Second Chances: Gun Runner Connections ‘Hoping for Another Strike of Lightning’ with Pricey Curlin Colt Gun Party

In this continuing series, TDN's Senior Racing Editor Steve Sherack catches up with the connections of promising maidens to keep on your radar.

With a ton of steam behind impressive debut winner Just a Touch (Justify) heading into Saturday's GIII Gotham S., the second-place finisher's come-from-behind effort over a sloppy, sealed track that day at Fair Grounds may look even better after this weekend.

Off at debut odds of 10-1 for Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen, Gun Party (c, 3, Curlin–Carina Mia, by Malibu Moon) trailed the field of eight beneath Brian Hernandez, Jr. in the early stages of the six-furlong affair Jan. 27.

Guided to the inside to race in fifth through an opening quarter in :22.25, the Three Chimneys Farm and Winchell Thoroughbreds colorbearer began to wind up with a rail run as Just a Touch gained command approaching the quarter pole.

Gun Party gamely split horses and moved into second as Just a Touch pulled well clear in the stretch. Gun Party finished with interest while posing no threat to the winner to cross the line a geared-down second, beaten 4 1/4 lengths. It was another 5 1/4 lengths back to the third-place finisher.

Gun Party earned an 80 Beyer Speed Figure for the effort. The Brad Cox-trained Just a Touch received an 89 rating.

“That looks like a really legit horse,” Three Chimneys Vice Chairman Doug Cauthen said of Just a Touch, the 5-2 morning-line favorite in the Gotham.

“We were very pleased and satisfied with (Gun Party's) effort because we knew that was a tough spot. Steve (Asmussen) had mentioned that he missed some time with him–he had gotten sick–and at this point, you're hoping that you can kick along and get into the big races. But at the end of the day, Steve's just letting the horse lead him. We think a lot of him. It's a great pedigree, a great cross and there's a lot of hope. But time will tell.”

 

Carina Mia | Coady

Produced by 2016 GI Acorn S. winner and 'TDN Rising Star' Carina Mia (Malibu Moon), Gun Party brought $1.7 million from these connections as a yearling on day one of the 2022 Keeneland September sale to dissolve a partnership.

Gun Party, the third most expensive of 60 yearlings to switch hands by the mighty Curlin in 2022, was bred in Kentucky by Three Chimneys Farm and Hill 'n' Dale Equine Holdings, Inc.

Third carrying the Three Chimneys silks in her career finale in the 2017 GI Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint, Carina Mia brought $2.6 million from Japan's Shadai Farm at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton November sale.

Gun Party is bred on the same Curlin x Malibu Moon cross as champion Stellar Wind. He is also bred similarly to fellow Curlin-sired champions Malathaat and Nest as well as Curlin-sired GISWs Clairiere, Global Campaign, Idol and Paris Lights.

“There were a bunch of partnership mares with Hill 'n' Dale, and when that group (of yearlings) went to the sale, he was a key one that was targeted,” Cauthen said. “Ron (Winchell) liked him as well so he came into the partnership. Hopefully, that team will have some more luck.”

That team of Winchell Thoroughbreds, Three Chimneys Farm and Asmussen, of course, also campaigned 2017 Horse of the Year and GI Breeders' Cup Classic winner Gun Runner (Candy Ride {Arg}). The leading young sire currently commands a $250,000 stud fee at Goncalo Borges Torrealba's operation.

“Goncalo is very partner-friendly and usually asks the partners to name horses,” Cauthen said. “Ron's team came up with Gun Party. Think he's hoping for another strike of lightning.”

Gun Party has breezed three times since his unveiling, most recently working five furlongs in 1:01 (4/22) at Fair Grounds Feb. 25.

“I think Steve's trying to decide which direction to go,” Cauthen said. “More than likely he's gonna run in the next couple of weeks, but we're letting him decide.”

The 'Second Chances' Honor Roll is headed by recently crowned Horse of the Year Cody's Wish (Curlin), fellow two-time Breeders' Cup winner Golden Pal (Uncle Mo) and GISWs A Mo Reay (Uncle Mo), Honor A. P. (Honor Code), Locked (Gun Runner), Paradise Woods (Union Rags) and Speaker's Corner (Street Sense).

The post Second Chances: Gun Runner Connections ‘Hoping for Another Strike of Lightning’ with Pricey Curlin Colt Gun Party appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Top ‘Gun’ Rewards Chris Baker’s Belief in ‘Run’

On the spectrum of Thoroughbred stallions, you won't find too many either side of Gun Runner and Despot. One, charging $250,000 a dance at Three Chimneys, is the most immediately accomplished sire of recent times. The other was claimed for $350 at Waterford Park, some 50 years ago, before being set to work annually producing a handful of half-breds in rural Maryland.

“Liver chestnut son of Stevward,” says the man whose career unites this unlikely pair. “You should have seen us trying to figure out how to breed mares on our own. 'Grab her tail.' There were no helmets and vests worn, I can guarantee you that.”

Chris Baker, chief operating officer at Three Chimneys for the past decade, chuckles at the memory.

“My father, in essence, thought that no uterus should be empty,” he says. “From cows to horses, to cats, dogs, everything. Breed, breed, breed. An old Catholic thing, I guess! But that's where the whole horse thing started.”

It has been quite an odyssey since. Crucially, in a sector of the industry that often feels culpably divorced from its ostensible purpose, Baker cut his teeth on the racetrack. He started at a barn that then housed A.P. Indy, and for a time was even a trainer himself. Baker went on to adapt those experiences to the challenges of breeding, so well that 11 years as general manager for Ned Evans at Spring Hill Farm yielded over 100 stakes winners, including another Horse of the Year in Saint Liam. During a stint at WinStar, he welcomed into the world yet another that would earn those laurels; and now Gun Runner and Baker have together brought their careers to fulfilment in the service of the Torrealba family at Three Chimneys.

Baker cuts a striking figure, nowadays, silver hair flowing beneath the broad brim of his hat. But the ease of his demeanor and conversation has been fully earned: the insights kindly shared with The TDN remind us that none of these things happen overnight, nor by accident.

Baker's forefathers were themselves achieving pretty high production. Baker himself is sixth of seven children; his father was one of nine kids from McKees Rocks, Pittsburgh; and his grandfather, in turn, was one of nine, seven being boys.

All seven brothers went into the family business: a bakery, inevitably. The one who became Baker's grandfather was charged with the care of 100 carthorses that delivered bread for the Baker Brothers Bakery.

“My dad tells of going with his father in a buckboard wagon at weekends to try out replacements for horses that had been retired, or come up lame,” he recalls. “One time this horse just wouldn't go and, after driving away at him for a mile or so, they turn round to go back. And then the horse just takes off. They can't stop him. He's running through the cobblestone streets like a lunatic, all the way back into the barn, where he comes to a screeching halt, dust flying everywhere.”

The panting driver leaned down to his sons cowering in the bottom of the wagon. His words have since been humorously invoked at any appropriate juncture in Baker family history: “Boys, whatever you do, don't tell your mother.”

It is to this gentleman that Baker traces his affinity for horses-though there were also weekends and summers at the farm owned by his other grandfather, an hour or so from his boyhood home in Washington, DC. This one was an attorney (as was Baker's own father) but also raised cattle and tobacco on 600 acres.

“So really we did a lot of our growing up in the country,” Baker says. “And we were riding before we could walk. There were horses for everybody- buckskins, palominos, Tennessee walkers-just not saddles or bridles for everybody! If you were the last to the tack room, you'd be riding with a halter and rope.”

The most expensive was a Chincoteague pony bought by his father for $45. But then a neighbors' daughter went away to college and gave her hunting mare, a retired Thoroughbred, to the Bakers. Suddenly they had a new sense of what a horse could be. Soon they started claiming the odd Thoroughbred from places like Charles Town and Mountaineer, Despot among them.

“And then somebody told my father that a stallion needs to be exercised,” Baker recalls. “Which is right. But next thing I'm the one, at 10 years old, getting run off with, all over the farm.”

Sometimes he would also be told to ride a mare to a nearby farm that stood Quarter Horse stallions. ([Its owners were raising a boy of their own into the game: the future veterinarian, Steve Allday.] Baker remembers being told to stand his mare uphill, and put his shoulder into her chest so that she might keep still. One way or another, then, it was a pretty seasoned young horseman who went off to read Agriculture and Animal Science at the University of Maryland.

It was during his college years that Baker first sampled racetrack work, at Bowie, and subsequently a three-year grounding at Lane's End included stints at Churchill and Keeneland with the farm's trainer at the time, Neil Howard. Baker had been a sufficiently able high school athlete-football, track, wrestling-to have developed an interest in physiological preparation. First and foremost, however, he had grasped that anybody intending to breed racehorses should understand the requirements of those who trained them.

Baker served as Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella's assistant for several years | Benoit

“I believe my experience on the racetrack makes me a way better farm manager,” Baker acknowledges. “And that was very intentional. It was something deeply ignited in me at that age, my early 20s: how could I breed and raise an athlete without seeing that athlete in training and in competition?”

True, that apprenticeship extended far beyond his expectations. He went to Australia and England, to see how things were done there; and ended up serving four years as assistant trainer to Richard Mandella. His resume by then included a year with Neil Drysdale, on hand when a $2.9 million son of Seattle Slew broke his maiden at Santa Anita. Baker was still very junior, at that time, but A.P. Indy gave him a glimpse of the elite Thoroughbred; and Mandella would now provide a wider perspective.

“Richard was a great teacher,” he recalls. “A great taskmaster, as well! I mean, you were going to learn, or you weren't going to be around at all. So I learned a tremendous amount about hard work and horsemanship, the kind that leaves no stone unturned. But also in terms of character, and approach to life.”

Within months Phone Chatter and Kotashaan (Fr) had won at the Breeders' Cup, while the South American conveyor belt would bring the likes of Siphon (Brz) and Gentlemen (Arg).

“Those horses had to go through a lot of filters to make it here,” Baker reflects. “Some had a lot of stamina in their pedigrees and, especially in California, you had to have speed as well. But most of them had good foot, good bone, some constitution. Watching Richard adapting both South American and French horses to U.S. methods, the acclimatization process, the patience required, was a fantastic education. At the same time, of course, he's getting horses like Afternoon Deelites and Soul of the Matter. At one time we had 40 horses in the barn and eight were Grade I winners. It was just a great environment, a great lab to study in.”

Eventually Baker became so absorbed by the track that he thought he might never leave. He took out a license, trained 11 winners over a couple of years. But then he got married, soon a daughter appeared, and a nomadic and uncertain existence became impractical. He returned to Kentucky and worked on a couple of farms until sounded out by his former employers at Lane's End about their client, Edward P. Evans, who was seeking a manager for his farm in Virginia.

Inauspiciously, Evans was doing so for the fourth time in five years. But it suited Baker, as a young father, to be close to family and he backed himself to forge a relationship with this notoriously demanding employer.

“He was tough but fair,” Baker says. “And he expected results. As his brother Shel told me, 'In Ned's life, nobody avoids the penalty box.' But so long as you were doing what you were supposed to, and helping him achieve his goals, he was a great guy to work for. So I just went in and worked hard, was honest and clear with him. And, as we got to know each other, we built some trust and mutual respect.

“He was a very intelligent guy. He could take what looked like complex situations, and distill them to one simple actionable item that would drive success. He read people well, read business well. And he had a highly developed bullshit monitor!”

Evans had been only 27 when buying the farm back in 1969.

“He'd always bred to good stallions: Northern Dancer, Mr. Prospector, Halo,” Baker says. “He'd bred to The Minstrel at Windfields in Maryland and got Minstrella, a champion 2-year-old [in Europe]. But having been operating with 20, 30 mares, the whole scale changed when he sold out of Macmillan [the publishing firm]. That was when he got right up to 90 mares, and his whole intent and focus changed. So when I fell in, it was Year 31 of a 42-year experiment. All the ingredients were there-the physical plant, the bloodstock-and he just needed somebody to help orchestrate things, from an operational standpoint. So, again, it was fortunate timing on my part.”

By that stage Baker had long been absorbed by pedigrees. He was barely 10 when his father would throw him the stallion edition of Maryland Horse to help pick a $1,500 sire. But now he could mix from a much larger palette, including Pleasant Tap-Evans had inherited a third share from his father-and homebreds like Silver Ghost and Stormin Fever.

By the time Evans died, on the last day of 2010, they had raised Saint Liam [sold as a yearling] and Quality Road, whose stud career has lavishly benefited his late breeder's charitable foundation.

“I didn't know everything about managing a farm,” Baker says. “Still don't. But I knew what I didn't know, and knew people to call to fill in the gaps. Working for Mr. Evans was like getting an MBA. We'd go over the financial statements on a monthly basis, we'd go over the annual budgeting with his controller in New York. To that point, I had focused my entire career on developing my horsemanship. But he opened my eyes to the macro, business level.”

Three Chimneys owner Goncalo Torrealba | Keeneland

In the process Baker also obtained a rare, cradle-to-grave perspective on equine potential. When preparing the Spring Hill dispersal, then, Baker was still presiding over matings and foalings, still liaising with pre-trainers and trainers. The authority with which he did so plainly impressed Benjamin Leon, who bought several of the mares and invited Baker to follow them into his operation. Baker having committed to WinStar, however, Leon said: “Chris, these mares are your handiwork. They should be with you. Will you ask Mr. Troutt if I can board them at WinStar?”

So it was that Baker came to be present when Saint Liam's $3 million half-sister Quiet Giant (Giant's Causeway) delivered a Candy Ride colt on 8 March, 2013. He still has a photo of the foal standing for the first time. A few months later, Baker was hired by the new owners of Three Chimneys-but he would not be parted long from Gun Runner.

By typical horseracing happenstance (Goncalo Torrealba's sister and Leon were both clients of the same Miami hairdresser) Leon invited the Torrealbas to his suite for the 2014 Kentucky Derby. Leon hit it off with Torrealba, and was invited to stay at Three Chimneys next time he was in town. When he did so, they look Baker to see all Leon's stock-and very soon sealed a partnership in everything that had come out of Spring Hill.

“So then all those horses were here with me at Three Chimneys,” marvels Baker. “If that's not luck, I don't know what is. It's fantastic, just makes the whole thing very, very meaningful. Because of the long connections, the multiple generations of multiple families.”

This has allowed Baker an emotionally gratifying stake in the outcomes of his own long diligence. Sure, he has only ever monetized his contribution as a salary; but he has felt privileged, throughout, to participate in his employers' far-sightedness.

“For so many people in our industry, just to make ends meet, the goal is to make a profit every time they can,” he acknowledges. “I've been fortunate to benefit from a completely different mindset: to focus on results, on accomplishing things, and ultimately to make a business profitable that way instead.”

The point being that with adequate resources and patience, this approach will eventually pay off commercially, too.

“I remember sitting down with Mr. Evans one time, and we were deciding between two stallions for this mare,” Baker recalls. “And I said, 'Well Mr. Evans, Pleasant Tap suits her greatly, but it's not really a commercial mating. Commercially, you'd want this one instead.' And he replied, 'Commercial sires? Racehorse sires? Who doesn't want a racehorse?' I mean, he could afford to kind of push that aside. But it was so black and white to him: if you can breed a racehorse, you'll be doing the right thing for your mare, for the family, for the whole thing.”

Of course this all ties in with Baker's grounding on the backside. His whole career has been oriented to finding a runner.

“Plenty of people that haven't had that racetrack experience have raised a lot of good horses,” Baker stresses. “I just know that for me, it makes me significantly better, because I understand what's going to be asked of them. I understand physically, mentally, even socially, things that might set them up to succeed. At the end of the day, as producers, we can't make them faster or better than they're individually hardwired to be. But by doing or especially not doing certain things, we can stay out of the way of them reaching their full potential.”

Gun Runner | Sarah K. Andrew

Gun Runner, as such, could not be better named. He's only top “gun”, after all, because he was all “run”. To Baker, of course, the horse will always have an unusually personal resonance. Knowing him so intimately, how does he account for Gun Runner's genetic prowess?

“Well, I certainly can't attribute it to any one thing,” he replies. “I think he's an alchemy of so many things that just came together. The only extremes of Gun Runner are his athleticism and his temperament, his will to win. Mental constitution, as much as anything. If you look at him, he's not too big, not too small; and his pedigree, also, suits a broad spectrum of mares. There's a melding of so many things: the brilliance of Candy Ride, the stamina and durability of Giant's Causeway. And you can go all the way back to Gallorette [foaled in 1942]. Just read her race record, and then keep tipping up the line!”

With this fulfilment of former patrons' legacy, then, Baker's present employment has brought things full circle. He repeatedly insists that he has been fortunate, “all the way through my career, to be in the right place at the right time.” But you also make your own luck. It was only because three different people-Evans, Leon and Torrealba-all recognized the skills of this “fabulous Baker boy” that a single set of fingerprints has remained, almost the whole way through, over one of the most remarkable Thoroughbreds on the planet.

“The Torrealba family has afforded us the opportunity to work with a lot of great horses, and a lot of great people,” Baker says gratefully. “All the way through my career, accomplishment has come through people having the right goals, the right stock, doing the right work. I do think I've worked hard for everybody who's been willing to employ me, but I also think I've been very fortunate to have people that believed in me, and in the teams that we could put together. It always takes a team effort, backed up with good stock and good facilities, and Three Chimneys is certainly an extension of that. So really the only way of looking at it is probably that I've been spoiled, right?”

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Case Clay at Magic Millions

by Jessica Owers and Oz Wedmore, TDNAusNZ

Case Clay was in the headlines last month with his announcement that, after 20 years with Three Chimneys Farm, he was going solo. This week he finds himself on the Gold Coast, and we caught up with him to learn a little more about the next chapter of his career.

Nearly 20 years ago, American bloodstock agent Case Clay did an interview with a local Kentucky newspaper. He said that succession, complicated as it was when it came to family business, didn't always go to plan.

Succession was something Clay knew all about as a young man and native of Midway, Kentucky, because his father, Robert Clay, founded Three Chimneys Farm in the early 1970s, which stood among its pastures the likes of Seattle Slew and Dynaformer.

In that 2004 interview, Clay said his father had never asked him to join him at Three Chimneys Farm, but the more the pair talked, the more the younger Clay learned about the racing and breeding industry.

By the time 2013 came along, and the Goncalo Torrealba family bought a controlling interest in Three Chimneys Farm, Case Clay was well on his way in a brilliant industry career of his own.

This week, the American finds himself ensconced on the Gold Coast, with its palm trees, stiff sunshine and Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.

“There aren't many industries that would allow me to go swimming the surf in the morning, then go straight to work,” Case said, speaking to TDN AusNZ. “This is a global business and it's taking us to places we may not otherwise get to go.”

Arrowfield Years…

Clay's bloodstock duties are just one feather in his cap these days.

In America, he is the racing manager for Willis Horton Racing, he has an equine insurance business and buys horses for various clients and, in Australia, he is the American representative for Arrowfield Stud. He manages about 20 mares on this side of the world for clients, but his relationship with Arrowfield goes back a long way.

“I worked for Arrowfield about 20 years ago and John Messara has been a mentor for me,” Clay said. “So, about five years ago, I started working for Arrowfield again, this time as an American representative. We recruited some mares down here to Australia, and there are few of their offspring selling at this very sale this week.”

In those early years that Clay was at Arrowfield, Redoute's Choice (Aus) had his first crop to the track and Not A Single Doubt (Aus), his white-socked son, won the Strawberry Hill Slipper at Wyong, leading home Oratorio (Aus).

That was in 2003 and Clay was trackside at Wyong that afternoon with Messara. One start later, Not A Single Doubt won the Listed Canonbury S.

“John and his partners were very encouraged about what Redoute's might do, so it was very exciting to see how it's developed,” Clay said.

One of Clay's interesting sidenotes this week is his association with the American stallion Gun Runner, which, given Gun Runner has no yearlings on the Gold Coast this week, isn't as odd as it first sounds.

The Three Chimneys stallion was announced in 2022 as being offered to Southern Hemisphere time.

Gun Runner has got off to a really great start in America, and the goal is to see what he can do in Australia and Japan,” Clay said. “He's already had some in the pipeline from his third and fourth crop, and there's some breeding this year in 2023, and they're trying to expand that in the Japanese and Australian markets.”

Clay has complete faith that Gun Runner, a six-time Grade I winner, will work in Australia. The horse is an ideal outcross, which will suit so much of the local broodmare band that is heavily Danehill-influenced.

Additionally, Gun Runner is from a Giant's Causeway mare, and that's a sire line that has worked in these waters in the past.

So how does Clay think breeders should access Gun Runner in Kentucky?

“I would think the most logical way in, to keep expenses down in not sending a mare up and then back, would be to purchase a mare either privately or in the November sales in Kentucky,” Clay said. “Then either breed on Southern Hemisphere time and ship down, or, if the mare is already pregnant, foal down and then breed to southern time before shipping down.”

It's a routine that Australasian breeders are getting used to, especially in the last few years with the popularity of Frankel (GB) and that horse's brilliant strike rate in Australia. At Banstead Manor, Frankel is likely to cover around 50 mares in the European off-season, meaning plenty of breeders have committed.

“I think you get what you pay for,” Clay said. “It's a quality exercise.”

Friends in High Places…

Just before Christmas, Clay announced his departure from Three Chimneys Farm. He'd done a lot of things in his life, like graduating with an economics degree from DePauw University, and even working in advertising for a time, but for 20 years professionally, he'd been with Three Chimneys in Kentucky.

It was a farm he knew all about, right from his parents' tenure through to the Torrealba era, and he was critical in recent years to its client relationships, both domestically and abroad.

Somewhere in the middle, he had started Case Clay Thoroughbred Management, a bloodstock agency of sorts. It negotiates private and auction purchases, manages portfolios and makes representations, among other services, all the while with Clay in his role at Three Chimneys Farm.

But the time came to go it alone and he kept the farm on as a vital client, which will only work in Gun Runner's favour.

Case isn't a stranger to sire power, growing up, as he did, on Three Chimneys. The property has been home to Seattle Slew and Dynaformer, as mentioned, but also to the likes of Rahy, among others.

“I feel lucky to have grown up at Three Chimneys who, by way of Seattle Slew, had a lot of top-end breeder clients,” Clay said. “Some of those clients have become generational, lifelong friends, from Kentucky to Europe, Australia and Japan. And we just happen to buy and sell horses to and from each other, which has been mutually beneficial. My other clients have found it valuable as well because they have private access to top stock.”

A good example of this symbiosis is the German-bred mare Dalika (Ger) (Pastorius {Ger}).

As a 2-year-old, she caught the eye of Bal Mar Equine's Paul Varga, who was keen to buy her from Germany. The filly's then owner, Gestut Ammerland, was a long-time client of Three Chimneys and, via good friend Crispin de Moubray, Clay helped to make the purchase happen. Dalika went on to be a Grade I winner.

Another example was the Distorted Humor mare Magical World, whose private sale from Daisy Phipps Pulito to Three Chimneys was brokered by Clay. The mare has since produced three stakes winners and she sold for a staggering $5.2 million at Fasig Tipton's 2021 Lexington November Sale.

Her multiple Grade I-winning 'TDN Rising Star' daughter, Guarana (Ghostzapper), sold at the same sale for $4.4 million.

Case also brokered the deal that sold Ivanavinalot, a daughter of West Acre to John Antonelli. The mare later became the dam of multiple champion Songbird (Medaglia d'Oro).

As such, this American is right at home in the palm-fringed, sun-soaked environment of Magic Millions. It's a long way removed from his other hobby–skiing–but if his popularity on-complex is anything to go by this week, the father of three is well-liked and well-known.

It's early in the piece for him as a solo agent, but he's most looking forward to the people in his job because people are what it's all about in this line of work.

“I'm really looking forward to continuing to build my bloodstock management/insurance business, and providing clients access to quality via relationships,” he said. “And hopefully get to the winner's circle in the process.”

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Veronica Reed Named Stallion Manager as Three Chimneys Promotes Three

Goncalo Torrealba's Three Chimneys, the farm that stands young sire sensation Gun Runner, has promoted Veronica Reed to the role of stallion manager. Reed, who has been serving as assistant stallion manager at the Central Kentucky farm, will be assisted throughout the 2023 breeding season by longtime stallion manager and Kentucky Farm Manager of the Year recipient Sandy Hatfield, who will continue to play a key role in the stallion barn as she steps back from her duties.

“I am excited to take on this new responsibility and am so pleased to have the support and mentorship of Sandy as I've had for several years here at Three Chimneys,” said Reed. “This is a dream opportunity for me.”

In addition, Three Chimneys Farm also has promoted Rebecca Nicholson to director of stallion nominations, where she will head up stallion marketing, nomination sales, and other bloodstock activity at the farm. She has worked closely with Vice Chairman Doug Cauthen the past several years during her tenure at Three Chimneys.

“Three Chimneys takes pride in the farm's heritage of inclusion which extends back over two decades with the hiring of Sandy Hatfield in a time when you did not come across many female managers in our industry,” said Torrealba. “That's one of the many reasons it's a pleasure to promote Rebecca and Veronica to their new roles.”

In other changes at Three Chimneys, veteran horseman Tom Hamm, director of stallion nominations since 2018, will assume the role of chief commercial officer. He will continue to assist with stallion nominations and will broaden his focus on bloodstock evaluations and acquisitions, as well as identifying new opportunities such as partnerships and joint ventures.

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