Are homebreds a dying breed?
/Stellar Run in 2021 Classics, but the pool of owner-breeders has grown thin
By Jeff Lowe
When Charlotte Weber settled into Ocala, Fla., in 1968 to launch a breeding establishment to fuel her fledgling racing stable, the blueprint was well-established across the major players of the game. In that era when names like Phipps, Rokeby and Whitney were synonymous with racing success, homebreds were the ticket to the winner’s circle.
Weber put a different spin on her Live Oak Stud operation with the location in central Florida, which at that point was just beginning to creep into the racing landscape. Over the last 53 years, Live Oak has been a beacon in Ocala's expansion into a self-proclaimed perch as the "Horse Capital of the World"—in some ways as a sharp contrast to the two-year-old hub that has grown up around her now 4,500-acre property. Weber has maintained her focus on a breed-to-race model and built up a rich history of success, now with key bloodlines that have been cultivated over the course of several decades. Meanwhile, around the corner, across town and at places in between, a commercial marketplace has sprung up in Ocala and reshaped much of the racing world.
Weber and her cousin, George Strawbridge—both heirs of the Campbell Soup Co.—have charted similar courses with their individual stables. Weber's Live Oak Plantation has laid claim to more than 30 graded stakes winners; and Strawbridge's Augustin Stable has accounted for three champions, a long list of top horses in Flat racing and the sole position as the all-time leading owner in the National Steeplechase Association.
Breeding to race has been the standard for Weber and Strawbridge. With few exceptions, they are mostly alone in pursuing that model in 2021, even if homebreds have been on a tremendous kick in American racing this season.
"It's like a lot of things in life today: I think people in racing are chasing lightning in a bottle," Weber said. "I can't really blame them. If you can buy a horse and get to the races quickly and are lucky enough to find some success, it makes a lot of sense. I can tell you that the economics are a whole lot different than when I got started in racing; it's very expensive, and I say that as someone who is fortunate to have a cushion but tries to be sensible.
"For me, a homebred is closer to the heart because I've watched them since they have been born—seen them as they have grown up. I have more of an understanding of the horse than if I were to go buy a yearling or a two-year-old. And with some of these families I've had for so long, that lineage becomes something special. Like Win Approval [the dam of two Breeders' Cup Mile winners, Miesque's Approval and World Approval], she sits in a paddock out by my house, and I get to watch her all the time. That's just special."
Ironically the biggest breed-to-race operation in America these days is not that long removed from a nearly ubiquitous presence in the commercial market as a leading buyer. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum has shifted much more to the breeding game in America over the last 15 years. With the banner of his Godolphin Racing stable flying high at the moment thanks to Essential Quality, the champion two-year-old male of 2020 has kept firing as a three-year-old including a classic victory in the Belmont Stakes, a few hours after the Godolphin homebred Althiqa captured the Gr. 1 Just a Game Stakes on the same card at Belmont.
Michael Banahan with Delightful Quality - dam of Essential Quality
"That doesn't happen very often; I don't care who you are," said Michael Banahan, the director of farm operations for Godolphin USA. "For us in the states, it had been a long while since we had a classic win—going back to Bernardini in the Preakness [2006]. They don't run many classics, and they sure are hard to win. But it's funny—depending on what happens with the Kentucky Derby with the drug positive—if Mandaloun ends up being the winner, you'll have a sweep for the homebreds with Mandaloun, Rombauer in the Preakness and Essential Quality, not to mention Malathaat winning the Kentucky Oaks. Who knows when the last time that has happened?"
Essential Quality is a legacy horse for the Jonabell Farm wing of Godolphin's breeding footprint in the U.S. Back in 2005, when U.S. Thoroughbred auctions were regularly seeing epic bidding duels between Sheikh Mohammed and the Coolmore associates, Sheikh Mohammed's representative acquired Essential Quality's second dam, Contrive, for $3 million at the Fasig-Tipton November sale.
"It was a bit of a slow burner," said Banahan, who has worked for Sheikh Mohammed's breeding entities in Europe and America for nearly 30 years. "Contrive was a Storm Cat mare—couldn't do much better than that back then—and she was the dam of Folklore, who had just won the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies. It's a family that we've liked and developed over time at Jonabell, but it was several years before we got a proper graded stakes winner out of it with Essential Quality. You have to play the long game with those. A lot of times you don't get instant gratification."
