The Blood-Horse Regionals (PDF)

4/28/12 Southwest Regional: Remington Revs Up

aspradling — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 21:21:59 GMT

Gaming puts the ‘OK’ in Oklahoma

by Esther Marr

Before Remington Park obtained slots in 2005, the track was struggling to
survive. The front side desperately needed updating, crowds had dwindled
to alarmingly low numbers, field sizes were ever-shrinking, and purses
were not lucrative enough to compete with the tracks in neighboring states
bolstered by casino funds.

Just when things seemed hopeless for the Oklahoma City track, a godsend came in the
fall of 2004 in the form of the passage of State Question 712. The measure, which was approved
by Oklahoma citizens, authorized Remington Park to offer alternative gaming in
addition to live and simulcast horseracing. Over the last six years those additional funds
have had a crucial impact on the facility and the Oklahoma Thoroughbred industry as
a whole.

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4/14/2012 Northeast/Mid-Atlantic: Key Time

aspradling — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 14:58:17 GMT

Pennsylvania battles to keep funding

by Tom LaMarra

The two will be forever linked: the 2004 Triple Crown run by Smarty Jones and passage of the Pennsylvania Race Horse Development and Gaming Act several weeks later.

The Pennsylvania-bred racehorse was so popular that slot machines authorized by the gaming law—Act 71—were dubbed “Smarty Slots.” It was to be the perfect combination: renewed interest in horse racing because of Smarty Jones, and gaming revenue that could be used to capitalize on that interest.

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4/7/2012 Midwest/Canada: True North

aspradling — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:29:57 GMT

Adena Springs Canada contributes mightily to Frank Stronach’s top-shelf operation

By Lenny Shulman

What goes up sometimes comes down. Regional markets for Thoroughbreds seem in a constant dance of rising and then uncertainty as casino dollars lift racing and breeding programs before politicians stick their hands in the till and the money flowing toward purses and breeders’ and owners’ awards begins drying up. Ask Indiana, Pennsylvania, and now Ontario, and their stories will be eerily similar.

One thing that hasn’t changed in the Ontario market, however, has been the commitment of Frank Stronach and his family to breeding and racing in the locale where Stronach founded his auto parts company, Magna, which he turned into an international conglomerate. The showplace farm that is Adena Springs Canada near Aurora, north of Toronto, is a testament to that commitment and serves the needs of three generations of the Stronach family.

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3/31/2012: Southwest: Upping the Ante

Blood-Horse Staff — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 17:44:08 GMT

Mike Grossman bets on Texas with his Eureka Thoroughbred Farm

by Shelby O'Neill

Much of the discontent in the Texas horse racing community centers on 22 acres right in the heart of downtown Austin. Smack dab in the middle of that land, inside the Texas Capitol Building, 181 state legislators (with the help of the man who lives around the corner in the governor’s mansion) have been dragging their feet for more than a decade on provisions that would improve the state’s rapidly deteriorating Thoroughbred racing industry. But 70 miles west of that pink granite dome, right on U.S. Hwy. 290, lies an oasis of hope, where breeder and owner Mike Grossman is bucking trends by bringing stallions, mares, and money to the Lone Star State.

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3/17/2012: Northeast/Mid-Atlantic: Bottom Up

Blood-Horse Staff — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 17:48:25 GMT

Beverly Least and family make Foggy Bottom Farm a top breaking and training outfit.

by Lenny Shulman

When the improving fortunes of New York racing and breeding are considered, most of the discussion is centered on a north/south axis starting with the New York City-area racetracks Aqueduct and Belmont Park at the southern tip and moves north through the farms of the Hudson Valley and up to Saratoga Racecourse and the concentration of equine farm operations in that area.

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3/10/2012 Southeast: OK in Ocala

aspradling — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 02:55:55 GMT

Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. key to Central Florida horsemen

by Deirdre B. Biles

The Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co.’s mission is simple, according to Mike O’Farrell, who has served as the Central Florida auction firm’s chairman since October 2006 in addition to running Ocala Stud.

“It’s here to provide the best facilities possible for people in the Ocala area to promote and sell their horses,” he said.

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3/3/2012 Midwest/Canada: High Flyer

aspradling — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:49:07 GMT

Mark Casse’s ‘crazy good’ run

By Jennifer Morrison

Mark Casse has referred to his vast Thoroughbred training business at Woodbine racetrack as a “well-oiled machine” that runs smoothly from the early morning hours to late in the day. It’s a system of teamwork that has led his stable to the top at the famed Canadian track for five consecutive years.

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2/25/2012 Northeast/Mid-Atlantic: The Keane Team

aspradling — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:32:22 GMT

Dr. Winslow Stevens and Phillipe Lasseur make Keane Stud attractive to clients

by Esther Marr

When Jim Edwards retired in the 1980s and sold Keane Stud, his thriving Thoroughbred nursery near Amenia, N.Y., the wheels began turning in veterinarian Dr. Winslow Stevens’ head.

It didn’t take long before Stevens, who had served as Keane Stud’s primary veterinarian since 1987, made the choice to return to his management roots and lease the farm. It was a decision he wouldn’t regret.

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02/18/2012 Southwest: Heartland of America

aspradling — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:51:56 GMT

Bigheart Thoroughbreds steps up in Oklahoma

by Lenny Shulman

So, what is the logical career path for a longtime obstetrics/gynecology practitioner and nurse midwife looking to change professions? If you’re Cindi Bigheart, you enlist your family to help turn a cattle farm into a Thoroughbred operation so you can begin foaling out mares and raising racehorses. Makes perfect sense.
Five years ago Bigheart traded in delivering babies for the all-night work of delivering foals at her family’s Bigheart Thoroughbreds in northern Oklahoma near the town of Enid. And she couldn’t be happier with her new vocation.

Bigheart comes to horses through her family lineage. She is one-quarter Osage Indian, and her grandfather, a tribal chief, was full-blooded. She can remember as a child going to ceremonies at his home and listening to his people singing in their native tongue. The connection to equines was reinforced at an early age. Her father, the late Conrad “Sonny” Bigheart, and her brother Steve Bigheart both became racetrack trainers. Cindi was raised around Quarter Horses in Kansas and Oklahoma. When Oklahoma began nourishing its Thoroughbred program with the infusion of casino money to enhance purses and breeders awards, she figured it was time to spring into action.

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02/11/2012 West Coast: Life's a Beach

aspradling — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:05:15 GMT

Noosa Beach shines for Doris and Jeff Harwood
by Jack Shinar

Doris and Jeff Harwood know that improbable dreams really can happen, that little guys can beat billionaires, and miracles come on four hooves. They can see the proof right outside the picture window of the den in their two-story ranch home nestled in the cedar-covered rolling hills of the Washington suburb of Kent.

That’s where Noosa Beach, the homebred pride of their stable, likes to play in his paddock during the Emerald Downs off-season while he awaits a 2012 campaign that perhaps could include a trip to the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita Park next fall for the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile (gr. I).

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02/11/2012 Southeast: Junior Class

aspradling — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:58:02 GMT

Longtime trainer Junior Serna keeps sending out winners
by Bill Giauque

Now in his sixth decade as a horseman, Junior Serna of Ocala, Fla., and Lambholm South could best be described as a “stayer.” A stayer, as defined in Tom Ainslie’s book “Ainslie’s Complete Guide to horoughbred Racing,” is “a reliable router.”

Serna certainly can stay the distance—and has. And there is no question he is reliable, but both are understatements that leave out the class of the man and his horses.

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02/04/12 Northeast/MidAtlantic: Branching Out

Blood-Horse Staff — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:20:57 GMT

By Jason Shandler

Vinery jumps into New York breeding, stallion businesses

Tom Ludt does not consider himself a visionary, but he does understand the horse racing industry very well, and that is why in late 2010—just a few months after the drawn out process to build a casino at Aqueduct Racetrack finally came to a happy conclusion when it was green-lighted by lawmakers—Ludt made a major decision to expand Vinery operations to New York.

Along with Adena Springs, which had moved stallions to New York a year earlier, Vinery became one of the first major Kentucky-based farms to make a major commitment in New York (Spendthrift Farm has followed). As president of Vinery, Ludt thought bringing stallions to New York was the right move at the right time. His thinking was simple: With 5,000 slot machines projected to generate $44.8 million per year in additional purse monies for the New York Racing Association, and another $6.9 million per year slotted for the New York State Thoroughbred Breeding and Development Fund, racing was about to get a big boost in the Empire State.

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02/04/12 Midwest/Canada: Catching a Break

Blood-Horse Staff — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:08:01 GMT

By Lenny Shulman

Janice and Scott Jordan's Breakaway Farm Grows With Indiana

While New York is getting plenty of attention as a destination for breeders looking to take advantage of casino-enhanced purses and awards, mare owners in Kentucky and from other regions have for the past several years also circled Indiana as a locale with lucrative awards and a widening pool of stallions that stand for a reasonable fee.

With Indiana-breds eligible to run for generous stallion, breeder, and owner awards over the past couple of seasons, the state has rivaled Louisiana, Pennsylvania, New York, and other casino-enhanced racing jurisdictions for the business of horsemen who realize that any extra benefit can mean the difference in earning enough to be able to stay in the game.

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01/21/12 Southeast: Blockbuster

Blood-Horse Staff — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 01:46:26 GMT

By Bill Giauque

Ocala Stud roars back among top breeders.

Ocala Stud is the setting for the longest-running Thoroughbred epic in Florida, which features tragedy and triumph, struggle and success. The story began in 1956 with the founding of the farm by Joe O' Farrell, followed quickly by the hosting of the world’s first 2-year-old in training sale, and the emergence of Rough’n Tumble as a leading sire and the sire of champions My Dear Girl and Dr. Fager.

Next came the Ocala Stud-bred Horse of the Year Roman Brother. Eventually, though, Florida’s keystone farm fell on hard times and bankruptcy in the 1970s, followed by the long struggle to return to national
prominence.

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01/21/12 Southwest: Open Company

Blood-Horse Staff — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 01:35:11 GMT

By Gary McMillen

Coteau Grove Farm set to compete with the best.

Keith Myers is tired of talk that comes to nothing. Myers is one of those rare individuals who insists on getting ahead of the curve and doesn’t waste any time getting there. Along with his wife, Ginger, the 52-year-old Myers is about to thrust Coteau Grove Farm to the top of Louisiana’s pecking order of Thoroughbred breeding operations. Be advised that if you tell Keith Myers that he can’t do something, it will just happen faster.

Think of a bulldog off its leash. With an emphasis on quality and breeding to race, Coteau Grove Farm has produced 11 stakes winners in the span of only three years.

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