Bluegrass neighbors bred success

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Separated by less than a mile in Kentucky’s famed Bluegrass region, Darley at Jonabell Farm and Mill Ridge Farm long have been friendly neighbors.

Now the farms share more than addresses on the same narrow road. Giacomo’s stunning win in the Kentucky Derby last Saturday means the farms now are the homes of the sire and dam of the current thoroughbred of the moment.

Holy Bull has spent his entire stallion career at Jonabell Farm, which houses the Darley U.S. operation owned by Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, the crown prince of Dubai. Mill Ridge Farm, owned by Alice Chandler, is where the broodmare Set Them Free foaled Giacomo and where the Derby winner lived until September of his yearling season.

“We’ll have to rename the road between us ‘The Avenue of Champions,’ ” said Jimmy Bell, the president of Darley’s U.S. operation.

It’s not uncommon for a broodmare at Mill Ridge to be bred to a Darley stallion, said Bayne Welker Jr., the stallion marketing director at Mill Ridge. In fact, Set Them Free – like Giacomo, owned by Jerry and Ann Moss – and Holy Bull had been bred once before, producing a filly named Styler.

Welker said the Mosses liked how Styler looked and decided to again breed Set Them Free to Holy Bull. The result was a colt born in 2002, during the epidemic of Mare Reproductive Loss Syndrome in central Kentucky. Welker said Mill Ridge lost about 20 foals because of the disease, but Giacomo survived.

The Mosses “are smart breeders, because they don’t go out and follow the market trends,” Welker said. “They breed to get a runner. That’s their whole methodology.

“When he left here to be broken, he wasn’t anything that really stood out,” Welker said of Giacomo. “He was good physically, but he was still kind of immature looking. He just needed time to grow up and grow into himself.”

Set Them Free now is in foal to an elite sire, Giant’s Causeway, Welker said.

“The mare had always been a pretty honest producer, but she’d never produced anything at that level, like a Derby winner,” Welker said. “She was an overlooked, unknown mare to the rest of the world. But she’s always thrown nice looking, athletic foals.”

Chandler is the daughter of Hal Price Headley, the founder of Keeneland Race Course. She bred Sir Ivor, the winner of the 1968 Epsom Derby in England. But Giacomo provides Mill Ridge with its first connection to a Kentucky Derby winner, unless you count the fact that Gone West, a stallion at the farm, was the grand-sire of 2004 winner Smarty Jones.

Across the road at Jonabell Farm, 14-year-old Holy Bull occupies the largest stall in the stallion barn. The son of Great Above enjoyed great success on the race track, winning 13 times in 16 starts, including six Grade I races. He was the 1994 Horse of the Year.

“This horse truly loved racing,” said Phil Hampton, the farm’s head stallion manager.

But Holy Bull is best known for losing the big one – the 1994 Kentucky Derby, in which he finished 12th as the prohibitive favorite.

“That’s unfortunate,” Bell said. “We all focus so much on the Derby, and truthfully, as good of a race horse as Holy Bull was, he deserved to have his name up on the list of Derby winners. He was superior to his own crop of 3-year-olds and toyed with the best horses in training.”

As a stallion, Holy Bull has been consistent but rarely spectacular. From 2001 to 2004, he finished 44th, 53rd, 36th and 76th, respectively, on the yearly lists of leading sires by earnings. Before Giacomo, he sired only three Grade I winners: Pohave, Confessional and Macho Uno – the 2000 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner.

“He’s been a consistent horse without having the big numbers of stakes winners, without having the Giacomos,” Bell said. “But in this business, they want spectacular. This makes it easier to remember the great things we always thought about Holy Bull.”

Holy Bull’s stud fee, which had been $25,000 from the time he arrived at the farm, was lowered to $15,000 in 2004. Somewhat as a result, and because of his age, Holy Bull wasn’t being bred to the same quality of broodmares as he had been in earlier years, Hampton said.

But in the breeding world, siring a Derby winner usually boosts the fortunes – and the fee – of the stallion. Since siring 2003 winner Funny Cide, Distorted Humor’s fee has risen from $20,000 to $60,000. Elusive Quality, Smarty Jones’ sire, had his fee increased this year from $50,000 to $100,000.

Bell said it’s premature to say that Holy Bull’s fee will rise. But it’s safe to say more breeders already are seriously considering the iron-gray colt with flecks of reddish brown in his coat.

“I’ve got a feeling a few people might jump back on the ship,” Hampton said. “He’s still a grand-looking horse.”

Giacomo’s Derby win boosted Holy Bull to No. 2 on the 2005 leading sires list, behind only Devil His Due. Holy Bull’s offspring have won more than $2.86 million this year.

It’s the third time in eight years a Darley stallion has sired the Derby winner. Elusive Quality and Quiet American, the father of 1998 winner Real Quiet, both stand at Gainsborough Farm in Versailles, which is owned by Sheik Mohammed’s older brother, Sheik Maktoum bin Rashid al Maktoum, the vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and the ruler of Dubai.

“It’s really why you put all the time and effort and energy into these things,” Bell said of the Derby successes. “It is a lot of people doing a lot of good things to have this kind of a result. If you get to have the results on one day, then the first Saturday in May would be the one to shoot for.”