Check in with some of the region's "notable" broodmares. Make it interesting, timely, impactful. Cross state borders. Show readers the why and how behind the names and numbers. Mix up the horses and the breeders, even though we know we're going to miss some. More than some.
This story about broodmares has been on a list of articles for three months -- maybe more. It's not new, though the exercise didn't happen last year. The goal, as always, was to tell interesting stories within the confines of space and time. We tried.
As always, the mares are all winners. Give them their due.
Photo by Barrie Reighlter
Breeder Jay Williamson shares some time with his mare Parade of Colors and her turnout companion Jimmy the pony. Both hoped for a mint.
Parade of Colors
In his Maryland racing job making sure the right horses get directed toward the test barn after every race, Jay Williamson sees winners all day.
And, thanks to broodmare Parade of Colors, Williamson regularly gets to see a horse he bred. Led by stakes winners Ournationonparade and the more recent Stickwiththecolors, Parade of Colors has produced seven winners from eight foals to race. They've combined to win 36 races and earn $1,354,378 through March 10.
Not bad for a free broodmare.
The story of Parade of Colors takes a few turns to get to its most meaningful part. Bred in Florida by Roy Lerman, the daughter of Leading the Parade and the Unbridled mare Arcanum didn't bring her reserve (after a bid of $2,200) at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic fall yearling sale of 2009. Lerman didn't want to ship her home so Williamson and consignor Marshall Silverman bought her for $2,500 and sold her the following May for $15,000. She won twice for Clover Hill Racing and trainer Tim Keefe and was claimed for $5,000 by Midwest Thoroughbreds and Jamie Ness in January 2012. Two starts later, she won at the same level, but eight consecutive losses followed and somewhere in the losing streak Williamson asked Ness about her.
"If you ever get tired of her or think she's had enough, I'd like to have her," Williamson told the trainer. Ness, walking along the outside rail after a race at Laurel Park, listened and filed it away. Parade of Colors finished fourth in three consecutive races -- at Presque Isle Downs, Delaware Park and Laurel -- that summer and Ness let Williamson know.
"Go to Bowie and get her," the trainer said. "If you want her, she's yours."
Williamson went to the Maryland racetrack turned training center, picked up his new/old horse, and Parade of Colors has been thanking him since. Boarded in Sparks, Md., with Sherry Rudolph, the 17-year-old mare acts far younger.
"She runs through the field like she's a yearling," said Williamson. "From the day I got her from Jamie, she's lived outside. She loves it. She's turned out with a Shetland pony partner, gets fed twice a day and gets alfalfa 24/7/365. She leads a good life."
She hasn't had a foal since 2022, but was in the midst of a resurgence thanks to Stickwiththecolors, who won the $75,000 Conniver Stakes for Williamson and trainer John Salzman Jr. at Laurel March 8. The 4-year-old daughter of Divining Rod has won three in a row -- a $45,000 conditioned claiming race in December, a January allowance and the Maryland-bred stakes.
"It's all the mare," said Williamson, while trying to explain the success. "She's well-bred on her mother's side and on her sire's side you've got My Flag and Personal Ensign back there. It's worked well. I've been lucky. It doesn't matter who trains them, they're out of different stallions and they can usually run."
Parade of Colors has gone to Maryland stallions Cal Nation (twice), Freedom Child, Tritap, Divining Rod (twice) and Mosler (twice) while cranking out winners. She didn't produce a foal in 2023 or 2024, but Williamson planned to send her to Blofeld this year. Regardless of whether she gets in foal again or not, Parade of Colors means plenty to her owner.
"I was in the right place at the right time," Williamson said. "It's luck. You don't have to be smart, you've got to have luck. I saw something in her eye that made me say, 'Jay, don't let this mare go.' "
The decision is still paying off.
-- Joe Clancy
Photo by Barrie Reighlter
Dam of Maryland-bred Horse of the Year Post Time, Vielsalm will foal in Kentucky this year.
Vielsalm
Milton Higgins III gave Brooke Bowman a list of possible stallions for a foal sharing venture involving Vielsalm. Bowman didn't get far on the list for his graded stakes-placed mare.
"I saw Frosted and I didn't look at the rest of the names," Bowman said. "It had nothing to do with research. I did zero research."
It had to do with an experience.
Bowman and his sister, Becky Davis went to Saratoga to cheer on Vielsalm in the 2016 Waya Stakes-G3. The Maryland-bred daughter of Fairbanks finished eighth at 49-1.
"It was a little thing to check off, that I had a horse decent enough to run there, long on the turf, everything I thought was cool. We got our butts whipped but in the next race Frosted won the Whitney," Bowman said. "They went 6 furlongs in 1:09 or something and I was like, 'Well, that's the end of him' and then he just continued to wreck everybody. It was wild. I was like, 'What the hell did we just watch?' That's the only reason she went to Frosted. That's it. Well, Milton must have done some research, but I didn't."
Four years after Frosted's Whitney-G1, Vielsalm gave birth to a gray colt. Davis sold him for $85,000 at Timonium the following year. Three years after that, Post Time, bred by Higgins (who died in 2023), Bowman and his parents Tom and Chris Bowman, earned the 2024 Maryland-bred Horse of the Year, older male and sprint titles to go with his 2022 juvenile male crown.
“You don’t get the opportunity to breed to one of the best sires in history. We figured why not. We decided to take a big swing. For once.”
– Brooke Bowman, on Vielsalm’s pending 2025 foal by Tapit
Trained by Brittany Russell for Hillwood Stable, Post Time won in order the Jennings, General George-G3, Carter-G2 and Polynesian and placed in the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile-G1, Whitney-G1, Met Mile-G1, Cigar Mile-G2 and Westchester-G3 last year. He ran nine times and earned $975,000. Post Time enters his 5-year-old season with nine wins, three seconds and three thirds from 15 starts.
That and more earned Vielsalm the Maryland Broodmare of the Year crown.
"When he made his first start, he was sidewinding down the stretch, but he kicked everybody's tail. I was like, 'Whoa, that was something different.' That's why we do this," Bowman said. "What a blessing. It's been crazy. The Carter, the Met Mile, the Whitney, the Breeders' Cup . . . it's so crazy to think that's who he is. Just a special experience, so cool. Why did we breed him and raise him? I don't know. We just give them grass and water and sunshine and air."
Vielsalm got all that when she was born in 2010, failed to reach her $3,500 reserve a year later and over the next five seasons when she won seven races, including the All Brandy Stakes at Laurel Park, and was Grade 3-placed in Gallorette, for trainers Dickie Small, Dylan Smith and Lynn Ashby.
Retired in 2016, Vielsalm produced What Does It Take in 2018. The son of Munnings has won eight races and $311,946 the hard way. A year later, Vielsalm produced Battle of Bastogne, a three-time winning son of Street Magician. Her 2022 foal, Field Song, a daughter of McKinzie, has yet to race. Vielsalm lost a Nyquist colt last year.
Last year, the Bowmans signed her up to a golden ticket. She is in foal to Tapit, the all-time leading North American sire by progeny earnings.
"We were going to breed to Frosted last year but the possibility to breed to Tapit came out of left field," Bowman said. "You don't get the opportunity to breed to one of the best sires in history. We figured why not. We decided to take a big swing. For once. We'll see how it goes."
The Bowmans haven't decided where Vielsalm will foal this year, but plan on breeding her back to Frosted.
"She's chilling here for now and we're trying to figure out what to do. A couple of months ago, we were certain we were going to foal her in Kentucky," Bowman said in February. "I would bet, I actually just bet my mom $100 yesterday that my dad would end up convincing himself to foal her here. He'll be a nervous wreck if she goes anywhere else and he'll also be a nervous wreck while she's here." (Update: Brooke lost the bet. His father and everyone else are nervous wrecks).
Who wouldn't be?
-- Sean Clancy
Photo by Barrie Reighlter
Peach of a Gal and Jose Zamora head to a field at Glenangus Farm.
Peach of a Gal
Jim Dresher's father, also Jim, used a familiar phrase to recognize excellence.
"His way of putting his blessing on another man if a guy was high-integrity, a family man, a good business guy, was, 'He's a peach of a guy,' " Dresher said. "She was born on his birthday, so I called her Peach of a Gal."
The daughter of star sire Curlin and Dresher's Polish Numbers mare Richetta was foaled April 9, 2015. She won three races, including a stakes at Delaware Park as a 3-year-old, in Dresher's Glenangus Farm silks and joined her dam in the broodmare band. Second foal Studlydoright won the Maryland-bred 2-year-old male championship in 2024 thanks to two stakes wins and a Grade 3 placing in New York. He's testing the Triple Crown trail waters and was fifth, in a tight finish for third, in the Virginia Derby last month.
A 2021 Kantharos colt named Silk Suit lost both starts in 2024, but will get another chance in 2025. The 2-year-old Ghostzapper filly Magic Beam could make the races this year and an Omaha Beach yearling represents even more future. Jim Dresher Sr., 79 when he died in 1999, would approve.
During a farm visit late last year, Peach of a Gal was carrying a Bolt d'Oro foal and looked like she could go back into training.
"She looks like this 365 days a year," Dresher said. "They gave her a bath and pulled her mane, but the reality is even pulled out of the field she looks like this."
The bay mare made a big impression as a foal on the Bowman's family's Roland Farm and nearby Heritage Stallion Station in Chesapeake City, Md., and hasn't lost much of the reputation.
"It took seven of us to catch her, every single day," said Candy Hartsoe Zamora, Dresher's farm manager, of the early days. "She would run dead-on straight at you and be like, 'You better move because I'm not moving.' She was so bad. Once you caught her, she was fine, but she was rotten. To this day, she's very much a character. It's nothing like it was and I love her, but she is up in your business and all about what you're doing."
Her foals get some of that attitude -- and all the looks.
"They're stunning, and they're smart and they're funny," Zamora said. "They have really good personalities."
Peach of a Gal's 2025 foal was due this month, and she was booked to Practical Joke this year.
-- Joe Clancy
Photo by Barrie Reighlter
Glenangus Farm’s foundation mare Richetta enjoys retirement at age 24.
Richetta
She's retired at age 24, but the Glenangus mare Richetta earns a check-in thanks to a long history of success. A $22,000 sales yearling by breeder Elk Manor Farm in 2002 and a $100,000 2-year-old purchase, she won five races (four stakes) and a Maryland-bred juvenile filly title for Bowman and Higgins Stable and trainer Robin Graham.
As a broodmare, her foals include nine winners topped by $461,140 earner Concealed Identity and graded-stakes producer Rich Love. Dresher bought Richetta on the advice of Dr. Tom Bowman as a potential foundation mare and it has paid off with daughters Peach of a Gal and Good Measure now part of the Glenangus band.
"There's no guarantee you'll get a foundation mare when you try to buy one, but that's what she's become," said Dresher. "No question."
The role earned her a retirement with 22-year-old best friend Pearly Beach.
"Anything she wants to do," Zamora said about Richetta's daily to-do list. "She hangs out and eats grass and hay and lives her very best retired life. She's as kind as you can get, just a really cool old lady."
-- Joe Clancy
Adorabella
Her son is a Grade 1 winner and millionaire. She cost $550,000. But Adorabella might get lost if you don't pay attention.
"She's quiet as a church mouse," said Mark Reid, who bought the daughter of Ghostzapper for Glenn Bennett's LC Racing in November 2023. "You wouldn't know she was around."
But she is. And you better not miss her. In early March, the 9-year-old mare was a few weeks from delivering a Medaglia d'Oro foal at Pennsylvania's Westerly Farm where Reid oversees a string of mares and young horses for LC Racing, Chuck Zacney's Cash Is King and other clients. Purchased for $14,000 by New Jersey breeder Greg Kilka in January 2020, Adorabella produced future stakes winner Girl Trouble that April. Adorabella's 2021 foal is Book'em Danno, the 2024 New Jersey-bred Horse of the Year who won last year's Woody Stephens Stakes-G1. LC owned part of Girl Trouble with Swilcan Stable, bought the 2022 foal, unraced 3-year-old Coach Bennett (by Classic Empire), for $135,000 as a yearling and leapt at the chance to add Adorabella to the portfolio when she showed up in the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky fall mixed sale in 2023. She lost the Medaglia d'Oro foal she was carrying, but was bred back to the Darley America stallion in 2024.
"Everything looks comfortable and is progressing nicely," said Reid, who bought Medaglia d'Oro for Edmund Gann as a 3-year-old in 2002 and watched him put together a career with three Grade 1 wins and $5.7 million earned. "She's a raw-boned, physical-looking mare that I really like. We paid a lot of money for her and unfortunately she came back and slipped that foal. I loved the cross, so I talked to Glenn and we sent her back. We're very much looking forward to this foal."
Adorabella will be bred to Forte, a champion grandson of Medaglia d'Oro, this year.
-- Joe Clancy
Expect Wonderful
Living up to her name, Expect Wonderful was . . . well . . . expecting an Omaha Beach foal in early March.
"She was due a week or so ago," said Reid of the 11-year-old daughter of Tiz Wonderful, still due a week after that conversation, but finally delivered a colt March 13. His half-brother Uncle Heavy, a son of Social Inclusion, has won three races, topped by the 2024 Withers Stakes-G3, and earned $413,180. Reid trained Expect Wonderful for Dan Ryan's Smart Angle stable and spent $1,700 to buy her (carrying Uncle Heavy) for Milam Racing Stable in 2020 out of the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic December sale. She belongs to Reid and LC Racing now, and was booked to former Cash Is King and LC runner Maximus Mischief.
Once the home of Miles and Joy Valentine, Thoroughbred owners/breeders and steeplechase enthusiasts whose horses included Colonial Cup winner Lucky Boy III and three-time Maryland Hunt Cup winner Cancottage (GB), Westerly now belongs to Ann Lapides. Reid rented space there for his Walnut Green bloodstock and sales consignment business. He retired in 2022, but still advises clients and helps make decisions about horses.
"I leased it for years and turned it back to them," Reid said of the farm. "They're handling the farm work, I advise on the breedings and left the clients here. It's worked out very well. They do a great job taking care of the horses. It's old school."
-- Joe Clancy
Quiet Virtue
Reid managed the 2005 Horse of the Year campaign by Saint Liam for owner Bill Warren, and remembers it every time he sees broodmare Quiet Virtue.
“Quiet American,” Reid said. “I’ve always liked Quiet American mares; he was the broodmare sire of Saint Liam and you can just tell a Quiet American mare when you see one. She’s a big, tall, broad mare who gets nice foals.”
The latest, a Maximus Mischief colt, arrived in early March.
Quiet Virtue lost 16 consecutive flat races for breeders Bert and Diana Firestone and other connections before breaking through in a $5,000 maiden claimer at Penn National in June 2016. Four months later, she made the first of three starts over hurdles for Westerly Farm and trainer Lilith Boucher. Third twice, Quiet Virtue changed careers again and became a broodmare. She caught Reid’s attention with her 2021 colt by Maximus Mischief.
“We foaled the horse here and as a yearling he was a fancy-looking fellow,” said Reid. “Ann sold him to LC Racing and then Glenn bought the whole family.”
The yearling turned out to be Maximus Meridius, who won two stakes at Aqueduct this winter and had earned $500,430 through March 10. She didn’t have a foal in 2022, delivered a now 2-year-old Maximus Mischief colt in 2023 and was booked back to him again this year.
“She has a very nice 2-year-old colt coming in that they’re all raving about on the farm in Florida,” said Reid. “Why change up? They bought this mare to breed to him, so why not?”
– Joe Clancy
A Dicey Dame
Like all good horse breeders, Lynn Ashby just had a feeling.
The Delaware-based trainer was breaking a Pennsylvania-bred daughter of Colonel John for owner/breeder Phyllis Wyeth in 2015.
"There's something about this filly . . ."
When Wyeth said she was going to send the dark bay filly to a sale, Ashby joined up with Bill Gotwals and made Wyeth an offer.
"She had a club foot, and I used to trim and shoe my own. I know enough to be dangerous," Ashby said in February. "I said, 'I can deal with this club foot.' "
A Dicey Dame made her debut at Parx in October 2015. She finished ninth. And bowed a tendon. Ashby stuck with her feeling and added A Dicey Dame to her small broodmare band at her farm, the former Bayard Sharp property, in Middletown. In 2018, A Dicey Dame produced the club-footed Frame That Dame, who was winless in two starts. A year later, Epic Luck came along. The son of Madefromlucky won the Kitten's Joy Stakes at Colonial Downs in his second start for Ashby and Gotwals and has won six of his 40 starts for several sets of connections.
In 2021, A Dicey Dame produced Sharp Tones. The 4-year-old son of Tonalist owns three wins and three seconds for Ashby and Gotwals. The Pennsylvania-bred won an allowance race at Parx in January.
Re Markably came along in 2022 and enjoyed a stellar juvenile season last year. The son of Hoppertunity won his debut at Delaware Park, finished third in the Hickory Tree at Colonial Downs, won the Dover at Delaware and finished second in the First State Dash, Maryland Million Nursey and James F. Lewis. The campaign attracted the attention of prominent owners Adam Wachtel and Gary Barber.
"I didn't particularly want to sell Re Markably, but they just made an offer that we couldn't refuse," Ashby said. "He just left. He's on his way to Billy Mott's at Payson Park. We went back in with them. It's a fun partnership. There's six of us. I like Bill Mott. That got me excited. We'll see. You know how horse racing goes."
And horse breeding.
A Dicey Dame's 2023 foal, Dashful Dame, died before she turned a year old. They still don't know why.
"Beautiful filly. Had the perfect feet, legs were correct," Ashby said. "I was going through my phone and deleting pictures, there she was as a cute thing. I took one last look and deleted it. It's over."
Barren in 2024, A Dicey Dame went on a road trip to Sally Thomas' farm in Kentucky and foaled a Knicks Go colt Feb. 11.
"Locally, we did OK and now I've tried to upgrade her. I bred her to Knicks Go because she's doing so good with these colts," Ashby said. "Her page is starting to look good. We'll stay in Kentucky and take a look and then bring her back here. I hope it's right. Who knows where we're going?"
-- Sean Clancy
Summertime Green
Summertime Green earned her place in the hearts of the team at Smitten Farm long before her 2020 Not This Time colt Gigante earned headlines at a Fasig-Tipton's digital flash sale in late January.
"She's fantastic and everybody's favorite mare on the farm," said Hunter Marek, broodmare manager at Ann Mudge Backer's farm in The Plains, Va. "She's sweet as can be, easy to be around and one of Mr. Backer's remaining homebreds. At this point, we only have two that are actual homebreds, the ones where we had the dam and the second dam and the third dam. So, she's just always been special to Smitten Farm."
A 17-year-old daughter of Empire Maker bred by the late Bill Backer, Summertime Green produced her 10th foal in 2024 before taking the season off.
She returned to the breeding shed this season and was bred to City of Light at Lane's End Farm in Kentucky.
"She wasn't bred last year. She foaled a really nice Epicenter colt in mid-May last year," Marek said. "She's older now, so we decided that she would need a year off and bred her back early this year.
"Mrs. Backer, she's 92 now and the one thing that she's still very, very involved in is picking out the stallions. We make our suggestions and kind of give the top three picks for each mare, and then she goes ahead and picks out which one she wants. With Summertime Green, we told her she could go proven, unproven, whatever she wanted. We have a really nice City of Light yearling filly here at the farm and she really wanted to go back to him. Summertime Green is getting up there in age but she's in great health and we're hoping to get a few more foals out of her."
Gigante, Summertime Green's sixth foal, sold for $610,000 to Clark Brewster and L and N Racing in January. The Virginia-bred won the Buddy Diliberto Memorial Stakes Dec. 21 and Colonel E. R. Bradley Jan. 18, both at Fair Grounds, before the digital sale. The 5-year-old had earned $1,189,400 through March 11.
Summertime Green is also the dam of stakes winner Tryon Summer and stakes-placed Gun Runner 3-year-old colt Contrabandist, a $300,000 purchase by Donegal Racing at Keeneland September in 2023.
Emerald Spun, a 2023 filly by Hard Spun, brought $50,000 at last year's Keeneland September sale.
"They all have very nice personalities," Marek said. "There was only one who wasn't that friendly, which we were all shocked because her babies usually have her personality. They usually look like her, pretty bays and they're usually all correct. I've never really had any issues with her. It just took her a long time to prove herself."
-- Tom Law
Winter
Winter's steady string of Saratoga yearling prospects might come to an end this year, but that doesn't dampen the outlook going past 2025.
"She seems to have a Saratoga prospect every year," said Marek. "They haven't all gone on to be superstars, but she produces a really, really pretty foal, so hopefully we can have more winners out of her."
Winfinity, one of those Saratoga yearlings, showed signs of being a star when she won the $150,000-added Keswick Stakes in her debut last August. The daughter of Not This Time cost $385,000 at the 2023 Saratoga sale and finished ninth in the Untapable Stakes at Kentucky Downs last September before trainer John Ortiz put her away for the season.
Winfinity returned to finish second in allowance company at Colonial Downs in March.
Winter didn't produce a foal in 2023, delivered a Virginia-bred daughter of Vino Rosso in 2024 and was bred to Epicenter last season, delivering a filly March 12. The 12-year-old daughter of Awesome Again was set to return to WinStar Farm in Kentucky in 2025.
"We have a contract to Cogburn, kind of going back to the whole Winfinity pedigree there," Marek said of the record-setting turf sprinter. "We really think he's a very, very, very attractive son of Not This Time and we're excited to go to him this year.
"They always look exactly like her . . . The whole thought of going to Vino Rosso was to give her more compact . . . [and] a little different from her. She's very tall and leggy and has a long neck. We just wanted to match her with something that was going to kind of balance that out. And go figure, our Vino Rosso came out looking like all of her other foals."
Marek said no plans were set for the Vino Rosso filly through the end of February.
"We'll see what happens. Mrs. Backer has decided she doesn't want to race anymore, so we're not keeping anything," Marek said. "We're going to sell horses where they'll be the most successful, whether that's Saratoga, whether that's Book Four at Keeneland, whether that's Fasig-Tipton October. The goal is to place the horses where they will show the best."
-- Tom Law
Photo by Katharine Turnbull
Retired broodmare Miss Ocean City still holds a special place at Smitten Farm in Virginia.
Miss Ocean City
Smitten's Miss Ocean City, the dam of $1.1 million Midlantic May juvenile and Grade 3-placed Shaaz, was recently retired.
The 19-year-old daughter of Mineshaft produced a colt by Uncle Mo's champion son Nyquist last year. In addition to Shaaz, Miss Ocean City produced Grade 2 winner and $356,558 earner Azar and winners Exult and In the Deep.
"We didn't breed her last year, but we did get one more foal out of her last year," Marek said. "He is a Nyquist colt, so he's a three-quarter sibling to Shaaz. He's standing out in California now [his first foals arrive this year] after selling so well at Timonium and running with Bob Baffert. To have a three-quarter sibling and for it to be a Nyquist is exciting. I'm hopeful that he will be well received."
Miss Ocean City, a winner in six starts and the earner of $46,887, didn't produce a foal from 2021 to 2023.
"If you look at her produce record, it is extremely spotty," said Marek.
"We didn't even know if this colt would make it full term. Thankfully he did, was healthy and everything went OK. But just the struggle of getting her pregnant and then maintaining a pregnancy, it just wasn't worth it to the vets, to me, to the mare herself. Systemically she was difficult, but mentally, yeah, she's also very difficult. She's enjoying retirement. Mrs. Backer keeps all of her retired mares, so we have a herd of seven. She's with them and they still get spoiled and pampered, and she is enjoying not being pregnant."
-- Tom Law
In foal to Epicenter, Smitten Farm mare Winter (who delivered a filly March 12) has a date with the speedy Cogburn this year.
Photo by Katharine Turnbull
Ideal Thoughts (left) and Stefani’s Surprise are part of mother-son team Jill and Chip Daniel’s broodmare band in West Virginia.
“We purchased her for pretty cheap. Couldn’t be happier. She’ll go back
to Great Notion this year, too.
They’re right around the corner from us so it’s pretty handy. She’s getting pretty old, 20 now, but she’s pretty solid. ”
– Jamie Ness, about
stakes producer Hartigan
Hartigan
The scene looked like something out of modern society -- children noshing on unlimited salad and breadsticks and a parent scrolling through his phone at a table inside an Olive Garden in Anywhere, America.
Just don't think that's all it was.
"The kids were eating, and I was looking through the RNAs for the sale and she popped up," Jamie Ness said of that day, Jan. 13, 2020, when he took a break from the meal to inquire about then 15-year-old Include mare Hartigan. "She's gone through the ring, and I think they bought her back for $15,000. . . She was in foal to Exaggerator, he was pretty cold and nobody really wanted her."
Ness, who trains in the Mid-Atlantic and operates the Jagger Inc. operation with his wife Mandy, wanted the mare if the price was right. After another break from the Tour of Italy and a phone call to someone he knew at Taylor Made Sales Agency, the deal found traction.
"Listen, you still got that mare?" Ness asked.
"Yeah. We'll take $13,000 for her."
"All right, sign the ticket."
Bred in Maryland by Robert Meyerhoff, Hartigan went down on the sales results as a $13,000 private sale and she's been money well spent -- even at the expense of some quality family time.
Hartigan headed to the Ness farm in Chesapeake City and delivered her first "ness" foal there three months later. Guaponess, a gelding by Exaggerator who continues to race in the claiming ranks in the Mid-Atlantic, sports a record of 4-6-4 and earnings of $113,342 from 26 starts and counts a Parx win March 18.
Speedyness, a son of Northview Stallion Station's Great Notion, arrived a year later. Co-owned by his breeder and Morris Kernan Jr., the gelding made a quick impression that continues into his 4-year-old campaign.
"One of the first 2-year-old races of the year in the Mid-Atlantic at Laurel was 41⁄2 [furlongs] and he won it," Ness said. "I remember telling my wife, 'Oh, I don't know, he's all speed. I don't know how far he can go.' "
As a 3-year-old, Speedyness sped to a victory in the 1-mile Miracle Wood Stakes at Laurel Park, along with placings in the 11⁄16-mile Private Terms and 11⁄8-mile Federico Tesio, also at Laurel. He placed in two other stakes -- one at 7 furlongs and another at 11⁄16 miles -- last fall.
Speedyness added the 9-furlong John B. Campbell Feb. 15 and finished third in the Not For Love Stakes cutting back to 6 furlongs March 8 at Laurel. He sported a 7-2-4 mark from 18 starts with $397,840 earned through early March.
"He's done it all now, from winning a 41⁄2-furlong as a first-time starter to a mile-and-an-eighth," Ness said.
Hartigan's third foal for the Nesses also won her debut. Sassafrassness, a 3-year-old Unified filly, won a waiver maiden event going 6 furlongs March 7 at Laurel for Jagger and Kernan. Hartigan is also the dam of a yearling Maryland-bred filly by Blofeld and a full-brother to Speedyness in the early morning hours of Feb. 29 -- foals 12 and 13 overall.
"There she is and her little colt," Ness said after collecting the National Claiming Horse of the Year honor for Spikezone during the National HBPA's annual conference Feb. 24 in Florida. "Believe it or not, I'm driving to the airport this morning and, my wife texted me, that's why she didn't come along, this photo of Hartigan and her colt.
"We purchased her for pretty cheap. Couldn't be happier. She'll go back to Great Notion this year, too. They're right around the corner from us so it's pretty handy. She's getting pretty old, 20 now, but she's pretty solid. We did give her one year off. Sometimes you need to do that to reset them a little bit, but we're hopeful to keep her going for a few more years. She's been a great mare."-- Tom Law
Photo by John Funkhouser
Stone Cold Flirt is part of the broodmare band at West Virginia’s O’Sullivan Farms.
Sunday in Malibu
Industrial psychologist, Maryland native and owner/breeder Dr. Ronald Harris Parker and trainer Todd Beattie walked the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sales grounds in Timonium before the 2017 January mixed sale, scouting broodmare prospects and working up a short list.
Then 11-year-old Malibu Moon mare Sunday in Malibu consigned by Marshall Silverman, landed on the list.
"She had a great hip on her," Parker said eight years later. "She's got real good bones. And I didn't know anything about anything. Then after I purchased her, one of her horses [Faze the Nation] became stakes-placed. We went around, looked at the horses and she was by far the best physical mare that was in that sale in our opinion. That's always relative and open to interpretation. But we always really liked the mare, and I was very fortunate to get her for what I got her. I was so very surprised there wasn't more interest in her."
Parker, a former state policeman, college professor at Hood College in Frederick, Md., and corporate executive who also owns a home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., bought the stakes-placed mare in foal to Cal Nation for $5,000. She's been productive ever since. Her first foal for Parker, the Cal Nation filly (now mare) Sunday in L B C, won once in 33 starts but placed in 14 other races. Sunday in Malibu has since produced a stakes winner, two stakes-placed winners and a colt who brought six figures at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic May 2-year-old sale.
The Bourbon Courage mare Malibu Moonshine stands at the top of the group. Bred in Maryland by Parker, she won half of her 10 starts (including three stakes triumphs) for New York-based trainer Charlton Baker through August 2024. Linda Rice claimed her, out of a win, for $25,000 at Saratoga and the now 5-year-old returned to her roots for Harris and co-owner/trainer Todd Beattie. In her 2025 debut, she finished second in the Conniver Stakes March 8 to get to $273,900 in earnings.
"She's our big girl," Parker said. "She's a stakes winner, open and restricted."
The cross with Bourbon Courage, who stands at Anchor and Hope Farm in Port Deposit, Md., proved successful enough that Parker went back to the Lion Heart stallion from 2021 to 2023. The stakes-placed Maryland-bred filly Malibu Hooch came in 2022, followed by the 2-year-old Maryland-bred filly Malibu's Rumrunner and most recently the yearling Pennsylvania-bred colt Malibu Bootlegger.
Parker started breeding in Pennsylvania before eventually boarding his mares at Shamrock Farm in Woodbine, Md. He moved the operation to Chip and Barbara Wheeler's WynOaks Farm in Delta, Pa., before the 2024 foal crop hit the ground.
"Pennsylvania, at this particular time, offers more stability, if you will, in light of what's going on in Maryland," Parker said. "You also have tracks that are offering more racing dates as compared to the 120 that we have in Maryland. In Pennsylvania there are alternatives. If I had a horse that could run on an all-weather track, I go to Presque Isle. If I have a horse that's turf, I can run either at Penn or Parx and if they're dirt, Penn and Parx. From a racing standpoint point, it offers you more variety and it doesn't confine the type of horse.
"That's kind of the reason for the move, coupled with the fact that they're going to renovate Pimlico and that's going be in the next year and a half type thing, a lot of things could happen. I just didn't like the instability basically."
Parker also gave Sunday in Malibu a break for the 2024 season, with plans to venture out of the Mid-Atlantic in 2025.
"She's a 2006 and I want to preserve the years on her," Parker said. "This year I'm going to take her down to Kentucky . . . I wanted to give her a shot. We lined up a date with Cyberknife at Spendthrift. We're going to try for some of that Gun Runner magic and see if we can't do something. Not that I am dissatisfied with what I have in the pipeline. On the contrary, I think the 2-year-old that I have, who will begin training soon, is every bit much as good as the previous Bourbon Courage fillies I've had."
-- Tom Law
Happy Numbers and Ideal Thoughts
Find a few families and stick with them. That's been the case with Jill Daniel and her son, West Virginia state veterinarian and Charles Town's equine medical director Dr. Francis "Chip" Daniel, who have bred numerous stakes performers from a small but select broodmare band.
Linebreeding has been an important tool and one mare they've searched out for 25 years is champion and producer Numbered Account. Chip found the perfect candidate in Happy Numbers, by Numbered Account's son Polish Numbers.
Happy Numbers was 10 when offered at the 2010 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic December mixed sale.
"Her previous trip through the sales ring [in 2006] was for $120,000 -- we bought her as a barren mare for $1,200," said Chip. "One penny on the dollar."
The goal was to breed her to Not For Love, out of Polish Numbers' half-sister Dance Number. The combination was a success as the mating produced Get the Sensation, who won four straight at Charles Town in early 2015, including two stakes.
Of Happy Numbers' seven named foals for the Daniels, four were stakes horses, led by Dr. Feelgood, who won 13 of 15 starts. Happy Numbers, 25, was retired after delivering a colt in 2022.
"She lives outside with another mare," said Chip Daniel. "I think she still looks wonderful for a 25-year-old horse."
Three of her daughters are in production, including recently retired multiple stakes winner Great Spirit.
The 5-year-old daughter of Great Notion was bred for the first time in early March to Dialed In. The cross replicates the pedigree of 2024 stakes-winning filly Determined Driver -- by Dialed In out of a Great Notion mare, in turn out of a Polish Numbers mare.
Great Spirit's year-older half-sister Get Lucky (by Giant Surprise) has a yearling filly by Dialed In the Daniels are excited about, so it was a breeding worth trying.
Happy Numbers' daughter Stefani's Surprise was not bred by the Daniels but became part of their broodmare band after being acquired from Kristy Petty.
John Casey purchased the winning Stephen Got Even mare in 2011 while she was carrying her first foal, and for Petty she produced stakes winners Hessica and Hear the Chatter -- who combined won nine stakes and nearly $800,000 -- stakes-placed Imagoodchatterbug and two other winners from six foals.
Now 18, Stefani's Surprise hasn't been the most fertile recently. She is booked to Blofeld. "His fertility has been very high," said Daniel of the choice. "I didn't want stallion fertility to be an issue whatsoever." Get Lucky was bred to the Murmur Farm sire in early March.
The Daniels purchased a share in Not For Love in the mid-2000s and a 2007 breeding produced multiple stakes-placed $217,421 earner Ideal Thoughts. Her dam, Holly's Promise, was a year-younger half-sister to one of Chip Daniel's first broodmares, Goldendeoro.
Daniel acquired Goldendeoro off the track in November 1998 after she foundered for her previous owner. With time and dedication, Goldendeoro -- a member of the successful family of Gala Goldie -- became the dam of stakes winners Original Gold (her first foal, born in 2000) and Gold Standard from four foals.
Daniel lost Goldendeoro after she broke a leg in a field accident in 2006. He found Holly's Promise, a daughter of Corporate Report (by Private Account, himself out of Numbered Account) on the Starquine website that same year. Ideal Thoughts was her first foal for the Daniels. The second was stakes-placed $194,000 earner Primary Account.
Ideal Thoughts is due to Juba in May, after producing what Daniel described as probably her best foal last year, a colt by Fiber Sonde. "Her babies are always well-balanced," said Daniel. "He's a little bigger than normal for her. Take balance and large and put it together -- it's hard to beat." From her four foals of racing age, three are winners, including $427,910 earner Hypothesis, a winner of 13 races, seven in stakes.
Sticking with families helps develop similar dispositions and similar attributes, said Daniel, whose mares reside on a rented property a short distance from historic Greystone in Shenandoah Junction, a farm that's been in his family for more than 250 years. -- Cindy Deubler
Stone Cold Flirt and Julie B
Marilyn Moonroe, Pepperoni Tony. . . Pork Chop Pete. They're just three of the names for the offspring of O'Sullivan Farms and Alex Kazdan's Stone Cold Flirt. Pork Chop Pete made a name for himself when first or second in 10 of 11 starts last year at 3, including four stakes placings behind the likes of older runners Duncan Idaho, Penguin Power and Jubawithatwist.
"He's the best horse I have in the barn right now," said John Funkhouser, whose family has owned and operated West Virginia's oldest Thoroughbred farm since 1939.
Stone Cold Flirt came to the Charles Town farm from New York in 2020 and foaled the Bustin Stones filly Bella Mela, a stakes-placed runner the past two years. Kazdan asked Funkhouser if he'd want in on the winning daughter of Yes It's True.
"I like the mare," said Funkhouser. "She's a good-looking mare, has good-looking foals. We now have six mares together."
Pork Chop Pete is the first racehorse for the partnership. The son of O'Sullivan stallion Golden Years had earned $147,568 through March 18. Stone Cold Flirt's yearling Pepperoni Tony is also by Golden Years. "She had the very last foal for us last year [May 6] and we tried her back and she didn't take," said Funkhouser, who booked Stone Cold Flirt to Maclean's Music this year.
Several O'Sullivan foals carry family names.
"One of the things I always try to do here is name a horse after each one of my family members," said Funkhouser. "I have almost 30 cousins and lots of aunts and uncles so I'm kind of on a mission to name one after everybody."
Sometimes without planning it happens that way. Case in point: Pork Chop Pete.
"We didn't name him on the farm," Funkhouser said. "He was in South Carolina to be broke and when he came back, he had a name tag on him that said, Pork Chop. I questioned Robbie Shuler, who broke him."
Shuler told Funkhouser the nickname came from farm staffers in honor of his "hog jowls and big, lovable face." Funkhouser told Kazdan, who took it all one step further.
"I have a cousin we all call Pork Chop and his name is Pete," Kazdan said.
"How about we name the horse Pork Chop Pete?" Funkhouser replied.
And so it came to be.
Funkhouser added that Marilyn Moonroe is not named after anybody they know, "But she's out of Stone Cold Flirt and [Marilyn Monroe] was a stone cold flirt."
O'Sullivan Farms' best racemare, 22-year-old Julie B, was due in mid-March to O'Sullivan's first-year sire My Prankster.
"It'll probably be her last one," said Funkhouser of the $890,030 earner who captured 15 of 33 starts, including two runnings of the Cavada Breeders Classic, and was stakes-placed away from Charles Town including Aqueduct's Ladies Handicap. "She's thrown nothing but winners. You always want to breed the good ones until it's not feasible anymore. After this one she will have a home forever."
Unruly Julie, a 9-year-old daughter of The Factor and Julie B, retired at the end of 2023 after winning seven of 38 starts, including that year's Nellie Mae Cox Stakes at Colonial Downs, while earning $238,899. She's in foal to Frosted.
O'Sullivan has 34 mares to foal this year out of 44 owned. Of those, seven are 50/50 partnership mares. But the farm remains one of the busiest in the region.
"Last year we foaled out 74 mares," said Funkhouser. "This year we'll probably foal 65-70 mares. All are Thoroughbreds except for a Cleveland Bay or two every year."
-- Cindy Deubler
Casual Kiss and Goodnight Angel
Fillies born at Cynthia and Charlie McGinneses' Thornmar Farm in Chestertown, Md., have a way of finding their way home. "You never can give up on a good family even if you have to skip a generation," said Cynthia McGinnes.
Put Casual Kiss and Goodnight Angel on the list.
Casual Kiss is the granddaughter of Foolish Kisses, a stakes-winning Cannonade filly bred by the McGinneses and foaled in 1991. Casual Kiss was born at Thornmar in 2008, was purchased by agent Buzz Chace for $20,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic fall yearling sale, and joined Arnold Heft's racing stable. In training with Tim Keefe, the filly never raced after injuring her pelvis in a starting gate accident.
Heft, in his 90s and in failing health, was looking to find a home for the daughter of champion Dehere. Despite the injury concerns, the McGinneses took the filly back, kept Keefe as a partner, and have seen the mare produce nine foals. All six starters are winners.
Casual Kiss' best runners, graded stakes winner Still Having Fun and 2024 Conniver Stakes winner Too Many Kisses, are by Unbridled's Song sons Old Fashioned and Arrogate, respectively. The crossing of the Unbridled's Song line with Dehere mares has been extremely successful and this year the McGinneses got a call from Jon Ebbert, who raced Arrogate's champion son Arcangelo, to ask about breeding Casual Kiss to the classic winner.
It was perfect timing, as she wasn't in foal -- the McGinneses don't send mares to Kentucky with foals at their sides. Casual Kiss last delivered a Great Notion filly in May 2024. The mare heads to Kentucky this year.
Early in 1991, the McGinneses came home from the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic February mixed sale with the Lord Gaylord mare Muffies Muffin. The stakes winner was carrying her third foal (by Baederwood) and cost $26,000. She went on to a long and productive career, became the dam of four stakes winners, including the multiple graded winner of $671,616, Wicapi, and through her daughters, granddaughters and beyond, her line carries on. Among the runners representing her this year is great-grandson Passion Rules, a Triple Crown-nominated 3-year-old by Friesan Fire out of Goodnight Angel.
After a March 14 allowance win for Calumet Farm and trainer Brad Cox at Oaklawn Park, Passion Rules is undefeated in three starts.
Goodnight Angel is a daughter of Oneminutetomidnite, the 11th and final foal the McGinneses bred out of Muffies Muffin. Sold by her breeders for $20,000 at the Keeneland September yearling sale, Goodnight Angel ran in the region, won three times, and made her last start Jan. 1, 2016, at Laurel for a $4,500 tag.
She found her way back to her birthplace. Since 2018, Goodnight Angel was bred to Maryland sires but after Passion Rules turned heads as a yearling in 2023 she went to Kentucky stallion Take Charge Indy, like Friesan Fire a son of A.P. Indy. The decision turned out to be a mistake as Goodnight Angel came home empty.
"These mares are funny," said McGinnes. "You have to pick these horses' personalities. She hadn't been off the farm in like eight years. We thought she'd be a good one to send down there. She got there and wouldn't eat or do anything. She walked the fence. She lost a lot of weight. Then she started pooling urine. Now she's home and has gained 200 pounds."
This year she has a date with Northview Stallion Station sire Engage, a decision made in part because she generally has big foals when bred to A.P. Indy-line sires, according to McGinnes: "And we don't want her to stretch out and start pooling urine anymore."
That and there's no place like home.
"She wasn't happy in Kentucky," McGinnes said. "She likes her farm."
-- Cindy Deubler
