Honey Creek Farms

Lane’s End introduced two of its new stallions, Connect (Curlin) and Unified (Candy Ride {Arg}), to a press-only function at the Versailles nursery Wednesday. The former represents a new partnership between Lane’s End and Three Chimneys Farm, which took an ownership interest in the Grade I winner.

“We bought into him when he was still on the race track, and being a Grade I-winning son of Curlin, and being as good looking as he is, we’re excited to have him,” said Lane’s End’s Bill Farish. Curlin previously stood at Lane’s End.

Connect is one of two sons of Curlin entering stud in Kentucky in 2018–Keen Ice is the other–and embarks upon his new career with smart credentials. Owned by Paul Pompa, Jr. and trained by Chad Brown, Connect won six of eight starts, including a breakout score in the GI Cigar Mile H. in 2016. He has been installed at an initial fee of $20,000, and Farish said that price point has resonated with breeders.

Doug Cauthen said Three Chimneys had pursued Connect as a stallion prospect, and came in as a partner after Lane’s End landed him.

“I loved the horse, and [Three Chimneys owner] Goncalo [Torrealba] takes a very collaborative view, whether it’s on breeding, racing or standing stallions,” said Cauthen, vice chairman at Three Chimneys. “I’ve been following Connect for a long time. Even back when Eddie Woods had him down in Ocala, he always touted the horse.”

It’s the first time Three Chimneys has joined with another farm in a stallion venture. Asked if that’s a trend he expects to become more common, Cauthen said, “There’s a joy to standing a horse [by yourself], but there are also other times where you don’t worry about that and just get involved.”

To which Farish cracked, “We’d be happy to get in on Gun Runner.”

Cauthen said that Three Chimneys took a sizable number of shares in Connect, and had tabbed several high-quality mares for him.

It could be argued that Connect’s most impressive win came not in the Cigar Mile, but in the 2016 GII Pennsylvania Derby, when he defeated a field that included Gun Runner (Candy Ride {Arg}), Nyquist (Uncle Mo), Exaggerator (Curlin) and Cupid (Tapit).

“They changed it to a Grade I the next year, but it was a Grade I [in quality],” said Cauthen. “He beat some pretty nice horses in there, and then went on and got the Grade I [in the Cigar Mile]. So in my mind he’s a multiple Grade I winner in terms of talent.”

Lane’s End’s David Ingordo and bloodstock agent Marette Farrell joined Farish and Cauthen for a panel discussion after a parade of the farm’s stallion roster. Ingordo noted that Connect’s female line is entirely free of Northern Dancer and Mr. Prospector, opening the 5-year-old to a wide array of potential mates.

“Unless she’s by Curlin or Smart Strike, almost any mare you have will work,” Ingordo said.

Unified is Lane’s End’s other new gun. Owned by Centennial Farms and trained by Jimmy Jerkens, Unified was tabbed a ‘TDN Rising Star‘ on debut, and added the GIII Bay Shore S. and GII Peter Pan S. in successive starts. Unified kicked off 2017 with a win over Mind Your Biscuits (Posse) in the GIII Gulfstream Park Sprint S. and was just touched off a neck in the GI Carter H.

“He’s another horse we bought into at the racetrack, and he started off his career brilliantly with three wins,” said Farish.

Farish was plenty familiar with the colt. Unified was raised at Lane’s End on behalf of breeder Blue Devil Racing Stable, and, from the Lane’s End Sales draft, commanded $325,000 as a Fasig-Tipton Saratoga yearling in 2014.

“As a yearling, he was one of the best-looking horses we had on the entire farm,” said Ingordo. “From my standpoint, good-looking begets good-looking. I’m expecting him to throw an athletic and commercial yearling that we hope translates into some runners.”

Unified joins Gun Runner and Mastery as Candy Ride (Arg) sons heading to stud in Kentucky in 2018, and at $10,000, is the lowest priced of the trio. (Pro-tem Horse of the Year Gun Runner will stand for $70,000; the undefeated Mastery goes to Claiborne at $25,000.)

“He just got beat in a Grade I, and there’s no question he’s a Grade I talent,” said Farish. “We would have loved for him to get a couple of those, but it didn’t work out that way, so we started him out at a lower stud fee.”

Lane’s End has a reputation for pricing its stallions fairly, and Farish said initial breeder response has been favorable.

“[Setting fees] is something we do by committee here,” he said. “Especially for a first-year horse, you’re trying to figure out what the market will bear, and you want to set a fee that hopefully you can maintain for the first three or four years. Sometimes you get it right, and sometimes you don’t. With these two, it seems we’ve gotten it right..at least for this year.”

A new executive budget bill introduced by New York state governor Andrew Cuomo Jan. 16 included proposed legislation that would allow the New York Racing Association (NYRA) to conduct night racing at Belmont up to three nights a week. The proposed legislation, which would need legislative approval before the budget is signed into law by the governor before Apr. 30, specifies that the track could race at night Thursday through Saturday, provided that the cards conclude by 10:30 p.m. ET.

While current law only allows racing to be conducted between sunrise and sunset, the New York Senate passed a bill in June 2017 that would allow NYRA to conduct night racing twice a week during Belmont’s spring/summer and fall meets. The bill was not yet voted on by the state Assembly, and any additional legislative activity was deferred to the 2018 session.

Belmont Park was recently chosen as the site for a new arena for the NHL’s New York Islanders that will be situated adjacent to the racetrack.

“We envision night racing as a part of a comprehensive redevelopment of Belmont Park,” said Patrick McKenna, Director of Communications at NYRA. “The Islanders are making preparations to begin construction on a world-class arena that will be part of a sports and entertainment complex to rival any in the country.”

While night racing is unlikely to become a reality in 2018, McKenna said the ultimate goal is to be ready when the time comes.

“This is an important moment, and it certainly marks the progress and momentum behind efforts to allow Thoroughbred racing at night,” McKenna said.

The language of the bill specified that NYRA would be required to coordinate post-times with Yonkers Raceway’s harness racing programs to facilitate an integrated schedule of racing.

In a December TDN Q&A, NYRA CEO Chris Kay said that night racing was an integral component of the development of Belmont Park into a modern day entertainment venue. The advent of nighttime racing, according to Kay, would dovetail perfectly with Islanders’ arrival to the site.

“We would like to see night racing at Belmont, primarily because the sport of horse racing needs to generate new generations of fans, like millennials,” Kay told the TDN‘s T.D. Thornton. “And those folks are working on a Thursday or a Friday afternoon. They like to go out and have a good time; we want to provide them with that opportunity. We want to offer our sport the way baseball offers their sport, at night when people can go.”

The Barretts January Mixed Sale, which this year will include a stallion season auction to benefit the victims of the San Luis Rey Downs fire, will be held Wednesday at the Hinds Pavilion at Fairplex in Pomona, California. With breeding stock, 2-year-olds, horses of racing age and yearlings on offer, bidding is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. PT.
In the wake of the Dec. 7 wildfire that claimed the lives of 46 horses and displaced backstretch workers at San Luis Rey Downs, Barretts made the decision to use its January sale to help raise funds for the victims.
“The fires were so shocking and terrible and we decided to find things that we could do to help,” said Barretts General Manager Kim Lloyd. “With the January sale coming up, we decided we would donate 10% of our proceeds and we would try to have a silent auction with stallion seasons and see what we could raise to benefit the victims. It really grew quickly and we are grateful to all the people who chipped in and donated seasons. Everybody stepped up and hopefully we’ll raise some money to make a difference for those people.”
Recently retired graded stakes winners Shaman Ghost and Danzing Candy are among the stallions who will have 2018 no-guarantee seasons auctioned off Wednesday. Also available will be seasons to Can the Man, Daddy Nose Best, Desert Code, Metaboss, Smiling Tiger, Stanford and Stay Thirsty. There will also be a silent auction of sporting art.
The seasons auction will be held at the completion of the breeding stock offerings at the mixed sale. Barretts will be donating 10% of its commissions from the sale to the California Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Foundation for victims of the fire as needed, with any remaining balance to be retained by CTHF for ongoing medical needs of all backstretch workers. All proceeds from the stallion seasons auction will also go to the CTHF.
Cautious Giant (Giant’s Causeway) was the top-priced offering at last year’s January sale, bringing a final bid of $57,000. In all, 125 horses sold at last year’s auction for a total of $995,800. The average was $7,966 and the median was $3,700.
“The main thing [with the January sale] is to provide an opportunity for our local people to continue on with the business for the rest of the year,” Lloyd said. “Breeders can sell some horses and help with their stud fees and other expenses to kick off the year. It’s a good way to move horses and raise some money for people to help them continue with their business. It’s turned into a very useful sale for our California people. And there are always horses who come out of this sale who end up being something you recognize later on at the races. It’s a useful sale and we looking forward to moving a lot of horses.”

Behind the heady commerce of the sales ring, which nowadays often threatens to take centre stage ahead of events on the racecourse, we are all involved in a sport fuelled by dreams. Whether it’s a hobby breeder with one mare hoping to produce a winner anywhere, or Sheikh Mohammed with his ploy to promote his country through worldwide participation in his grand equine passion, we all have a dream.

“We could see our dream,” says Patricia Thompson in her personal message on the homepage of Cheveley Park Stud’s website in reference to the purchase of Newmarket’s oldest stud farm by Thompson and her husband David in 1975. At that time, the historic property had “dwindled” to 270 acres from the vast estate once owned by Harry McCalmont, covering almost 8,000 acres.

Today, Cheveley Park Stud is comprised of nearly 1,000 acres. The operation is run in such a discreet manner that it is easy to overlook its significance, particularly to Britain, where its red, white and blue racing colours almost literally fly the flag for a nation once awash with owner-breeders but now somewhat lacking in that regard.

The stud in the Thompsons’ era has had a canny knack of making stallions, sometimes against the odds. They were advised not to stand their Gimcrack S. winner Music Boy (GB) (Jukebox {GB}) shortly after purchasing the farm but he duly became the leading first-season sire of 1980 and is immortalised in bronze outside the stud office, his likeness a monument to the pursuit of dreams.

While Music Boy was an important trailblazer for a then-fledgling stallion operation, his accomplishments have been dramatically usurped by the horse who can be considered the lynchpin of Cheveley Park Stud, the homebred wonder that is Pivotal (GB) (Polar Falcon).

“He’s really the reason that Cheveley Park Stud is as big and as significant as it is today. We were very lucky that we had three yearlings by Polar Falcon, two of them went to the sales and he was the one we kept. The rest, as they say, is history,” says Chris Richardson, managing director of Cheveley Park Stud for the last 30 years.

On the advice of trainer John Hammond, David Thompson bought Pivotal’s sire Polar Falcon halfway through his racing career and enjoyed Group 1 success in his own colours in the Haydock Sprint Cup before the son of Nureyev retired to stud. Polar Falcon’s first foal born, the bright chestnut son of the Cozzene mare Fearless Revival, not only laid down an important marker on the racecourse but now has his DNA well and truly imprinted throughout his birthplace.

“It’s fantastic to have bred and raced a horse like Pivotal. He gave Mr and Mrs Thompson a first Group 1 win in the Cheveley Park Stud colours when he won the Nunthorpe and what he has achieved at stud has been tremendous,” says Richardson. “He retired at £6,000 and in the second and third year we were having to discount him a bit, but in his heyday he was £85,000 and was in huge demand. We’re very grateful to Sheikh Mohammed, who agreed to buy a 25% interest in the horse and has supported him with good mares and in the sales ring. He has been rewarded with a nice stallion of his own in Farhh (GB), and Siyouni (Fr) seems to be doing extraordinarily well.”

Now 25, Pivotal could easily pass for a horse ten years younger when paraded, a fitting finale as he is brought out of the vast stallion box once inhabited by Isinglass (GB) and shown last of the eight stallions currently in residence at the farm. He is being carefully managed in his twilight years, covering a select number of mares.

Richardson says, “He covered 65 last year. His fertility was phenomenal really, just under 88%, and we’re looking at a similar number this year.”

The leading active broodmare sire in Europe for the first time in 2017, with notable representatives in this sphere such as Rhododendron (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), Hydrangea (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), Cracksman (GB) (Frankel {GB}) and Precieuse (Ire) (Tamayuz {GB}), Pivotal’s influence is immense and there are traces of him everywhere at his home farm.

He has outlasted his popular first-crop son Kyllachy (GB), a fellow Nunthorpe winner who was retired last year and, at the age of 20, lives in retirement alongside Medicean (GB). Kyllachy has been succeeded by his own Group 1-winning son, Twilight Son (GB), whose first foals are expected imminently, and he is the broodmare sire of Garswood (GB), a Cheveley Park Stud product through and through, with Dutch Art (GB) and Medicean (GB) as his sire and grandsire, and Kyllachy, Pivotal and Polar Falcon rippling through his damsire line. Pivotal can also be found as the broodmare sire of the G1 Darley July Cup winner Mayson (GB), who took up residence at Cheveley Park Stud in 2013.

“We enjoy the continuity,” Richardson says. “We’ve done Medicean, Dutch Art and Garswood, and now we have Pivotal, Kyllachy and Twilight Son. We’re very excited to have Twilight Son–he was a very talented racehorse and he had a strong book of mares last year. We have our first foal due by him on 18 January.”

Garswood, who has his first runners this season, temporarily escaped the stud’s clutches when sold as a foal to Richard Knight for 19,000gns. After he raced with promise for David and Emma Armstrong at two, the Thompsons bought back into him with a future stallion career in mind and their faith was rewarded when he went on to win the G2 Lennox S. and, finally, the G1 Prix Maurice de Gheest.

Richardson says candidly, “Part of the policy every year is to promote a stallion’s stock and Garswood was a particularly nice foal so we took him to the sales but then ended up buying him back in partnership with David and Emma Armstrong, who also bred and raced Mayson.

“You never really know which stallion is going to make it but we’ve been fortunate over the years to be able to make stallions and I’m pretty confident having looked at his individuals that they look the part.”

One year ahead of Garswood on the runner-front is Intello (Ger), who returns this year having stood his first two seasons in Newmarket, followed by another two at Haras du Quesnay. The Wertheimer-bred son of Galileo (Ire) represented something of a break from tradition at Cheveley Park Stud.

“We felt it was important to try to expand the portfolio of stallions,” Richardson explains. “Since the Thompsons bought the stud in 1975, the emphasis has always been on speed and it has been precocity-orientated. That has worked really well and we feel that we’ve been copied to an extent by quite a lot of the industry because they’ve seen how successful that has been. What I liked about Intello is that he had plenty of speed and the most wonderful pedigree. Andre Fabre said that he was just good at everything. I think that sums him up really and he was unlucky not to win the French Guineas. He then won the French Derby and he ran a blinder to be third in the Arc.”

Of Intello’s retirement initially to England, he adds, “The Wertheimer brothers were looking for a different angle and a different adventure to allow a horse of his quality the opportunity to stand in Britain and France. We agreed a two-year switch and started him off, and we’re obviously delighted to see his 2-year-olds show a great deal of ability.”

One of those was the stud’s homebred Regal Reality (GB), who won his only start in impressive fashion at Yarmouth and is a son of the dual Group 3 winner Regal Realm (GB) (Medicean {GB}), while another winning debutant, the Fabrice Chappet-trained Intellogent (Ire), was a €320,000 Arqana August yearling and looks to have a bright future for owner Fiona Carmichael.

The newest recruit to the roster of eight Group 1 winners has many parallels with Intello. Ulysses (Ire) is also a son of Galileo raced by a major owner-breeder, and in partnering with his breeder, Maria Niarchos, Richardson is renewing old acquaintances.

He says, “Ulysses is the highest-rated older horse retiring to stud this year and he’s a horse that we firmly believe in. I was fortunate enough to work for Maria Niarchos’s father when I managed their farm in Kentucky back in the early 1980s so our association goes back a long way. I know their families of old and I know the strength and depth of these pedigrees and how they keep coming up. The Niarchos commitment, which is likely to be around 12 mares, if not more, is the most that they have ever sent to any of their first-season stallions and we hugely value and respect that and want to echo it.”

Cheveley Park Stud is in fact more than echoing that commitment as it will send Ulysses 20 mares this season, including the Group 1 winners Hooray (GB) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}), Echelon (GB) (Danehill) and her daughter Integral (GB) (Dalakhani {Ire}), as well as Troarn (Fr) (Wootton Bassett {GB}), a stakes-placed sister to Almanzor (Fr) who was a recent purchase at €600,000, and four daughters of Pivotal.

“David and Patricia Thompson have been keen to acquire some new families and we also bought the dam of [G2 Champagne S. winner] Seahenge. So we are supporting him with some really well-bred mares, as is the Niarchos family,” Richardson adds.

Seahenge’s dam, Fools In Love (Not For Love), a million-dollar addition to the broodmare band from Keeneland last November, is representative of the increased spending by the Thompsons, not just in the broodmare sector, but throughout all divisions of the market last year. The G1 Darley Prix Morny winner Unfortunately (Ire) (Society Rock {Ire}) was a notable in-training purchase and is an enticing future stallion prospect and, for the first time, Richardson was active at the breeze-up sales on the Thompsons’ behalf, as well as buying yearlings and foals.

“Quite often breeders sell their foals and those who buy them do even better with them as yearlings so I think it was quite a positive for the industry to have the Thompsons there buying foals and supporting at that level, and all being well we will be doing the same this year. They always like to buy a few fillies and I’m sure that will continue.”

But, as the covering season looms, the focus is very much on the stallions. The likely speed influences such as the dual Group 1-winning sprinter Lethal Force (Ire) will ensure that to a certain extent it’s business as usual at Cheveley Park Stud, but in its recruitment of two sons of the champion sire, Richardson hopes that breeders will not desert stallions with Classic potential. In no case is this more prominent than in Ulysses, the son of a Derby winner and an Oaks winner.

He says, “Ulysses was a hugely talented horse. From my personal point of view I feel it’s a shame that there are fewer and fewer owner-breeders now. There’s a huge amount of work being done behind the scenes through the BHA to improve the prize-money for the middle-distance races. I hope that the industry will look favourably upon the decision that we have made to stand particularly Ulysses and Intello here to give breeders the choice. We appreciate that the commercial market is running the market but we have to be so careful that we don’t seriously affect the future of the thoroughbred. Mr and Mrs Thompson are passionate about racing and their horses. They are investing hugely and I hope that people will feel that this is something that they want to be part of. The Thompsons want Cheveley Park Stud to be at the top end and standing the best stallions. We are in different times but it is important that the future of the breed is safeguarded and that it’s not all about speed and precocity. A return, to a degree, of horses being bred for the Derby and for the Oaks, would be for the welfare of the industry.”

With 137 horses in training in 2018 spread across 16 different trainers and more than 140 broodmares, the numbers alone speak volumes about David and Patricia Thompson’s commitment to British racing and breeding over almost half a century. A homebred winner of an Epsom Classic in their famously patriotic racing silks would be a result richly deserved by the couple and applauded by many. The dream is still alive.

Cheveley Park Stud mares visiting Ulysses:

Arabian Beauty (Ire) (Shamardal), €270,000 purchase, half-sister to Rio De La Plata
Ardent (GB) (Pivotal {GB}), dam of LW and G3P Eternally (GB)
Echelon (GB) (Danehill), G1W and dam of G1W Integral (GB)
Entity (GB) (Shamardal), winning daughter of Echelon, half-sister to Integral
Fools In Love (Not For Love), $1 million purchase, stakes-winning dam of G2W Seahenge
Heaven Sent (GB) (Pivotal {GB}), G3W and G1P, dam of two stakes horses
Hooray (GB) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}), G1W and champion 2YO filly
Ice Palace (GB) (Polar Falcon), SW and dam of SW Queen Of Ice (GB)
Infallible (GB) (Pivotal {GB}), G3W and G1P, dam of G2W Mutakayyef (GB)
Integral (GB) (Dalakhani {Ire}), G1W
Mesa Fresca (Sky Mesa), $2 million purchase, dam of GIW Harmonize
My Hope (Afleet Alex), $525,000 purchase, half-sister to three stakes winners
On Her Toes (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}), dual LW and G3P
Queen Of Ice (GB) (Selkirk), LW from immediate family of G2W/G1P Spacious (GB)
Regal Realm (GB) (Median {GB}), dual G3W
Rock Choir (GB) (Pivotal {GB}), stakes-placed sister to G1W Chorist (GB)
Rythmique (Ire) (Casamento {Ire}), €180,000 purchase, G3P from family of Vintage Tipple (Ire)
Sacre Caroline (Blame), 300,000gns purchase, winning half-sister to Lady Eli
Troarn (Fr) (Wootton Bassett {GB}), €600,000 purchase, stakes-placed sister to Almanzor (Fr)
Zuhoor Baynoona (Ire) (Elnadim), 560,000gns purchase, stakes-winning half-sister to G2W Royal Youmzain (Fr)