” she shared. “You don't have to drive more than an hour from any of these farms to get to our world-class Veterinary Diagnostic Lab that sees probably more horses and horse samples than any lab globally. What that means is we're able to, as best as we possibly can, explore and understand what happened and how can we might prevent it in future. That is not something that a lot of other places can access so easily.”

Moving forward as a growing number of local farms have started utilizing the Gluck's resources, Adam's next goal is to develop ways to gather data each year from surveys and surveillance sampling. These findings will be used to build profiles of how data is changing over time. The Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory website collates some of these data, but Adam said she wishes to extend the survey to the farm level.

“We can take that data gathering further in asking our stakeholders to help us generate information on the things we deal with on a farm level–for example, pregnancy losses, red bag deliveries, foal diarrhea cases, yearling respiratory disease and so the list goes on,” she explained. “These data are absolutely essential to inform and direct our research not just at the local level here in the department, but from the perspective of being able to go out there and fight for the funding from the grant agencies to get that research done.”

Embarking on such a project is only possible with the collaboration of the entire Thoroughbred breeding industry in Central Kentucky, but Adam said she is counting on both the relationships that are newly formed and in others that have flourished over the years.

“The Department's footprint in our community continues to grow and that is a culture all of us in the University are keen to expand,” she said. “Taken together we have extraordinary natural and human resources here in Kentucky to serve and support our industry locally and worldwide.”

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Ramspring Farm Hits the Mark with a Top-Class Turfer

The rest of the Patrick family had all come and gone by the time Belle's Finale (Ghostzapper) was preparing to sell at the 2017 Keeneland November Sale, but Mary Leigh Patrick was there to watch as the pretty bay mare stepped into the ring. Mary Leigh had decided to hold out for the rest of the session, hoping to find one last addition for Ramspring Farm's broodmare band ahead of another breeding season.

The octogenarian knew she had accomplished the mission when she spotted Belle's Finale, an unraced 3-year-old out of GISW Capote Belle (Capote) carrying her first foal by Not This Time, and she secured the winning $70,000 bid.

Mary Leigh's son Clay Patrick, an attorney in their home town of Frankfort who also works alongside his mother to oversee the daily operations of Ramspring, has spent decades observing his mother's knack for scoping out value at the breeding sale.

“She just loves horses, period,” he explained. “She could look at horses all day long, 24/7. She goes into the sales and waits until the last one sells, making sure they don't slip through the cracks. She's very good at spotting a good-looking horse and finding a new mare that might be a good addition for the broodmare band.”

While the acquisition of Belle's Finale exemplifies her purchaser's bargain buying routine, the mare's accomplishments since she arrived at Ramspring have been far from ordinary as her son Up to the Mark (Not This Time) has emerged as one the top turf horses in the country.

When the Patricks were impressed with Belle's Finale's first foal, they sent the mare back to Not This Time and the resulting foal was Up to the Mark. The February-foaled colt was a standout throughout his time at Ramspring.

Clay Patrick recalled how their team, along with Taylor Made advisor Stuart Angus, always thought highly of the youngster.

“Stuart comes out frequently and inspects the horses and the foals and he gives them a grade,” Patrick explained. “I think the colt was one of the few horses that he's ever given an A- grade to on every occasion that he saw him. He was very handsome, a very good-looking young foal from the day he was born until he went to the sales ring.”

While Patrick described sending the colt through the Keeneland September ring to sell for $450,000 as a thrill, he said it has been even more gratifying to watch Up to the Mark's rise to the top of the sport this year.

Up to the Mark gets a second Grade I victory in the Manhattan S. | Sarah Andrew

The Todd Pletcher-trained, Repole Stable and St. Elias Stables-campaigned 4-year-old has made a name for himself after switching to the turf, recently reeling off masterful performances in the GI Old Forester Bourbon Turf Classic S. and the GI Resorts World Casino Manhattan S.

“When he turned for home, it was just a thrill,” Patrick said of the recent victory on Belmont weekend. “The hair stood up on the back of my neck when he got loose. Just seeing the horse that you nurtured and took care of from conception to the day he was a mature athlete ready to run was something. Todd Pletcher and the owners have done a super job with him.”

Up to the Mark was one of the 12 to 15 foals Ramspring Farm breeds every year. The breed-to-sell operation focuses on quality over quantity and has been a family business from the beginning.

Mary Leigh and her husband Mac, a surgeon and businessman deeply involved in the Frankfort community, purchased the 200-acre farm in 1976. They named it after the spring located on the property that once had a ram pump system used to send the spring water uphill for livestock.

“I think it was something that they always wanted to do,” Patrick explained about his parents' desire to get involved in the horse business. “They had it in their mind that they wanted to and then once they took the plunge and got into it, it was in their blood.”

Bail Out Becky (Red Ransom) was one of the first horses to gain the Patricks recognition in the Thoroughbred world when she won the 1995 GI Del Mar Oaks and earned over $700,000 for Ken and Sarah Ramsey. Other standouts among the stakes winners to come off the farm over the years include MGSW Lead Story (Editor's Note), 2012 GI Florida Derby runner-up Reveron (Songandaprayer), the MGISP 2017 GIII Turnback the Alarm H. winner Eskenformoney (Eskendereya) and GSP Winning Envelope (More Than Ready).

Ramspring Farm sits alongside the Kentucky River and as the crow flies, is just over a mile from where Dr. James Crow is said to have perfected the sour mash fermentation process used to produce bourbon. Appropriately, the farm is in the early stages of launching their own Ramspring Farm Kentucky Bourbon.

As a teenager growing up at Ramspring, Patrick–who is the youngest of three children–developed his own admiration for the land, the horses and the business.

Unique outbuildings at Ramspring Farm | Katie Petrunyak

“I've always enjoyed being out here and have spent a ton of my time on the farm,” he explained. “The most exciting part for me was to see the foals grow up here and make their way to the sales and hopefully do well on the racetrack. I've moved out here and built a house on the farm.”

Last summer the farm's patriarch, Dr. Patrick, passed away at the age of 87. Mary Leigh continues to oversee the operation from their home that overlooks several of the farm's main pastures, but she now has two more generations of Patricks who have developed their own passion for the land.

“My mother has always taken care of most of the aspects of the farm and is continuing to do so,” Patrick said. “I have three boys and they all enjoy the farm and we combine to take care of it, along with all of the good people that we have working out here. I think the fact that it's a family affair is the most special part of it. We've had a lot of special events and family outings out here. To have the whole family enjoy it is special.”

The farm's star broodmare Belle's Finale has a pipeline of foals that has the Ramspring team excited for the future. While her foal of 2021 died of colic complications, she has two youngsters on the ground and she recently checked in foal to Not This Time.

Her yearling colt by McKinzie is pointing for the Keeneland September Sale.

Belle's Finale and her Maxfield colt | Katie Petrunyak

“He's got a lot of his sire in him and is a big, strong colt,” Patrick shared. “He's got a very powerful motor on him and looks like he's going to be a runner.”

This spring, Belle's Finale foaled a colt from the first crop of Maxfield on April 12.

“The Maxfield is a stoic individual who has a good head on his shoulders and looks great,” said Patrick. “He looks like an A physical to me.”

Until those youngsters hit the sales ring, the Patrick family will await news of Up to the Mark's next challenge as his connections point for a bid in the Breeders' Cup this fall.

“I would say he's definitely the best that we've ever had here,” Patrick said. “That hair-raising experience of seeing him turning for home and giving that final kick, it's something to behold.”

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