Climbing the Ladder
Recently a good friend, Gerard Butler who works at Payton Training Center with JJ Pletcher, was in town to inspect some clients’ horses. I regard Gerard highly for many reasons but his intuition in this horse industry has always had me lean his way, and he is a good father. Right off the bat, on his arrival and sharing a drive together; “wow, this stallion business is ‘razor thin,’ not much room for error.”
So right he is but truth be told, this ‘stallion business’ has always been challenging, With the shrinkage of foal crops to around 18k, extended books of mares over 250, steep decline in book of mares for 2nd & 3rd year from what used to be just the 4th year, giving seasons away in second year from ‘very established stallion farms’ to note a few of the dynamics to consider; standing stallions is a high risk business.
In Mill Ridge, we recognize we are a boutique operation and pride ourselves with (6) generations on this land, once a part of historic Beaumont Farm. Mill Ridge has stood ‘breed shaping’ stallions in DIESIS & GONE WEST led by my mother and brother Reynolds, that we syndicated. More recently, we had paused on a stallion, hoping and waiting for an opportunity.
This opportunity presented itself in OSCAR PERFORMANCE, bred and raced by Jerry and John Amerman and mated and reared by Nicoma/Mill Ridge. Trained by Brian Lynch, this son of Kitten’s Joy/Devine Actress has Hollywood good looks and athleticism which allowed him to achieve at the highest level of racing: (G1) Breeders Cup Juvenile Turf at 2, (G1) Belmont Derby & (G1) Secretariat at 3 along with equaling the ‘World Record Mile’ 1:31.2, and at 4 (G1) Woodbine Mile earning nearly $2.5m. The Amermans, Price and I believed he had all the qualities to become a ‘breed shaping’ stallion and that his ‘turf acumen’ was a strength and an opportunity in this ‘commercial centric’ market. And thankfully, so did many astute horsemen and women who bought shares when we approached them. Equally rewarding, they supported the horse all four years, and this mattered.
Today, OSCAR PERFORMANCE and those that supported him have ‘bucked the trend’ and been rewarded with him ranked #1 over ALL stallions standing in North America by Graded Stakes Winners from percentage of starters.
And this 4th of July holiday weekend there will be exciting racing with OSCAR PERFORMANCE offspring nominated in the (G1) Belmont Invitational with ENDLESSLY, his first start since a gallant (G1) Kentucky Derby effort, and TRIKARI, beaten just a neck, third, in the (G3) Penn Mile. And in the (G1) Fasig-Tipton Belmont Oaks he has STYLE POINTS nominated.
These results on the track for offspring of OSCAR PERFORMANCE has made the interest in him grow even stronger this breeding season. Breeders recognized he is accomplishing a quality only a few stallions manage to do and that is ‘improve the performance’ on the offspring of the mares he has bred, better known as ‘moving up his mares.’
For us, this is a significant statement and because of the demand for Oscar Performance service, we raised his fee in the later part of the season to $35k and ended up breeding 171 mares to him. This number of mares keeps him in a threshold of what the Jockey Club was attempting to accomplish in 140 foals per year, and we believe this the healthy way for the horse and market.
With the Classics behind us, we look forward in great anticipation to the second half of Thoroughbred racing for 2024. So far, it has been an extraordinary year and our clients/friends in Jamm Ltd. with breeding (G1) Preakness winner SEIZE THE GREY and clients/friends in OSCAR PERFORMANCE give great thanks for this fulfillment of excitement and dreams and all the experience associated with the horse.
Our best wishes,
Headley and Price