In the old days, farm accountants might reckon on three seasons to retrieve the investment required to land a stallion prospect. The model was “three and out.” Nowadays, they're having to calculate closer to “one and out.”

In the verdict shared by one confidant, the market for second-season sires in 2024 is proving “brutal.”  Already five years ago, one of the big commercial farms managed to find just 53 mares for the second book of a stallion that had started out the year before with 223. It's very hard to see who benefits from that kind of volatility.

Knowing that the only thing as certain as demand for a new stallion is the brevity of attention, opening fees now tend to be very high. In fact, the percentage of sires that will achieve a viable niche in Kentucky naturally being very small, the majority will turn out to have started at the highest fee they will ever command.

The agents and managers tell their clients that first-crop yearlings represent their one shot to land on the next Into Mischief or Tapit while he's still affordable. But if that were true, why don't they stick to their guns in the stallion's third and fourth seasons, when fees, books and medians are on a giddy slide? That, after all, is precisely when your vaunted “judgement” is about to be vindicated by his first runners.

That leaves as their only real pretext the self-fulfilling one that a stallion's debut book will generally prove the biggest and best of his life. But if you've truly identified a stallion who can upgrade his mares, then wouldn't you want one of the few yearlings going to market the year after he has demonstrated that ability to a waiting world?

Look, everyone is doing this stuff with their eyes open. The industrial model enables a stallion farm to charge a relatively lenient fee because they're going to process a ton of mares. But if a turf sprinter could last year cover 293 mares in his first book, then breeders already know that they had better stand out from the crowd.

In fairness, these high-volume operations would surely prefer a consistent spread of temperate support, through four or five years, to the current polarities. True, some of them have mastered the challenge impressively, maintaining the famous “pipeline”–whether with their own mares, or through the kind of imaginative incentive schemes introduced by the late B. Wayne Hughes for an ice-cold second-year stallion named Into Mischief. And the farms that do struggle to maintain traffic can hardly blame commercial breeders, who need to put bread on their table. So we can only conclude that it all starts with those directing investment at ringside.

So what can be done? Anecdotally, we're hearing of farms offering deals on second-year sires: two-for-one, even free seasons. We're also told that “nobody's talking about it.” Well, let's change that. At the end of this article you'll find an email address to share your views or experiences.

In the meantime, one man characteristically prepared not only to address the situation but to do something about is Price Bell of Mill Ridge. This farm has made a pretty spectacular return to the stallion game with Oscar Performance, and is now determined to help its latest recruit face the headwind in his second year.

Aloha West, winner of the GI Breeders' Cup Sprint at Del Mar in 2021, covered 83 mares in his first book. Emboldened by the quality they report in his first foals, Bell and the shareholders are offering a new incentive to keep the horse (an $8,500 cover) in the game.

“If you're the breeder of record of an Aloha West that wins a maiden special weight, as a 2- or 3-year-old, you'll get a free season the next year,” Bell explains. “In other words, it's after actually having done something that you'll get rewarded. As opposed to what you hear now, where it's like, 'You get a free season this year, but then if the horse makes it, you're going to have to pay a $20,000 stud fee to breed back to him.'

“Heaven forbid, Aloha West has 40 maiden winners his first crop? Then we'll have to give away 40 seasons. But it would also mean he's champion first-crop sire, so I'd love nothing more than that problem!”

The point is that it should all come down to belief.

“At the end of the day, if you stand a horse at stud, and support him with your mares, that's got to be because you believe that their foals will become successful racehorses,” Bell says. “And now that purse money is where it is, you can make that play. You won't always have to go to the commercial sales market. Yes, you've got more bills if you don't. But the reward, at the end, is potentially worth it.”

Somehow, somewhere along the line, people have come up with this idea that there's a difference between breeding for the racetrack and breeding for the ring. For anyone prepared to play a slightly longer game, however, there should be nothing more commercial than putting a winner under your mare.

“Absolutely,” Bell agrees. “For your mare and for your stallion, right? I mean, I don't have all the answers, anything like it–but I guess that is exactly my query about the whole thing.”

Aloha West found himself in a very tough intake: Flightline, Life Is Good, Jackie's Warrior, Jack Christopher, Epicenter. But it was no picnic for Oscar Performance to lock horns with Justify, Good Magic, City of Light. And he duly had to earn his stripes through the standard adversities.

“Oscar Performance actually had the same number of mares in his first and second years, which was like 120,” Bell says. “Just like Aloha West, because of the breadth, quality and belief of the shareholders, he was going to remain supported through those early years. He went 120, 120, 80, and then 60. And it was probably only as many as 60 because he had a winner at Keeneland in April. That got him another 10 mares or so in that fourth book.”

Which brings us back to a point made earlier: if you actually believe in what you were doing, the fourth season is exactly when you would be playing: you get the best value about a horse even as he's about to announce his prowess for all to see.

“And yet some horses don't even get to a fourth crop in America!” exclaims Bell. “I think my dad [Headley Bell] made that point when he bred to Arrogate in his fourth crop. There was a lot of uncertainty along the way, before he exploded with Cave Rock and all the rest. Nobody gets it right every time. Well, it's that yo-yo of chicken and feathers–you're still back at feathers. With the middle market so bifurcated, you stick to your guns because you're either going to be rewarded or you're not. There's no safe 'bond' play. If you hit, you're going to get well paid; and if you don't, you got nothing anyway.

Oscar Performance | Photos By Z

“That's why you do see some very shrewd breeders using horses in years three and four. And I'd like to believe that a little bit of that's happening right now. There's still a lot of mares to be booked. People have seen the incentives. They're like, 'Well, let's see her foal and then see what kind of deal I can get.' Which may also be a reaction from last year, which felt quite transitional.”

Arguably, the staggering books reported in 2023 felt as though one or two farms were making a point after seeing off the proposed mare cap. But it's certainly interesting to hear these imaginative perspectives from Mill Ridge, which last engaged with the sector way back with Diesis and Gone West. After all, the whole environment has seen wild changes in the meantime.

“We're all kind of sheep and if we're not careful we'll run ourselves right over a cliff,” Bell warns. “The whole beauty of the game, the whole reason we do it, is that ultimately no-one knows for sure where a good horse comes from. So if you believe in Aloha West, or any other horse, the whole quest should be about the finish line.

“People say, 'Oh, I have a commercial broodmare band, therefore I should only breed the first-year sires.' I mean, I appreciate that. But if everyone has that attitude, then nobody stands out. And I think it also makes you question your horsemanship, your judgment. So maybe we should just get back to believing what we believe in, and going for it–above all, like I said, because purses are really good.”

Bell, of course, has a heartening example front and center in the thriving Oscar Performance.

“Our shareholders believed in him and look how well they've been rewarded,” he remarks. “Oscar Performance was pigeonholed. He didn't really have much support from pinhookers, because they were like, 'What am I going to do with a turf horse?' But then he starts having 2-year-olds winning six-furlong stakes on dirt. So now he's being supported because he's exceeded expectations.

“And for Aloha West and Eclipse Thoroughbreds, it's always been the same: believe, and believe big. We really believe in this horse, in his brilliance and his opportunity to contribute to the breed. And that's why we want to reward those who believe with us.”

The horse's obvious challenge, commercially, is that he didn't race until the February of his 4-year-old campaign. But Bell points out that he was routinely posting bullet works as a juvenile, before being sidelined.

“So while it doesn't show in the form line, when you look at his work pattern, there's no doubting his 2-year-old quality,” he says. “And he's a gorgeous horse: not a typical Hard Spun, maybe, I think he gets more from the Speightstown mare: he's really typey and beautiful. So he's got the pedigree, he's got the brilliance, and then he has the great partners and other breeders who believe in him.”

The paradox is that second-season sires actually face one question mark fewer than the rookies who enjoy such clamorous attention: breeders have at least had the chance to see what kind of stock they're putting on the ground. But even that will have its limits: Lookin At Lucky could never overcome the lack of physical glamor in his stock even after he produced winners of the GI Kentucky Derby and GI Breeders' Cup Classic. In the end, different people pin their belief on different things. But where there is authentic belief, then it's logical for both sides of the deal to keep the faith and share the rewards.

“I mean, we're all looking for the golden ticket,” Bell concedes. “Maybe we need to recalibrate our expectations a little, and not always be searching for the lottery win. But I do think that if you're breeding a horse, you should at least believe that they're going to win a maiden race, right?”

Contribute to the debate: Do you have something to add about the first-year/second-year sire conundrum for publication? Email suefinley@thetdn.com.

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JAMM LIMITED
This is the Tolie Otto family, and we raced Keeper Hill together. Sadly, Tolie died this year, but her daughter Audie has been running it for several years now, and they have four mares with us.

Justaroundmidnight (Ire), 17, Danehill Dancer (Ire)—Strategy (GB), by Machiavellian. To be bred to Up To The Mark.This is a mare that we bought back in 2012, and we bred Duopoly from her, who was a Group 1 winner by Animal Kingdom. She had a lovely Omaha Beach yearling that we sold this year, and she's currently not in foal, but we've chosen Up to the Mark with this mare. I didn't know the horse until the end of the year like most people probably because that's when he really did his thing, but he really was brilliant. And I believe Not This Time and Liam's Map are going to have a lot of influence, and this is a good son of Not This Time. And obviously, he ran on the grass, and it's a good pedigree blend that blends well with this mare, a first-year stallion. She's a commercial breeder, this is a Group 1-producing mare and it's a good value point.

Smart Shopping, 10, Smart Strike—Shop Again, by Wild Again. To be bred to Life Is Good.
We bought her dam, Shop Again, some years ago, and she was a foundation mare for the Ottos. And this is her 2013 daughter by Smart Strike that Ms. Otto raced, who was trained by Brendan Walsh. She showed form and we thought she was an Oaks filly, but she ended up injuring herself. Her first two foals are stakes-caliber, and show some quality. This is a foundation-replacing mare for Audie, and she's currently in foal to Life is Good. Life is Good and Flightline are the best two horses I've seen for a long time.

She's in foal to Life is Good and we're going to repeat the mating, not just because it's Life is Good, but, it blends very well with this particular mare and we pick up a lot of features that we like in that combined pedigree blend. And that's really all you can do, is try to put enough good ingredients into the stew and get lucky. Because the reality is that you don't look like your brother or your sister, and the idea to think that you can replicate something is not realistic. So you try to put as many things as you can into the stew, and that's what Life is Good, for me, does. So we're sending her foundation mare back to Life is Good.

NANCY DILLMAN
Nancy Dillman is a dear friend a client for 40 years. She bred Diminuendo from the first crop of Diesis (GB), and we bred Havre de Grace together.

Mademoiselle Coco, 11, Medaglia d'Oro—Easter Brunette, by Carson City. To bred to Cody's Wish.

She's a half-sister to Havre de Grace, and this family has always bred a little small, and so we want to try to put a little size into her, if we can. She's currently in foal to Essential Quality and has an Essential Quality '23 foal as well. We had obviously great luck with Havre de Grace and Nancy likes first-year stallions whenever possible. She's a commercial breeder, and so we're breeding her back to Cody's Wish. Again, it's a pedigree blend with Medaglia d'Oro and the Mr. Prospector line works well with other things within that family, and Cody's Wish is a brilliant horse.

Seastone, 7, Cairo Prince—Church By The Sea, by Harlan's Holiday. To be bred to Epicenter.
She's a half-sister to Significant Form. She has a Maxfield 2023 foal and is in foal to Epicenter, who is a son of Not This Time. We like that blend. And so we're going to go back to Epicenter with Seastone.

JERRY AND JOHN AMERMAN
The Amermans breed to race, one of those rare items today. And they've really built their entire program, of which there are about 10 mares now, off of two foundation mares–a mare called Miss Chapin, who's a very good producing mare, and then Devine Actress, who's the Dam of Oscar Performance and Oscar Nominated, among others.

Dream Fuhrever, 14, Langfuhr—Society Dream (Fr), by Akarad (Fr). To be bred to Oscar Performance.
One of the mares that I'm suggesting for Oscar Performance is the dam of Endlessly (Oscar Performance), who is a granddaughter of Miss Chapin. She's by Langfuhr, so the Northern Dancer line. Endlessly was the top two-year-old by Oscar Performance who was three-for-three before running in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf and ended up being beaten three lengths there after going off as one of the favorites in that race. But breeding back Dream Fuhrever to Oscar Performance is a natural thing to do. You had to get lucky the first time, and we did.

Catch the Eye, 8, Quality Road—Turns My Head (Ire), by Montjeu. To be bred to Oscar Performance.
Another is a 2016 Quality Road mare by the name of Catch the Eye, who's from a European family, a Montjeu mare from the family of Egyptian Queen.  She has a '23 Caravaggio foal and is in foal to Oscar Performance. Quality Road has done well with Oscar Performance, it seems, and so we're breeding her back to Oscar Performance.

CLOVER HILL FARM
Sadly, we lost Lynn Schiff whom I'd been working with for 15 years or so, and her daughter, Maggie Gieseke, now runs the operation. Mom (Alice Chandler) was a magnet for women because she was such a strong woman herself, and so a lot of our clients are women, which is fantastic. Clover Hill bred the Breeders' Cup winner Ria Antonia and has about five mares. They're commercial breeders. And a few years ago, while Lynn was still with us in 2017, we bought three mares, and two of which have really worked out very well.

Wild Silk, 11, Street Sense—Spun Silk, by A.P. Indy. To be bred to Cody's Wish.
One of those three mares is Wild Silk. We paid $70,000 for her, and she is the dam of Red Carpet Ready, by Oscar Performance, who has earned nearly $600,000. She is a daughter of Street Sense, but also has a blend of Wild Again in the family and she provided a Hyperion-line blend of pedigree that crosses so beautifully with Oscar Performance and really crosses beautifully with Kitten's Joy through Lear Fan. We've gone back to Oscar Performance a couple of times. She is in foal to Liam's Map now, and Not This Time and Liam's Map are very strong sources that I'm using quite a bit. They're going to go to Cody's Wish with this mare. She can use some size and blend-wise, we're happy with that.

Maya Princess, 11, Street Sense—Hartfelt, by Kafwain. To be bred to Jack Christopher.
Here is another daughter of Street Sense and we bought her in foal to Ghostzapper in 2017. We were very fortunate that she produced a beautiful Ghostzapper that Phil Bauer and Richard Rigney bought and named Mariah's Princess, who earned $250,000 as her first foal. She has an Essential Quality filly foal and is in foal to Charlatan and is going to Jack Christopher. They are commercial breeders. Charlatan was a brilliant horse, and again, provides a pedigree blend, and Jack Christopher also is a brilliant horse. And we would just as soon not be in a sire's first book. I said that Nancy Dillman wants to be in the first year, but I don't mind being in another year, because if you believe in the horse, it's worth the gamble, really, because you're not up there against 200 other foals.

FRANK GARRISON
Frank Garrison is an old college friend who owns a couple of mares together with us, and is godfather to Price. These are ones we share.

Humor Me Dixie, 6, Distorted Humor—Dixie City, by Dixie Union. To be bred to Oscar Performance.
Humor Me Dixie is a mare that we bought in 2020 with an outstanding blend of family. Distorted Humor is a great broodmare sire with the El Prado/Medaglia d'Oro line in particular. She's in foal to Upstart, and we are going to breed her to Oscar Performance. The Hyperion line that you're picking up through Oscar Performance, I think will blend well and add some size to the mare.

Proximity Bias, 8, Flatter—Sidle, by Seeking the Gold. To be bred to Liam's Map.
We bought this mare in 2016 from a family I'm very fond of, the Stroll family, which I think is a very tough family. We bought her in foal to Practical Joke in '20 and sold that Practical Joke to Steve Asmussen, and he's made her a stakes winner of $150,000 for which we're most appreciative. And she has a '23 Oscar Performance and in foal to Oscar Performance and is going back to Liam's Map.

BYRON NIMOCKS
Byron Nimocks is from Rye, New York and is fairly new to the business. We share five mares together, and last year was the first time we bought any mares.

Patna, 5, Into Mischief—Barbadia, by Speightstown. To be bred to Blame.
Most importantly, she is from the Willstar family of Juddmonte's, which is one of their foundation families. And it has Nureyev in it, and I can't get enough of Nureyev. Theatrical is by Nureyev, which is Oscar Performance's broodmare sire. She was a maiden at the time we bought her, and we bred her to Twirling Candy. We're going to go to Blame this year. Chris McGrath described Blame so well in his Value Sires, and we believe he is a value sire also, and we're going to go to Blame and see if we can breed a race horse.

Tea Olive, 5, First Samurai—Conquest Superstar, by Super Saver. To be bred to Aloha West.
We bought this mare last year as a maiden. Gatewood (Bell) had bought her as a yearling. Gatewood's a second cousin and worked with me at Nicoma for a while. It was in the slop at Keeneland, but she beat Gunite in her first start, which I thought was pretty impressive. She earned about a $100,000. We had bred her to Speaker's Corner. Unfortunately, she aborted. And we're going to come back to Aloha West. For us, we believe that Aloha West resembles his broodmare sire, Speightstown, more than his sire Hard Spun. He gives you a great pedigree blend with the Hard Spun–some Danzig, some Gone West, and some A. P. Indy. He was a very fast horse, obviously. He won the Breeders' Cup Sprint. And we're excited about his future and we're going to send what we believe is an exciting mare to him in Tea Olive.

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It wasn't so long ago that the magnificent sire Gone West held court at Mill Ridge Farm near Lexington. From 22 crops, all while at Mill Ridge, he netted a mouth-watering 9% black-type winners from starters, including Breeders' Cup winners Da Hoss (twice), Johar, and Speightstown, all back in the days when the Breeders' Cup was still a single day and there were far fewer races.

The son of Mr. Prospector passed away in 2009, but his influence on the Breeders' Cup was not done and neither was Mill Ridge's. Among Gone West's sire sons are Speightstown, who has sired two Breeders' Cup winners, and Elusive Quality, who has sired three. His grandsons include Quality Road, sire of four Breeders' Cup winners. And among the major runners out of his daughters is another Breeders' Cup winner in Awesome Feather.

The Mill Ridge team hasn't stopped there. Eight Breeders' Cup winners have been bred, raised, and/or sold by the Central Kentucky farm. Additionally, Mill Ridge's involvement in Horse Country has created an extra ripple effect of the Breeders' Cup's impact on farms big and small, as well as on the fans who visit those farms. And now, the two young sires who are standing at Mill Ridge are both Breeders' Cup winners.

Oscar Performance on a Horse Country tour along with Mill Ridge's tour guide Ryn Harris and managing partner Headley Bell. Earl the Corgi is quite popular on the tours and on social media. | Sarah Andrew

Oscar Performance won the GI Juvenile Turf in 2016, while Aloha West won the GI Sprint in 2021.

“That's like starting two full teams for the University of Kentucky basketball team,” said Price Bell, Jr., general manager of Mill Ridge, with a laugh about the eight Breeders' Cup winners combined with the two additional championship day winners in the stud barn. “That's the beauty of the Breeders' Cup. How lucky are we to have been able to associate with this many horses on Breeders' Cup days?

“We'll often have visitors say, 'Well, don't you have an unfair advantage because you get to watch them in the field and then watch them win?' We know how special it is to get to do this.”

From the start, Oscar Performance had the Bell family's fingerprints all over him. Fittingly, he was raised on the farm and has now returned to the place of his birth to stand. He is also the sire of Sunday's GIII Zuma Beach S. winner Endlessly from his second crop of 2-year-olds. Endlessly is an unbeaten dual graded winner–for the same connections as his sire–who will try to emulate his sire in the Nov. 3 GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf.

“We raised Oscar Performance for the Amermans and helped with the mating. Now for a horse for the same connections to go on and keep that dream alive is very special.

“We feel so lucky and blessed to associate with so many incredible people and breeders and clients and horses,” said Bell. “The Breeders' Cup is what we're all striving for and dreaming about as soon as you do a mating. We feel so blessed to have gotten there and want to keep going.”

Sarah Andrew

Mill Ridge is a popular spot on the Horse Country tours and Oscar Performance has become a showman.

“To connect him with guests is so special,” said Bell. “People have just fallen in love with him. We've really enjoyed sharing him with people and seeing the way he's become a fan favorite. It has been very meaningful as we share that he was the best 2-year-old on the turf in his generation, the best 3-year-old on the turf, and that he set the world record at a mile. One of those three things often sticks with people. To be able to share him with fans is really special.”

As a racehorse, Oscar Performance had a devastating kick.

“What I found so brilliant in his Breeders' Cup is that he had broken from the 13 hole, yet was able to clear the field,” said Bell. “To break from the 13th post to get clear and over at Santa Anita is a big thing. I remember very vividly where I was when he broke his maiden [at Saratoga in August of 2016]. And then his Breeders' Cup, we sat and watched it at the office with my dad because my wife and I had a 15-month-old. It was our son's first Grade I and one we certainly remember as a family. It would be so memorable if Endlessly could do it, too. We're so blessed to have those relationships.”

Aloha West, whose first foals will be born in 2024, took a different route to Mill Ridge.

“He was raised by our friends at Nursery Place by John Mayer,” said Bell. “I think for his Breeders' Cup, what was so telling, is that was the ninth race he had had that year. He'd showed some ability at two, had some shins, hurt himself at three. They were really patient with him. [He debuted at four], broke his maiden in February culminating with a Breeders' Cup win. He danced every dance, had nine starts that year, no real break. He was sort of the clever horse on the backside; people had a lot of chatter about him going into the Breeders' Cup. And then he showed that will to win.”

Halter tag keychains, including one of Breeders' Cup winner Life Is Sweet, in Mill Ridge's Horse Country gift shop | Sarah Andrew

In addition to their two Breeders' Cup-winning stallions, one of whom they had also raised, Mill Ridge has been intimately involved with 2000 Distaff winner Spain, 2003 Turf dead-heater Johar (one of Gone West's winners), 2004 Juvenile Fillies winner Sweet Catomine, 2005 Mile winner Artie Schiller, 2006 Distaff winner Round Pond, 2009 Ladies' Classic winner Life Is Sweet, and 2013 Juvenile Fillies winner Ria Antonia. For those keeping score, that was four consecutive winners from 2003-06 and six in that decade alone.

Winning the Breeders' Cup doesn't get old though. On the contrary, it leaves one hungry for more.

“Once you've been there, you want to experience it again,” said Bell. “You want to do it again and again and again and again.”

Bell has distinct memories of every winner. Some stood out early.

“I often put Sweet Catomine as the one that everyone on the farm thought was very special. For her to culminate as champion and the way she had done it was wonderful. Sometimes you do see something when they're young and it's very gratifying.”

Some stand out because of the relationships with the breeders.

“Artie Schiller was awesome because Leroidesanimaux (Brz) was the overwhelming favorite and he beat him handily, squarely, no excuses. He ran by him like he was standing still. It was a great culmination of the relationship we had with the Moussacs [breeders of Artie Schiller]. A great celebration.”

But one of the Breeders' Cup wins that is most memorable to Bell is for an out-of-the-ordinary reason and ties in to the farm's involvement with Horse Country.

“I remember Spain was a classic [D. Wayne] Lukas move. Lukas put them to sleep. She got a phenomenal ride [from Victor Espinoza]. It was Lukas taking a shot and then he wins at 56-1.

“But what I really remember when I think of her now is on one of our tours there was a gentleman who was about my age. He loved Spain. He was in the hospital at the time she won, in a children's cancer ward, and he'd told all the nurses to bet her.

“Here's a horse that we both had great memories of for very different reasons. It was our first Breeders' Cup winner while he's a kid fighting cancer. It meant a lot to both of us, was an inspiration for both of us. Horses touch people in different ways and sometimes we don't even know it.”

A Horse Country tour sign at Mill Ridge | Sarah Andrew

Perhaps that is why Bell and Mill Ridge are so bullish on the non-profit Horse Country, which Bell was instrumental in co-founding and which also has Breeders' Cup roots. It's his way of giving back to the industry and connecting the wider public to our sport.

“We launched Horse Country tours the same year [2015] as the first Breeders' Cup at Keeneland. It coincided with American Pharoah and that was kind of what got us going. We had set a timeline of the Breeders' Cup date and it gave us a starting gate. We were committed. It has taken a lot of iterations between then and now, but we're big believers in it. We love doing it and sharing what we do.

“The tours have welcomed 200,000 people since then, 25,000 of those at Mill Ridge. We're the number two thing to do on Trip Advisor in Lexington. It feels like it's our part in trying to connect people to racing.

“We're all inspired by the horses and tours are people's best opportunity to meet a horse. Farms create a great opportunity for that. It's meaningful for people to share that, just like the gentleman who had a relationship with Spain from his hospital bed.”

One guest at a time, Mill Ridge and Horse Country are changing the wider public's perception of racing. If meeting a Breeders' Cup-winning stallion brings one more person over to the beauty of our sport, it's a win. If it shows another person how well we take care of our horses and how much they mean to us, it's a win. And if it gets one more person to watch the Breeders' Cup, feeling they have a connection because they've feed a carrot to the sire of one of the runners or have walked over the same land where one was raised, it's a win.

“The better we can show guests what we do, the better we all are,” said Bell. “It feels like the right thing to do. We get so much from the guests and the experience. It's a great reminder of how lucky we are.

“Mill Ridge is just one small piece in it, but we've jumped all the way in. It's very doable. And it's beautiful. At the end of the day, we get so much out of committing to it.

“I feel like we get more out of it than we give.”

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If the stampede to unproven sires is ludicrous, then so is the haste with which they are abandoned. Stallions whose stock should plainly be granted time to mature round a second turn are often prematurely judged. Even more precocious types often find themselves long since abandoned by the most ruthless commercial breeders, who can annually move on to a fresh group whose reputation is usefully invulnerable to any appraisal more meaningful than hype.

For most stallions, then, this is a time when sales averages are coming down, along with fees and books. It's very rare that a young sire emerges from his opening racetrack skirmishes with the authority of Gun Runner, whose first sophomores spectacularly consolidated their record-breaking domination of the freshmen preceding the group we consider today. You more often find yourself dealing with an Overanalyze, champion freshman five years ago and meanwhile discarded to South Korea.

To be fair, however, this lot have laid down a very purposeful marker as the freshmen of 2022. The top six, indeed, can also be found among the top 10 of the overall list of juvenile sires. Auspiciously, moreover, there are grounds for thinking that several, judged on the template of their own performance and pedigree, can stimulate further progress from their maturing stock.

Arguably, the best long-term value right now rests with those who might emulate the way the tragic Arrogate transformed his legacy with his first sophomores, after they had made a quiet start as juveniles. On the other hand, those sires that had assembled monster books as commercial rookies should expect to be judged pretty sternly, pretty quickly.

So we have to strike a balance. Already second crop yearlings have typically registered a depreciation of many sire brands in the sales ring. On the other hand, investors of sufficient patience, vision and bravery may decide that this is precisely the moment to roll the dice on a slower burn.

Bubbling Under:

BOLT D'ORO closed out the year strongest to secure the freshman laurels after a sustained battle with two other very promising young sires, a distinction that formalized the superiority he showed both in the sheer breadth of his quality–a stellar one-in-five starters getting black type–and notably in the sales performance of his second crop, which uniquely among the trio managed to advance the values achieved by his first.

His median, always the key measure, rose to $152,500 from the $110,000 achieved by those debut yearlings who had meanwhile been showing that it was money well spent. That's an exceptional vote of confidence, albeit perhaps partly also reflected a rather narrower choice for purchasers after numbers had to be controlled (along with his boisterous behavior, at the time) for his second season. Bolt d'Oro was back up to 174 mares for his fourth book last spring, and the quality of his mares will only be going up with his fee-now $35,000 after slipping to $15,000 in 2021. Obviously he has to work harder to achieve the same ratios now, with the stakes raised, but he has made an exemplary start.

Fairly steady stuff on the track from MO TOWN (illuminated by Myrtlewood S. romper Key Of Life) does not tell half his story, as he is an unusual example of a stallion whose business soared in his third and fourth seasons. His second crop of yearlings emerge from a book of 104 mares, but he then covered 204 in 2021 and 218 this spring. If that generates renewed momentum on the track, in a couple of years from now, this could turn out to be a smart time to get involved at just $5,000.

Army Mule | Sarah K. Andrew

BRONZE: ARMY MULE (Friesan Fire-Crafty Toast by Crafty Prospector)
$12,500 Hill 'n' Dale
This has always looked a stallion who could only have extreme outcomes. He was either going to be a dud, or prove himself exceptional value. Happily, there already seems little doubt that the switch is “on” and Army Mule appears set to build something pretty imposing on the fragile foundations of a track career that showcased freakish ability across barely four minutes, and a somewhat left-field pedigree.

His every trajectory is upward. Most importantly, his first juveniles have excelled, elevating him to fourth in the table from a smaller book (and much smaller fee) than those above him. Of his 24 winners from 61 starters, as many as five won at black-type level-the top three were tied with just one more-in tipping $2 million in purse money.

This performance had been anticipated by a stunning debut at the yearling sales, when Army Mule's first crop averaged nine times their $10,000 conception fee. In response, there was a further rebound in the size of his 2022 book, after he had slumped from 140 mares to 47 in his second season. He has now received 83 and 115 partners in the two years since. And while he couldn't quite replicate his initial yield with his second crop of yearlings, he again punched way above the kind of ratio you might expect at this stage, averaging $69,272 for 22 yearlings sold (from only 25 offered). Unsurprisingly, given his own giddy history as a yearling pinhook ($35,000 to $825,000) he also achieved dividends as high as $450,000 at the 2-year-old sales.

Originally, no doubt, breeders may have been torn between his six-length GI Carter H. success, in 1:20.94, on what proved to be the final of just three starts; and, on the other hand, some fairly unfashionable genes (albeit second and third dams both graded stakes winners). One way or another, however, things are plainly functioning in a repeatable fashion. You know what they say when it walks like a duck…

If Army Mule already sires runners like a good stallion, and sells horses like a good stallion, the chances are that he's a good stallion.

Accelerate | Lane's End

SILVER: ACCELERATE (Lookin At Lucky-Issues by Awesome Again)
$10,000 Lane's End
Of the three stallions launched into this intake at Lane's End, CITY OF LIGHT was always the golden boy. Though slow to get going, his 11 winners since midsummer already feature three at stakes level. Nobody, in short, still needs telling what he can still hope to achieve at $60,000.

At the sales, however, it has meanwhile proved much tougher going for the second crop of yearlings by the pair who started alongside him. Nonetheless I am unhesitatingly keeping the faith with the one I have liked all along.

In this series we've already nailed our colors to the Lookin At Lucky mast with Country House, believing the Ashford stalwart as likely to be underestimated as a potential sire of sires as he has always been in his own right. And there's no doubt in my mind that Accelerate is an absolutely astounding amount of horse for just $10,000.

Did anyone for a moment think that Accelerate was going to start off with a cavalcade of sprint maidens at the Keeneland spring meet? Yet having looked after his supporters very nicely with his first yearlings, he found himself childishly neglected with his second crop.

Accelerate did muster 14 juvenile winners, including one at stakes level, which is as much as could have been sensibly expected for a horse that himself required four sophomore starts to break his maiden in high summer. He then rolled on to win a stakes and the GII Los Alamitos Derby before finishing third in the GI Dirt Mile at the Breeders' Cup. Lest we forget, runner-up in that race was another sophomore who was only laying down foundations: horse name of Gun Runner (Candy Ride {Arg}).

Nobody should need reminding of the heights Accelerate achieved in his own maturity, winning five Grade Is at five. His only defeat that year? By a neck to none other than City Of Light, giving weight, the pair 10 lengths clear.

Accelerate laid down a perfect marker with his first sophomore runner, on New Year's Day at Laurel, where a filly making her fourth start broke her maiden easily over a bare six furlongs. That's a similar template to Winters Lion, who had run fifth, third and second in Churchill maidens before putting it all together to romp by 6 1/2 at Oaklawn in December. Anyone can see that all this is pure groundwork and breeders blessed with that rarest of commodities, patience, will recognize the value they're getting if their primary objective is to put a winner under their mare. (Which should, after all, be just about the most commercial thing anyone can do…)

Remember that Accelerate is out of an Awesome Again mare (representing the distaff gold of Deputy Minister) who also produced siblings, respectively, placed at Grade I and Grade III level, her own dam being a half-sister to a Grade I winner. (And the line traces to a fifth dam, Smartaire, whose son Smarten gave us the dam of Accelerate's grandsire Smart Strike.)

It's a dismal measure of the world we live in that Accelerate was retired at a fee as accessible as $20,000, lower than several horses he had left gasping in his wake-and that he has since taken three cuts in three years. What exactly are people after? This horse earned $6.7 million by dint of class, constitution and a physique prized at $380,000 as a yearling, despite his ostensibly uncommercial paternity. Bar a historic Triple Crown winner, Accelerate would have been a lock for Horse of the Year and I remain confident that he will, gradually and cumulatively, retrieve respect in his second career.

He actually has a very solid numerical base, with as many as 380 mares across his first three books. Given that his opening crops seem very likely to keep thriving with time, he could wind up with plenty of headlines overlapping in the coming years. As such, this feels like a very good moment to get ahead of the game with Accelerate. Sure, that suggestion might irritate those who suffered from the myopic treatment of his second crop at the sales. But someday people may look back at this horse, at this fee, as one of the great missed opportunities.

Oscar Performance | Sarah K. Andrew

GOLD: OSCAR PERFORMANCE (Kitten's Joy-Devine Actress by Theatrical {Ire})
$20,000 Mill Ridge
This guy will cost you a little more this time round-and so he jolly well should.

Most obviously, Oscar Performance has made an exemplary start on the track, with higher earnings per starter than any other top-10 freshman sire. From star managed to put him as high as eighth in the prize money table (slipstreaming Mendelssohn, with 90!) and featured not just 17 winners, a couple at black-type level, but also four placed in graded stakes company. These included a Grade II one-two when Andthewinneris beat Deer District at Keeneland in the fall.

We know, moreover, that these horses will keep building if they adhere to their sire's own template as a Grade I winner at two, three and four. And, crucially, even a commercial market so petrified of turf horses has managed to register his promise: bucking the usual trend, his second crop elevated their predecessors' yearling average from $43,149 to $57,474 (for a strong 38 sold of 44 offered).

But the real key for Oscar Performance is that he has emerged at an hour of need for the enlightened minority who actually want to connect the American bloodstock industry to huge racetrack opportunity on American grass.

Everyone knows how the turf program is expanding, and that a virtuous circle is underway between fully subscribed fields and purse money. And a lot of people, as a result, are investing heavily in elite European blood at sales over the water. On their own doorstep, however, they have now allowed both English Channel and Kitten's Joy to pass without ever having shown them anything like enough respect in the ring.

Now we have a blatant young talent emerging to blatant opportunity. There is generational room at the top, after the consecutive loss of his own sire, English Channel and Get Stormy. And here's a horse who had the brilliance to drop back from elite scores at 10 furlongs (Arlington Million/Belmont Derby) to make all in a Grade I mile; the soundness to bank $2.35 million across three seasons; and a pedigree that duplicates the same breed-changing alchemy top and bottom.

That's because his damsire is a son of Nureyev, who was by Northern Dancer out of the great Special (Forli {Arg}); while he extends the storied sire-line of Sadler's Wells, who was of course by Northern Dancer out of Special's daughter Fairy Bridge (Bold Reason). That may sound like way too much chlorophyll for a lot of Kentucky breeders, but I will never cease complaining about prescriptive, self-fulfilling assumptions about different bloodlines and different surfaces. Sure enough, Oscar Performance has already come up with Red Carpet Ready to win a dirt sprint by 10 lengths at Churchill on debut and then a 6.5f dirt stakes over the same track on her only other start.

Oscar Performance has been launched with unsurprising flair by a farm that once stood international influences in Diesis and Gone West. It's great to see them back in the stallion game, not least with so much “industrial” traffic cornered by the same few farms, and it's a typically thoughtful gesture-having trimmed him to $12,500 pending his first runners-to confine the increase in Oscar Performance's fee to $17,500 for those clients who had used him already.

The rest of us may have been less alert, but anyone can now see that Oscar Performance is on his way. He will surely rank high on the shortlists of European pinhookers as well. Roll out the red carpet!

The post Value Sires for ’23: Part V, First Sophomores appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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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.”

The post Amermans Credit Performance to Best Supporting Actors appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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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.”

The post Pastures New Maintain Old Standards at Mill Ridge appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Juddmonte Unveils Arrogate Homebred…
3rd-KEE, $84K, Msw, 2yo, 1 1/16mT, post time: 2:04 p.m. ET
VERBIER (Arrogate) is the first foal out of Bernadiva (Bernardini), a longshot third in the grassy Riskaverse S. for Jake Ballis and Bill Mott and later acquired privately with an eye on becoming a future mate for the late Arrogate. Bernadiva is a daughter of the versatile Evening Jewel (Northern Afleet), winner of a synthetic-track renewal of this track's GI Central Bank Ashland S. and that year's GI Del Mar Oaks on the turf either side of a heartbreaking defeat at the hooves of Blind Luck (Pollard's Vision) in the GI Kentucky Oaks. Among the competition is Whitham Thoroughbreds' Hatch (E Dubai), a son of turf GSW Linda (Scat Daddy), herself a daughter of GSW/GISP Beautiful Noise (Sunny's Halo). TJCIS PPs

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There are currently four variants circulating in the United States; Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Gamma, with Delta making up over 99% of all cases.

It seems like every day, someone we know in racing has contracted Covid, from trainer Todd Pletcher to the TDN's own Christina Bossinakis, and many of the people surveyed below. At no time is the demand to travel and circulate with others for our jobs in racing greater than it is for the fall sales period.

The TDN talked to a number of buyers and consignors about how they feel about traveling to the sales, what precautions they'll take, and what sales companies can do to make them feel safe.

We start off our conversation with Keeneland's President and CEO Shannon Arvin, who talked about sales protocols.

Shannon Arvin
First and foremost, the health and safety of our clients, staff and equine stock is Keeneland's primary focus. COVID-19 has presented us with many challenges these past 18 months, but by working together, we have successfully navigated a constantly changing world to create a stable and steady market. And I believe we will do that again this fall sales and racing season.
Looking ahead to the September Yearling Sale, Keeneland will follow the guidance of health and government experts to create the safest environment possible for our sales participants. And just like last year, we ask for the continued support and cooperation of our customers and their staffs.

Shannon Arvin | Keeneland photo

We strongly encourage those who have not yet been vaccinated to do so. Vaccination offers the best protection possible from COVID-19.

Most of us are extremely aware of the risk presented by COVID-19 and take the proper precautions where necessary.

At Keeneland, we have reinstated a mask mandate for all employees, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, while working indoors. Our unvaccinated employees are required to be tested weekly.

Consistent with current CDC guidelines, we strongly recommend that all sales participants wear a mask when indoors. This is an added layer of defense that keeps you and those you come in contact with safe.

Our facilities at Keeneland will undergo a deep cleaning following each sales session, and we've located hand sanitizing stations throughout the Sales Pavilion and grounds.

We also will continue to offer online bidding and phone bidding for buyers unable to attend the September Sale in person.

The Keeneland team looks forward to welcoming our friends and customers from around the world to Central Kentucky this fall. A silver lining of the pandemic is the resiliency and optimism of horsemen that always seem to carry the industry through challenging times. We are confident the market will continue to be buoyed by enthusiasm at the sales and a keen passion for racing.

Price Bell, Mill Ridge
I'm so glad you all are doing this story on the vaccine and protocols. I think it's important. Considering that last year Keeneland and Fasig-Tipton conducted multiple sales, and quite frankly kept our industry going, I know we can stay safe through this sales season as well. I think the key is keeping activity inside limited and being respectful of people and the variant.

Price Bell | Mill Ridge photo

I'm vaccinated, and look forward to the booster. I will wear a mask indoors and in the back ring, where I hope it is crowded. I do feel comfortable going because I thought they did a phenomenal job last year. They created a wonderful environment to conduct business utilizing so much of their outdoor space and I would expect they do something similar this year. I think we have learned from our friends who got sick in Saratoga that the vaccine is not bulletproof and the variant is real.

As for our team, we have worked hard to make everyone aware of the benefits of the vaccine and nearly every team member has been vaccinated. We will provide masks to co-workers and opportunities for us to not gather in the tack/warm rooms.

Liz Crow, BSW Bloodstock
I will feel comfortable but I will also be a little hesitant because I have a 6-month-old baby who is not vaccinated. My concern is always how can I keep her safe. For that reason, I will be a little nervous. I will be wearing a mask and will be careful. I will probably only wear the mask when I am inside. When I look at horses, I generally am not super close to a lot of people except for my team. They are all fully vaccinated, which makes me feel safer.

As for protocols, that's above my paygrade so far as all the thought that has to go into that. I do think there should be a mask mandate for inside. That's probably the right thing to do.

Justin Casse
I won't mind going. I've gotten my vaccinations. I had Covid and I got it when I was in Newmarket last year for the yearling sales. Covid changed my life in regards to the amount of traveling I want to do. To be honest with you, my time at horse sales going forward is going to be less than usual. In regards to fear of getting the disease, that's not on my mind. But so far a what it has done to me and my values in life, it's made me step back and look at what might be more important. I want to spend more time enjoying life and my family.

I won't wear a mask unless prompted and told to do so.

I know it's a pain in the butt, but I do feel that proof of vaccination is nice and if not proof of vaccination then you should have to show that you have tested negative. It should be one of the two. I went to the Grateful Dead concert in Saratoga last week and to get into the area of the pit you had to show that you had been vaccinated. To get into the concert, you had to have a negative test or the vaccination. That's like 20,000 people in an outdoor setting and they did their best to make sure that we were at event that would not turn into a super spreader event.

Jon Green | Courtesy DJ Stables

Jon Green, General Manager, DJ Stables
I personally attended the Saratoga sale and was surprised more people were not wearing masks, especially inside the sales pavilion. The number of people who caught some type of illness directly stemming from the sales and/or races was not surprising in my mind–COVID in particular is just that contagious. Since my parents are older, and more susceptible to the negative consequences of any virus, we have opted not to attend the September Sales. Like last year, we have assembled a great team of short listers, trainers and veterinarians to provide us with the information required to make our decisions from afar. Keeneland has done an outstanding job of establishing and improving their digital platform, and we have the utmost confidence bidding on their site. Hopefully the CDC figures will improve over the coming weeks so we can return to Kentucky in November.

J.R. Boyd
I feel very comfortable because I had COVID and I have the antibodies and according to the doctors the antibodies last up to 90 days. I got it at the very end of July. The doctors and nurses told me that 99% of the people in the hospital were not vaccinated and I was not vaccinated either. I definitely regret not getting vaccinated. My wife had it about six months before I did and I was around her the whole time and I never caught it. It's not that I was against the vaccination. I just thought I didn't need it. That was a mistake.

I worry that there's not a lot anyone can do. If you're going to get it you're going to get it. I won't say that I won't go inside the pavilion, but I'm going to try to keep my distance from other people. Everyone should definitely have the Germ-X sanitizer in their pockets and should keep their distance when they can. Having said that, I would feel more comfortable if everyone were vaccinated.

I don't plan on wearing a mask. That's because every doctor has told me I have full-blown antibodies and for 90 days I cannot get COVID and I cannot carry it. I don't feel like I can receive it or give it to anyone. If they want me to wear a mask in certain areas, I will not mind. I'm not against masks by any means.

Doug Cauthen
I feel comfortable going to the sale. I will take precautions like trying to keep my distance from others. Thankfully, most of it takes place outdoors. I won't be going inside the pavilion unless people are masked.

Masking indoors is a no-brainer. We've seen how well that woks and it especially works when everybody does it. I'll definitely wear a mask indoors. When I'm out looking at horses I'll probably have one around my neck and if somebody comes up to me I'll pull it up and talk to them. Thankfully, I am vaccinated. I know I can still get COVID, but my preference is obviously to not get sick.

Meg Levy, Bluewater Sales
Mike and I actually just got over Covid. We both had been vaccinated. We were in Saratoga and the Delta variant was going around, we got it and we're over it and we've been re-vaccinated. Personally, I will feel comfortable.

Meg LEvy | Bluewater Sales

I just assumed they were going to go back to protocols similar to what they did last fall when they had badges and temperature checks. That seemed to be easy and seemed to go well.

I will wear a mask when I am near people. I think that's only fair the best way to keep others safe. I'm not worried about myself, but it's kind to do the right thing when it comes to others.

Pete Bradley
I feel comfortable going because I have been vaccinated. At this point, life is going on in the world. Going to the sale wouldn't bother me any more than going to a restaurant. I wear masks indoors and usually outdoors I don't.

I see no reason not to wear masks, especially in indoor situations. That's me personally. Outdoors, I don't think it really helps. I don't know how much a mask helps, but it certainly can't hurt.

Craig Bandoroff, Denali Stud
I feel comfortable going. I am vaccinated and if I can get the booster before the sale I will. On protocols, that's a tricky one. What I have been seeing at various places is that when you go inside you have to wear a mask. I don't think that's unreasonable. If you're going to be inside the pavilion, perhaps you should have to wear a mask, that is unless things start to change.

I don't think I will wear a mask outside. But I am 66 and in a more vulnerable group, so I probably will wear a mask inside. I understand it's hard to get into the country and the Japanese have either had a hard time coming or are reluctant to come. They are a big part of our market. It will be disconcerting if they don't or can't come.

Conrad Bandoroff, Denali Stud
We're doing some simple things that we started last year. We made some changes that we thought would help. As far as protecting our staff, most of our staff have been vaccinated. There's going to be one person responsible for taking down someone's card and rather than have a buyer or agent fill out a card there will be somebody there to do that. That way you'll have fewer touch points. Most likely, we will not be requiring our staff to wear masks, but we will have masks available for our crew if they chose to wear one. Our feeling is that we are outside.

The post Buyers, Sellers, Sales Companies Talk COVID-19 and the Fall Sales appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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