Keswick Stables’ Peggy Augustus Passes Away

Peggy Augustus, a successful owner and breeder who bred Eclipse Award winners Stellar Wind (Curlin) and Johnny D. (Stage Door Johnny), passed away Sunday at her home on her Old Keswick Farm in Charlottesville, VA. She was 90.

Her death was confirmed by one of her former trainers, Bill Hirsch Jr.

“She was a great lady, just one of the best,” Hirsch said. “The thing I remember most about her was that, unlike most owners, she knew how to win and she knew how to lose. A lot of them don't know how to lose. She never skimped on anything. Whatever her horses needed, no matter the cost or the effort it took to get something to me, she got it done. Her number one priority was always her horses. She was just a fabulous lady.”

Hirsch said that Augustus was suffering from breathing problems, which were worsening, and that she told friends and family that “it is time for me to go.”

Augustus, a member of the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame, was born in Cleveland Ohio before moving to Virginia in 1950. Before getting involved in racing, she was an active owner, trainer and rider who competed against men and professionals and won major championships throughout the United States and Canada, including the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden, the Devon Horse Show, the Royal Winter Fair, the Pennsylvania National and Virginia's top four horse shows Hot Springs, Keswick, Deep Run, and Warrenton. She is also a member of the Virginia Horse Show Hall of Fame and the National Horse Show Hall of Fame, and was a named a Living Legend of the National Horse Show in 1996. In 1997, she was elected into the National Show Hunter Hall of Fame.

In 2008, she told the website virginialiving.com, that she had been interested in racing since she was 10 years old and started compiling statistics on horses running at the Chicago tracks. Before she was old enough to attend a day at the track, her mother, Elizabeth, would sneak her into the races.

“You had to be 21 to get into the racetracks back then,” she told the website. “If I picked less than four winners, it was a bad day.”

As a teenager she was heavily involved in showing and briefly lost interest in racing. In 1952, the Augustus family bought Old Keswick Farm in Virginia, where Elizabeth was involved in raising Thoroughbreds. When her father died in 1963, Peggy moved to Old Keswick and carried on the breeding business with her mother under the name Keswick Stables.

According to Virginia Living,  Augustus bred 48 stakes winners.

One of her first stars as a breeder was Johnny D., who was owned by Dana Bray. A foal of 1974, his biggest wins came in the 1977 GI Washington D.C. International and the 1977 Turf Classic International S. He was named champion turf male of 1977. Her next big horse as a breeder was Husband (Diesis), who she also campaigned. After racing in France, his biggest win came in the 1993 GI Rothman's International S. at Woodbine. After his racing career was over, Husband wound up in South America. Augustus would buy him back from his new owner and let him live out his final years at Keswick.

For Augustus, Stellar Wind, who she bred along with Stonestreet Thoroughbred Holdings, was somewhat of a last hurrah. Sold for just $40,000 at the 2013 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale, the mare went on to win six Grade I races and was named champion 3-year-old filly in 2015. Stellar Wind was the last offspring of the last mare bred by Keswick Stables.

“It's a surprising thrill, being at the end of the line of Keswick Stables,” Augustus told theracingbiz.com in 2015. “Nice to go out with a bang, [but] even if she doesn't win the Kentucky Oaks, she's done enough now.

Stellar Wind finished fourth in the GI Kentucky Oaks as the 3-1 favorite.

Augustus also enjoyed great success at the sales. In 1984, she sold a yearling colt by Roberto at Fasig-Tipton Saratoga to Hugh de Burgh, who was representing Maktoum bin Rashid al Maktoum, for $4 million. It was the second highest price for a horse sold at that sale. According to her profile on the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame website, Augustus also sold a filly at Saratoga for $2.1 million and she is the only person in the history of the Saratoga sales to have bred and sold five yearlings that went on to win more than a million dollars.

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From The TDN Archives

A little more than four years ago, horse racing returned to the Commonwealth of Virginia and Colonial Downs for the first time since 2014. Under the leadership of then track Vice President Jill Byrne–one of Virginia's own–the track staged racing three days a week for about a month and since then, the meet has expanded both in terms of length and in terms of popularity among the betting public.

In August 2019, Ben Massam drew on his Virginian roots–Ben was a championship-caliber track and field athlete at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg–to write a piece that was part history lesson, part trip down memory lane and 100% from the heart, as that was Ben's forte. The following is the last of a voluminous number of contributions made by Ben to the TDN. Even deep into a battle with cancer, he found the courage and energy to treat our readers to one final helping of his talents. Ben sadly passed away on Breeders' Cup weekend in 2019, taken far too soon at just 31 years of age.

On the occasion of the opening of the 2023 season at Colonial, we thought we would honor Ben's memory by reprinting his story from Aug. 7, 2019, one more time. We hope you enjoy it as much as we all do.

COLONIAL DOWNS REVIVAL ADDS LATEST HOOFPRINT TO STORIED VIRGINIA LEGACY by Ben Massam

For many, the impending return of structured racing to Virginia at Colonial Downs in New Kent evokes stirring memories of a horse culture firmly embedded in the Commonwealth's history. On a personal level, I cannot help but harken back to my days as a track and field athlete at the College of William and Mary in the heart of Colonial Williamsburg, when I would routinely pair 18-mile training days with evening trips to a musty OTB down the road in Hampton to bet Penn National and Charles Town. I'd often drag my teammates with me in hopes of sparking their interest in a game I developed a passion for early in life.

Little did I know at the time, but back in Williamsburg, the origins of Virginia's horse racing tradition were right beneath our feet. Quarterpath Road, a heavily wooded trail situated on the southeast edge of town–and the nexus of one of our most popular running routes–was the location of some of the first organized horse racing during the colonial era. The events would command the attention of the entire town, often taking place over the span of a week and sometimes lasting up to four miles in duration (although the “Quarterpath” name is a nod to the short sprints that were also conducted on the grounds). Match races were common, and the purse money was put forth by race participants.

A 1989 article in the Hampton Roads Daily Press notes, “Nothing remains of the local track where George Washington and others watched the races, except the name 'Quarterpath Road' on the east end of Williamsburg. There, on a narrow road lined by modest houses, Tidewater planters raced horses.”

A circular mile-long track was eventually developed in the vicinity and by the mid-1730s, race meets were being held every Saturday from spring through fall. As the colonial era drew to a close, even visitors who were well-acquainted with the English turf were impressed by the quality of the Thoroughbreds competing in Williamsburg's races.

“Very capital horses are started here, such as would make no despicable figure at Newmarket,” observed J.F.D. Smyth in his travelogue A Tour in the United States of America. “Nor is their speed, bottom or blood inferior to their appearance; the gentlemen of Virginia sparing no pains, trouble or expense in importing the best stock, and improving the excellence of the breed by proper and judicious crossing.”

Racing, in fact, became so popular in Williamsburg that students at William and Mary had to be issued a warning about training racehorses. While the College's founder and first president James Blair was a known supporter of racing, the faculty was eventually compelled to clamp down on students as race meets were continually held in their backyards.

“No scholar belonging to any school in the College, of what age, rank, or quality, [what]soever, [should] keep any race horse at the College, in the town–or any where in the neighborhood,” the William and Mary administration cautioned. “[They should] not in any way [be] concerned in making races, or in backing or abetting those made by others; and all race horses kept in the neighborhood of the College, and belonging to any of the scholars, [should] be immediately dispatched and sent off and never again brought back.”

When considering the history of the Thoroughbred in Virginia, many minds gravitate to the legendary career of Virginia-foaled Secretariat and his iconic owner Penny Chenery. Or perhaps one conjures images of the quaint and enduring steeplechase tradition in the northern reaches of the Commonwealth. These are the bonds that tether Virginia's horse culture from the colonial era to the present day.

The latest incarnation of racing in Virginia comes thanks to the initiative of a new ownership group at Colonial Downs in Rosie's Gaming, with a generous purse structure, low takeout, evening post times and the lure of a lush, wide turf course adding to the appeal. Vice President Jill Byrne–a native Virginian who grew up riding racehorses in Montpelier–noted the significance of the track ending a six-year hiatus of flat racing in Virginia.

“Being part of this comes with a great sense of pride in the state that I call home,” said Byrne. “Thoroughbred racing in the United States started in Virginia when they came to the shores here, and it's had a very long history. Racing was dormant for six years in a place where it has such an esteemed history and background–for it to come back is not only a big win for Virginia's Thoroughbred industry, but the Thoroughbred industry in general…It's going to revive what used to be a very robust breeding industry.”

With the prospect of an expanded schedule in coming years, Colonial Downs appears here to stay, writing the latest chapter in a storied history.

“We'll definitely expand for next year, somewhere between 20 and 30 days,” said Byrne, who added that the return of racing has a far-reaching impact on the local economy.

Whether it is the spirit of hot-blooded colonial steeds bounding down the streets of Williamsburg or a full field of turfers competing on the aptly named Secretariat Turf Course in New Kent, the legacy of racing in Virginia is alive and well. So I return to those long, taxing days of training on Quarterpath Road–footprints replacing hoofprints–but nevertheless indicative of a lasting connection between humans and horses in Old Dominion.

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Colonial Shifting To Weekend Racing For 2023

The 2023 racing dates at Colonial Downs will hold steady at the same 27-program level that the turf-focused track ran this year, but the full first season under the ownership of the gaming company Churchill Downs, Inc. (CDI), will see a shift to Thursday-through-Saturday racing instead of the Virginia track's traditional Monday-through-Wednesday slot.

The number of racing dates had been a concern for mid-Atlantic horsemen who were leery about CDI bloating the racing schedule beyond what the region's horse population might be able to sustain.

Those concerns were raised back in July, when Bill Carstanjen, CDI's chief executive officer, said during a quarterly earnings conference call that it would be CDI's intent to expand the current boutique-styled summer race meet from 27 to 50 dates, for the purpose of maximizing the number of historical horse racing machines (HRMs) that it can operate throughout Virginia. A state law requires CDI to run one race date for every 100 HRMs.

“Over the next two to four years we expect to grow to up to 50 race dates as we reach 5,000 HRMs,” Carstanjen said in that July 28 call.

At that time, Frank Petramalo Jr., the executive director of the Virginia Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association, told TDN that given the current harmony among racing schedules in the mid-Atlantic, “it's important to continue a cooperative relationship between Virginia and Maryland and Delaware [and] certainly Pennsylvania….. We have a lot of racing [in the region] and a diminishing number of horses. We think the way to success is to try to rationalize racing programs.”

The July 13-Sept. 9 schedule for 2023 was approved unanimously Dec. 14 by the Virginia Racing Commission.

The highlight of the meet, the GII Virginia Derby, will be run on closing day.

The switch to Thursday-Saturday racing “will allow for more Virginians to attend and enjoy live racing,” Jack Sours, the vice president for CDI's gaming operations, said in a press release.

But nationally, Colonial's switch to different dates and a 1:30 p.m. Eastern first post will put it in direct competition with Saratoga Race Course, the nation's dominant summer simulcast signal, and up against another CDI-owned track, Ellis Park, on Saturdays and Sundays.

After being closed for six years, Colonial reopened under new management in 2019, ushering in the HRM-fueled purse era in Virginia and carving out a reputation as an independent “comeback” track whose niche was turf racing.

In February 2022, CDI commenced a deal to buy Colonial and its HRM network in a sale announced as $2.485 billion.

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Record Purses for 2022 Colonial Downs Meet

Colonial Downs will offer a record of more than $600,000 in daily average purses and an expanded stakes schedule for the upcoming 2022 meet, starting July 11. The meet has six extra race days this year.

The stakes schedule is highlighted by the $300,000 GIII Virginia Derby and $200,000 Virginia Oaks Sept. 6. Maiden special weight races during the meeting will carry a $60,000 purse.

As a bonus, once again, all owners will be guaranteed $1,000 per start or their share of the purse money, and all trainers will receive $300 per start as recognition for participation every race, every day.

“In an ultra-competitive racing environment, we look forward to another season with bigger purses and greater incentives for our horsemen and industry stakeholders towards increased participation in the 2022 season,” said Jill Byrne, Colonial Downs Vice President of Racing Operations. “Our team is excited to present a wide-ranging program of racing opportunities on our outstanding racing surfaces.”

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