Amermans Credit Performance to Best Supporting Actors

Most of us, in this business, have experienced times when we would implore Jerry Amerman to leave that flier, promoting a horseracing syndicate, right where her husband John had thrown it–in the wastebasket. Happily, while they have sampled the full spectrum of the Turf's ups and downs in the 35 years since, their sense of fulfilment only continues to grow.

And the sport has itself welcomed corresponding gains from their presence: John's judgement, seasoned by a stellar business career, has been drafted by numerous regulatory and benevolent bodies; Jerry's love of animals, besides prompting service of her own, has forged a special place in the community of horsemen; and now, in an unexpected sequel, they find themselves creating a living legacy in a young stallion with the potential to seize an important moment in the evolution of American grass racing.

But first let's go back to that wastebasket. It wasn't their first mailshot from Barry Irwin at Clover Racing and John, wearily going through the post after another long day at work, had promptly disposed of this postcard the same way.

“More junk mail,” he said.

“Wait a minute,” said Jerry, fishing it out again. “It says: 'You too can own a Thoroughbred racehorse.' Isn't that what we're always talking about doing?”

Well, yes it was. So they dipped their toes. A couple of their early experiments never got anywhere, and the first to do so had to be retired after winning her graded stakes debut. But they were impressed with the way the syndicate was run and stayed aboard as it evolved into Team Valor–where they would enjoy an especially thrilling ride with that tireless globetrotter Star of Cozzene (Cozzene).

“You know, the camaraderie with the other people in the syndicate was great,” John reflects. “But most importantly, we learned a lot. If you're just getting into horseracing, a syndicate is a great way to start; a great learning exp

erience.”

By the time Star of Cozzene was sold to Japan, John was approaching the end of a spectacular stint as CEO of Mattel. When he took the helm in 1987, Barbie and her friends were in big trouble: the company had just soaked up a loss of $113 million. As early as 1990, John had turned things round for a record $91-million profit. In between, unsurprisingly to those in our industry who have since come to appreciate his affability and teamwork, he had prioritized morale at workshop level. He became a familiar daily presence around headquarters: eating in the cafeteria, encouraging questions, expanding horizons.

John Amerman at Santa Anita last year | Benoit

John stood down as CEO in 1997, having radically expanded international trade, and in the preceding couple of years he and Jerry had resolved to branch out into their own racing stable. Asked whether he adapted any lessons from his Mattel experience to this new enterprise, John doesn't hesitate.

“Good people,” he says. “If I think back to my days at Mattel, we had terrific people. And horseracing is a complicated sport. It's very spread out. You really have to rely on others, to find the right mix. If you have good people working on your behalf, it makes things a lot simpler. If you're trying to do these things without knowing who the good people are, and knowing their backgrounds, then it just becomes so much harder for the horse. And all the way through we've been very blessed by having excellent support people.”

Take, for instance, bloodstock agent Bob Feld. They had observed his expertise with the syndicates, and he was duly enlisted to help lay foundations for their stable. One inspired early find was GI Hollywood Futurity winner Siphonic (Siphon {Brz}), whose loss to a heart attack was a harrowing moment for the Amermans. But there was a happier sequel for another Grade I winner acquired by Feld as a yearling, Balance (Thunder Gulch), whose A.P. Indy colt made $4.2 million as a yearling after her half-sister proved to be none other than Zenyatta (Street Cry {Ire}).

“I still think Siphonic was probably the best we ever had,” Jerry says. “What happened to him was one of the most painful things that we have experienced. But Bob has been invaluable. We've been buying horses together a long time, since the very beginning, really. Frankly, I tend to look at the whole horse and, if the whole picture looks good to me, I'll say 'yea'. But Bob will say, 'No, wait, there's a little problem here.'”

Balance | Sarah Andrew

Jerry's own eye for a horse, and curiosity as a breeder, was first stimulated by German Shepherds.

“At times I've had as many as four of those dogs in my house!” she says. “And several have been champions. And I tell you, it's been a great help watching horses. Because if you know Shepherds, movement is the big thing: their trot is incredible. And I've found that sharpens your eye for looking at how horses move, too.”

That was evidently one key to Jerry's warm relationship with an equally passionate dog owner, in his case Australian Shepherds. Because the surest way for any human being to get on the same wavelength as the late Bobby Frankel was to share his devotion to animals.

“I think Bobby liked us not because of me, but because of Jerry!” says John with a chuckle. “She just loves horses, so did he, and they just got along so well. Bobby took us to great heights. I think we've had close to 30 Grade I wins and Bobby was involved with so many of them. Just an amazing horseman. I remember one time on the backstretch Bobby was talking to me and, without even turning his head, just out of the side of his eye, he was able to call out to his assistant, 'Hey, Humberto, that horse is off in the back!'”

John will always remember Frankel calling to ask: “Would you like to buy a Grade I horse?”

“Well, sure.”

“There's only one catch. She's in Australia.”

“Well,” John said. “I guess we've got planes now.”

And that turned out to be their first elite runner: triple Grade I winner Happyanunoit (NZ) (Yachtie {Aus}). But the introduction for which the Amermans will always be most grateful was to Mill Ridge: initially to the late Alice Chandler and subsequently to her esteemed son and grandson, Headley and Price Bell. This was in 1998, still early days for their stable, and began with a partnership in a Gone West colt that had lacked commercial size.

“Bobby said, 'You need to go and talk to Alice Chandler,'” Jerry recalls. “Of course we knew about her, we'd bought yearlings from Mill Ridge, so we went and introduced ourselves. And it turned out she had this yearling, as she said: 'I just can't throw him to the wolves at the sale.' I said, 'Of course you can't.'

“So we went halves on that colt, who didn't do anything but bring us together. Which was so wonderful for us, because there was nobody like Alice. She should be everybody's hero. I admired her tremendously. And now I feel I have family in Kentucky: Alice was a terrible loss but Headley and Price are terrific, and it's so nice that Oscar can stand at the same farm where he was born.”

Ah yes: Oscar! Their premier racetrack earner, with nearly $2.5 million, Oscar Performance was homebred from Devine Actress (Theatrical {Ire}), who had been acquired after winning a maiden for another owner in the Dave Hofmans barn.

Oscar Performance (blaze) heads for home in the Woodbine Mile | Michael Burns

Headley and Price have now launched him as a stallion at a critical moment for turf breeding in the Bluegrass, following the loss of his own sire Kitten's Joy and also English Channel. Their farm long had international influence as home to Gone West and Diesis (GB), and the way Oscar Performance has started–with four graded-stakes performers already, from 11 first-crop winners to date–is highly auspicious, given how he continued to thrive after winning at the Breeders' Cup as a juvenile.

“Oscar has been pretty precocious, with winners spread all over the place,” John remarks. “But we were very proud, when he was running, that he could win Grade Is at two, three and four. Though from my perspective the best race he ever ran was the [GIII] Poker, where he tied the world record for a mile in 1:31.23. He just blew them away. He was a tremendous horse, and now he's proving it as a stallion as well.

“Full credit to Mill Ridge. They hadn't had a stallion for a few years so we're just very pleased with what has happened. He's really prospered and it's been such fun, this late summer and fall, watching all the Oscar babies run. I don't think we ever thought having a stallion could be this exciting, but it's terrific. It's almost like they're your own, when you're watching them. And we're looking forward to the Breeders' Cup because, knock wood, we think he's going to have quite a few in the turf races.”

Coffee Clique | Horsephotos

Needless to say, the Amermans have supported the horse with their own mares, where compatible. Developing their own families has been one of the joys of their program, and the stock nowadays grazing Mill Ridge include fourth generation foals tracing to Society Dream (Fr) (Arakad {Fr}), imported by Neil Drysdale to win them a stake in California. Her daughter Miss Chapin (Royal Academy) was a sparkling winner on her only start for Frankel and, though now 21, has delivered consecutive sons for Oscar Performance. Previously Miss Chapin had produced millionaire Coffee Clique (Medaglia d'Oro), winner of the GI Just a Game S.; while another daughter, graded stakes-placed Royal Fury (Langfuhr), now has her first foal up and running in Furiously, a son of Oscar Performance who recently broke his maiden for Graham Motion.

Coffee Clique was actually culled at the Keeneland November Sale last year, in one of those disciplined decisions required of every elite program. The Amermans try to keep the broodmare band to around 15, and everyone knows that sales are essential to each new cycle–as, for instance, when shock GI Breeders' Cup Distaff winner Adoration (Honor Grades) was cashed in to Demi O'Byrne for $3.1 million at the equivalent auction in 2007.

This time round their star offering is imported GII Edgewood S. winner Gift List (GB) (Bated Breath {GB}).

“We're always interested in mares and fillies from Europe, as we feel there are good opportunities for racing and a residual value, too,” John explains. “And it has turned out that way with Gift List. We looked at her races in Britain and I thought she showed a tremendous kick. So we brought her over and she ran second in the [GII] Appalachian S. and then won the Grade II at Churchill by four and a half. We were on top of the world, to see her do that against horses like Aunt Pearl (Ire) (Lope de Vega {Ire}). Unfortunately she then got a chip, and didn't really return as well as we thought she might, but she's obviously very talented.”

Gift List | Coady

“It's pretty hard to let any mare go, when you have a stallion like Oscar,” admits Jerry. “But I do know that sometimes you have to.”

After many decades of practice, the Amermans have learned to trust each other's judgement: inevitably there are times when one spouse has to proceed with a purchase even when the other is not available to sign it off. But that's where the reliable caliber of their counsel is so crucial: whether Headley and Price Bell, or Bob Feld, or trainers like Brian Lynch, who handled Oscar Performance so well; or their valued pre-trainer in Ocala, Barry Berkelhammer.

And, with a profound sense of gratitude for their Turf adventure, both Amermans have reciprocated with their own experience and judgement. John has been on many boards, including as a steward of The Jockey Club, and especially enjoyed seven years with the American Graded Stakes Committee; while Jerry served on the University of Kentucky Gluck Equine Research Foundation. And then there's Peacefield Farm, their aptly named rehab sanctuary at Temecula, California, for racetrack warriors that require patching up.

“The last few years we had Beholder (Henny Hughes) here, and Ce Ce (Elusive Quality), and United (Giant's Causeway),” John says. “Many good horses that have been banged up a little bit have come here before going back to the track and excelling, so we're proud of that.”

It tells you everything that the race John singles out as his highlight, with Oscar Performance, was one he couldn't even bring himself to watch.

“I stood behind him,” Jerry remembers with a laugh. “And had to tell him what was happening.”

“But that's it, you get so involved,” John replies. “It's such an incredible sport. The lows are not fun, but the highs are so high. We got involved when I was just about to retire: after working for many years, I thought, 'Well, now I'm going to sit back and rest.' I soon discovered that running a business had been easy. It was horseracing that was really difficult. But it's been a very gratifying experience, and a very rewarding one. We just feel blessed. I'm so pleased that Jerry took that card back out of the wastebasket.”

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

Was it divine intervention?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Settle's Dream

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

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

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

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

The Church

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

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

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

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

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

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

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First-Crop Yearling Previews: Omaha Beach

The 2022 class of first-crop yearling sires features a diverse batch of Kentucky-based young stallions including a pair of Breeders' Cup champions, two sons of reigning top sire Into Mischief, five graded stakes winners at two and five Grade I winners on turf. Throughout the course of the yearling sales season, we will feature a series of freshman sires as their first crop points toward the sales ring. Check out past editions of our series here.  

Omaha Beach (War Front–Charming, by Seeking the Gold) set the bar high for this year's class of first-crop yearlings stallions at the Fasig-Tipton July Sale, where five of his progeny sold and averaged $236,000. His top lot, a Spendthrift-bred daughter of Grade III winner Gas Station Sushi (Into Mischief), brought $410,000 and was the highest-priced filly by any sire at the one-day auction.

“When we went out to Fasig July, we were extremely happy with what we were seeing,” Spendthrift Farm's Mark Toothaker reported. “It was fun for us to watch them. They were nice-sized horses–not overly big, but very correct with good bodies.”

Toothaker explained how he thinks of Omaha Beach as the first horse Spendthrift took a big swing for when they began seeking out some of the most in-demand stallion prospects in recent years. He remembers visiting the Fox Hill Farms-campaigned colt in the days between his nine-length maiden-breaking score and his victory over juvenile champion Game Winner in the GII Rebel S.

“When Richard Mandella told me that Omaha Beach was the best horse he'd ever had in his barn, it didn't take long to get back here and say that we needed to figure out a way to get this thing done,” Toothaker recalled. “With the amount of ability that this horse had to go along with his great looks and pedigree, Omaha Beach was just the entire package.”

The winner of the GI Arkansas Derby and morning-line favorite for the 2019 Kentucky Derby was sidelined before his Derby bid due to an entrapped epiglottis, but returned later in his sophomore season to defeat Shancelot (Shanghai Bobby) in the GI Santa Anita Sprint Championship S., run second in the GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile and cap off his career with an easy victory in the GI Malibu S.

Launched at a stud fee of $45,000, Omaha Beach bred 215 mares in each of his first two seasons at stud. Toothaker said that the initial demand for the regally-bred son of War Front was unprecedented in Spendthrift's history.

Mill Ridge Farm's Saratoga-bound Omaha Beach colt out of Savannah Sky | Sara Gordon

“We've never had a horse have 600 requests for seasons in his first year,” Toothaker explained. “I don't know that we've ever had a horse get that kind of book to get them started. With the type of mares that he got in his first year, there's no telling what this first crop can do because the potential is crazy.”

Omaha Beach's first crop was in demand as weanlings, with 19 of 24 selling to average $112,736 and stamp their sire as the number one freshman stallion by weanling average. His top-selling weanling, a colt out of stakes producer North Freeway (Jump Start), sold for $200,000.

At next week's Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale, Omaha Beach will be represented by six yearlings. The first to go through the ring will be Hip 36, a filly out of Peter Blum's stakes-placed homebred Night Time Lady (Midnight Lute).

“She was a late foal, but she still has lots of size,” agent Bridie Harrison said of the late April-foaled yearling. “She has great bone, great substance and a really good walk. We like her a lot.”

Harrison reported that Blum has been a strong supporter of Omaha Beach throughout the stallion's first years at stud.

“Peter fell in love with Omaha Beach when he saw him in Richard Mandella's barn in California,” she said. “He thought he was a big, strong, beautiful horse with a great temperament. We bred a few mares to Omaha Beach and I like all the foals. Omaha Beach added a lot of size to our mares. Every one of our Omaha Beach foals are taller than most of the mares' other foals. They have lots of substance and bone and they're strong, rangy-type horses.”

Also during the first session of the Saratoga Sale, Mill Ridge Farm will send Hip 67 through the ring. The Omaha Beach colt out of the winning Sky Mesa mare Savannah Sky was a $140,000 weanling purchase at the Keeneland November Sale.

“We liked this colt from the get-go,” Mill Ridge's Headley Bell explained. “His presence and athleticism was really everything that you look for in a horse. We couldn't be more pleased with him. We've always been big fans of Omaha Beach. Two years ago, we bred 12 mares to the horse with our clients.”

Other yearlings by Omaha Beach at the same sale include Hip 41, a half-brother to GSW & MGISP Pappacap (Gun Runner); Hip 93, a New York-bred half-sister to MGSW Highway Star (Girolamo) and MSW Captain Bombastic (Forty Tales); Hip 196, also a New York-bred and a half-sister to MSW Espresso Shot (Mission Impazible) and current stakes performer Venti Valentine (Firing Line); and Hip 205, a filly out of  Hot Water (Medaglia d'Oro), the dam of this year's GIII Ben Ali S. and GIII Michelob Ultra Challenger S. winner Scalding (Nyquist).

Omaha Beach will have four additional yearlings sell at the Fasig-Tipton New York-bred sale.

As the young stallion's first crop begin to make their way to the track next year, Toothaker said he looks for Omaha Beach's progeny to show speed right out of the gate as juveniles.

“With his speed, he was able to win a Grade I going six furlongs and also lay very close in all of his two-turn races. With his pedigree, your hope is that he turns out to be a Classic sire, but that he's also going to be able to throw horses with enough speed that I think you'll see plenty of them be well received at the 2-year-old sales.”

Hailing from one of the most influential dirt families in recent years, Omaha Beach is a half-brother to champion Take Charge Brandi (Giant's Causeway). His second dam, 2013 Broodmare of the Year and MGISW Take Charge Lady (Dehere), has now produced three Grade I winners while her daughter I'll Take Charge (Indian Charlie) is the dam of recent GIII Dwyer S. winner Charge It (Tapit).

“It's one of those female families that is just going to keep getting bigger and better,” Toothaker said. “It's as good as there is in the stallion book. Omaha Beach was a really good dirt horse out of a really good dirt female family, but he's by one of the best sprinters and now turf sires out there. It's an interesting combination and we look forward to seeing what they do on the track.”

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Pastures New Maintain Old Standards at Mill Ridge

For a farm so steeped in heritage, and so properly respectful of it, there's no mistaking the vitality, the aversion to complacency, animating Mill Ridge with a sixth generation now at the reins.

Back in April the Bell family grieved farm founder Alice Headley Chandler, a revered matriarch not just around their own hearth but among the whole Bluegrass community. But their loss, while poignantly refreshing their gratitude and sense of privilege, could only reinforce an engrained determination that her legacy be honored by all the ambition that had characterised her own, pioneering tenure.

Her son Headley Bell, managing partner since 2008, had already promoted her grandson Price as general manager in August 2020. The previous year, meanwhile, they had welcomed Oscar Performance to revive a stallion station that had gathered dust since Gone West and Diesis gave it such international significance. And now, in a confident invitation to traffic from the impending breeding stock sales, they have just extended capacity with the acquisition–or retrieval, rather–of 288 acres from Calumet.

Retrieval, because this parcel of land was once part of the Beaumont Farm where Mrs. Chandler's father Hal Price Headley raised the likes of Menow and Alcibiades. On his death, in 1962, she inherited just a nook of the farm, around 1/16th of its extent; while this portion was left to her sister. Later on, it was actually leased by Mill Ridge for a few decades until the farm shared in the shocks absorbed by the industry after 2008, and it was sold to Calumet in 2015. Its return to the fold, then, is expressive of a striving for regeneration by the heirs to the breeder of the game-changing Sir Ivor.

“It's the type of land we all covet,” says Price. “Big, open spaces for horses to develop, 40-acre pastures with big slopes and big trees. But this is also about our team, our human capital. Our infrastructure was developed to handle 130, 140 mares. As our numbers declined with the foal crop, we didn't adjust our team. So we have talented people, blessed by incredible horsemanship and experience. To utilize that to the full, we need more volume; and to accommodate that, we needed more land. So that's how we hope to make this thing go. We're lucky to have people who are so passionate about the horse, and about the farm. Now we just need to make sure they have the stock to do what they do so well.”

This kind of calculation is as educated as you could find in our community, Price having returned to Mill Ridge not only bearing the laurels of an MBA from Vanderbilt's Owen School, but having already cut his teeth in the wider business world. Straight out of college–and it's easy to imagine his livewire interview–he was appointed CEO of a $40 million commercial real estate asset in Charlotte, North Carolina.

“That was a very service-minded framework, which I really enjoyed and have carried with me since,” he says. “Charlotte was booming, but after things went well there the company decided to move me to Nashville–at a time when there were then less than 1,000 people living downtown. Still in my mid-20s, I found myself with nearly half a million square feet of 30-year-old office space with a significant leasing problem.”

The point of this recollection, however, is not that the precocious salesman filled the vacant premises–though he duly did. What really told in Nashville was learning the organic connection between the commercial interests he happened to be serving, on the one hand, and improved viability for the city as a whole, on the other. Invited onto the board of a non-profit organisation devoted to downtown development, he embraced their agenda with a zeal that entitles him to a modest share of pride in Nashville's “meteoric” progress since.

That experience was not lost on Price after he accepted his father's offer to return to a world in which he had, naturally, been given a thorough grounding in his youth–initially by joining the Nicoma Bloodstock agency that can count Street Sense (Street Cry {Ire}), Barbaro (Dynaformer), Havre de Grace (Saint Liam) and Bricks and Mortar (Giant's Causeway) among counselled matings. In the 10 years since, Price and his father have been pivotal to the evolution of Horse Country, the open-our-gates tours that have transformed public engagement with Bluegrass farms. And Horse Country, of course, obeyed much the same principles that Price had seen validated in Nashville: namely, that businesses will always thrive if embracing and enhancing their social and cultural setting.

A few days ago, Mill Ridge hosted a six-term congressman from Georgia on a Horse Country tour. He was entranced, stuck around for a coffee, chatted. At one point he looked Price in the eye. “Don't you ever sell this place,” he said. The next day Price found himself driving another septuagenarian visitor round the farm: a woman from upstate Ohio who had been drawn to the sport by Zenyatta–not a fanbase, it must be granted, always received with patience by busy professionals.

“This woman had become our biggest 'virtual tour' fan,” Price explains, referring to the enterprising solution adopted when lockdown broadsided Horse Country. “As we drove around she kept stopping me to take in the view, kept saying, 'I just can't believe where I am right now…' It made me feel as close to John Lennon as I'm ever likely to feel! So here we had a woman who's been around the sun 75 times, speechless, within 24 hours of our visitor from Georgia. Two such different people, both entering our orbit for a very brief time–and it was interesting to me that not only did we have that impact on both of them, but they each had an impact on us, too.

“Because it's that kind of experience that reminds us how special this all is, how very lucky we are to do what we do–and the responsibility we all have, to share the horse, to share the land, to share Lexington. At the end of the day, this business is about humans and horses. And that is not something we can assign to associations, to NTRA or TOBA or the Jockey Club. It's the responsibility of all of us, as individuals.”

Happily, Price feels that horse evangelism is a little easier now than has previously been the case. Behind Mill Ridge's roll of the dice, in expanding capacity, is a conviction that the whole sport has a new spring in its step: that people are eager to go out and enjoy life, to put the economic and social trauma of the pandemic behind them.

“I feel there's a lot of good momentum,” he says. “In taking on this risk, this big investment, we feel there are great opportunities going forward for the industry, and for Mill Ridge as well. Finally it feels like we're rowing together a little more than we have been. We see great hope for our sport, for our community, and we're investing in ourselves and welcoming new clients. I guess it feels like the first time, really since the '08 crash, that everything is really growing again.

“Back then we all felt like we were battening hatches down, constantly baling out water: the foal crop adjustment, PETA, Santa Anita, aftercare. With no fan engagement, that could have knocked us out. Quite frankly, if we'd continued being complacent in our racetracks, our horses, our fans, we'd be shrivelling and wilting away. We still have some big issues, obviously. But the key tenets of what we do, and how we share those, have been restructured. And I'd say the foundation is now stronger than it has been in my lifetime. We're excited by that.”

Horse Country had an incidental benefit, too. With such a delicate margin between family and professional life, Price and Headley treated the enterprise as a useful “test drive” for how they might work together in their own business.

“In working so closely on a passion project, on something that wasn't our core business, Dad and I could develop a confidence in each other that has ultimately allowed this transition to take place,” Price says. “We saw that we could work as team-mates, as opposed to me coming in and saying, 'This is how you should be doing everything,' or him looking at me saying, 'You haven't proven you can do anything.' Mill Ridge is here today, and successful, because of my dad and my grandmother, because of my uncles, and because of our clients. And Mill Ridge tomorrow will be successful for the same reason.”

At this point Headley joins the call. A man of such courtesy and dignity was never going to cling resentfully to the authority of a parent, and he discusses the situation with candour and quiet pride.

“We're fortunate that in Price, and the team he's building, we have a lot of talent,” he says. “He happens to be our son, but he's always been visionary, always been willing to take a position and back it up, always been a team player. When he was president of his class in high school, that wasn't because he was some super jock. It was because he was inclusive of others, and elevated those around him. And he brings in people with similar strengths. So not only is Mill Ridge better off, but the industry will be, too.”

Headley likes the way the transition evolved almost of its own volition. There was no turning point, no formal deadline. It gradually became clear, during lockdown, that the time was right; but that realization had been reached by lifelong increments. They fortified the arrangements by involving Price's mother, sister and wife; and there was so much counsel and support at hand: from “Doc” Chandler, from Headley's brothers, from Duncan Macdonald who worked here for 38 years.

“Remember, there had never been any pressure for me to go on with this, and nor was there any pressure on Price,” Headley says. “It did not have to go on. What I've done with Nicoma for 45 years has been very fulfilling. Mill Ridge, I'd long been part of the team parallel to Nicoma but stepped in only in '07, when Mom was 82.

“And out of that evolution, when Gatewood [Bell, nephew] was going out on his own, I approached Price and said: 'If you're interested, here's where we're are.' And do you know what he said? 'Let me get back to you, Dad.' He's going to get back to me! But about three months later, he did come back. And he said: 'Three things, Dad. Number one: I would never want to do anything to jeopardize our relationship.' So that was, like, wow. 'Number two: I'm bringing what I believe to be my future wife into this environment. Is that fair to her? And number three: am I qualified to do it?'”

But just to ask those questions, in effect, was to answer them. It's not just the equine graduates of this regime that you can judge by the results.

“I've been very fortunate through my time, to be successful enough to have the liquidity to navigate the water,” reflected Headley. “That's positioned us to build for the next generation, without, say, needing someone to come in and partner. There's nothing more enriching than being able to include your children in whatever you're doing, especially something like this. And that's something we feel every day, with these Horse Country tours. People say, first off: 'Thank you very much for sharing.' But then also: 'Wow, do you know how lucky you are to do what you do?!' So all we ever have to do is step out the door and look. We don't take anything for granted.”

That can seldom have been so true as when the family shared its memories of Headley's mother this spring.

“Really, she stays alive through this effort,” remarks Headley. “I say that to people often. We feel her presence here, in our efforts. Dr. Chandler has always been such a great team-mate. It's been difficult for him, of course, but he really embraces Price and his energy.”

Price, for his part, will always view his grandmother as a model of how to be a good citizen of the Turf. “Reflecting on her life, I think the great inspiration is that she didn't ever back down from any challenge,” he says. “Not just at the farm, but in the industry too. KTA, KTOB, Gluck Center, dozens of causes. She was a very thoughtful person and passionate too: when she had a conviction, she worked tirelessly with many like-minded people to make things better.”

And, with that inherited sense of the bigger picture, Price is adamant that connecting fans with the horse is not just good public relations, but good business.

“Our personal experience is that the magic we really need to push comes from bringing people to the farm, bringing them to the races, introducing people to horses,” he says. “That's not to diminish everything else that's being done: the TAA, the improved screenings and accountability at the racetrack. But that's where we felt we could contribute: connecting people to horses. There's great curiosity out there as to how you breed a horse, raise a horse, choose a horse to get to the finish line first. That's the elixir we have, and I guess sharing that with more people has always inspired me.”

Of course, you can only engage people with horses if you know how to engage with people. And that's what really augurs so well for the new era at Mill Ridge–though that MBA presumably won't do any harm, either.

“In the end I guess I'm curious by nature,” Price says. “Maybe that additional schooling gave me the confidence to be inquisitive, and to learn from the type of people who are now our customers. But more importantly it also gave me even greater confidence that what we have is very special; and that we're very lucky. It's just that sometimes we don't recognize that, or don't package it quite right.”

Its pastures new contain an apt analogy for what is happening at Mill Ridge. Because if the horse-lore handed down between generations represents deep soil, dense roots, then you don't just leave turf to grow rank or parched. It's by keeping active, by mowing or grazing, that you foster its healthy renewal.

“While we're in transition, the industry is also in transition,” notes Headley. “You see it on the racetrack, you see it in these partnerships, you see it with NYRA. There's an evolution. All you had to do is look at Keeneland recently, when Gatewood filled up the winner's circle with family and friends, maybe 60 strong–and probably 30 of them under the age of eight! It's certainly not just Price, there's a lot of talent in his generation. So this feels very natural, fitting well with what's happening in the industry as a whole. This is a really exciting time.”

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