Hunterton dream manifests stunning results

Forty-five years ago, Steve and Cindy Stewart had a dream; one which they pursued doggedly, and one which ultimately, resulted in them having one of the finest harness racing broodmare bands in North America, if not the world, at their Hunterton Farm in Paris, Kentucky.

It all started in 1960, when Steve Stewart’s family moved to the Gainesway subdivision. Steve was just a year old at the time.

“It was a Standardbred horse farm where C.F. Gaines had all of horses—all with the name ‘way’ in them,” Steve explained. “It was the home of Kerry Way and Classical Way, for example.”

Clarence Francis Gaines had established his Standardbred operation in 1925 and was a founder of Vernon Downs. His grandson, John Ryan Gaines, began a Thoroughbred division in 1962, with the focus on standing stallions. The farm stood such notable running sires as Bold Bidder, Blushing Groom, Vaguely Noble, and Broad Brush, to name just a few.

 Joe Taylor, the patriarch of the Taylor Made Farm, and Steve’s father were friends, and introduced them to the horse business.

“Joe (Taylor) was the same age as my father and both of them came from big catholic families,” Steve recalled. “All of Joe’s kids went into the Thoroughbred business, and all of us kids went into the Standardbred business.”

Steve was the youngest of five boys.

“I think he thought we’d be happier in the Standardbred business because he was happier in the Standardbred business,” Steve said of Joe Taylor, who passed away in 2003. “I think Joe liked the harness horses because he thought of it as being much more family oriented, and not as dog eat dog as the Thoroughbred business, and I agree. The Standardbred business is a much more fun and hospital business than the Thoroughbred business.”

Steve’s older brother Tom became the farm manager at Lana Lobell in the 1970s and during the 1980s and 1990s went on to manage Stoner Creek Stud, the home of champion stallions Meadow Skipper (Dale Frost) p, 3, 1:55.1 ($428,057) and Nevele Pride (Star’s Pride) 4, 1:54.4 ($873,350).

His brother John established Brentwood Farm, where he stood stallions like Raven Hanover (Meadow Skipper) p, 3, 1:58.3h ($200,626) and Thorpe Hanover (Tar Heel) p, 3, T1:158.2 ($130,804), while his other brother Bob went into the conditioning side of the business, training such standouts as Andover Hall (Garland Lobell) 3, 1:51.3 ($870,510) and Conway Hall (Garland Lobell) 3, 1:53.4 ($818,884).

Steve’s twin brother Mike is a veterinarian who sees clients on the various East Coast raceways on a daily basis, and he also has a sister Suellyn, who is not involved in the horse business.

At the age of 20, Steve leased the family’s farm of 80 acres and looked to Joe Taylor for guidance.

“You would think that leasing the farm would be easy because it was in the family, but that was not always the case,” he admitted. “Our family was kind of like the TV show Dallas—there are a lot of dynamics there that sometimes-caused friction between some of us, but with Joe Taylor’s steering, I was able to make things work.

“In a way, I was slightly going into competition to my brother John,” Steve admitted. “I think my brother’s kind of looked at me, because I was the youngest and thought, this little whipper snapper, what’s he doing? But it felt normal to me to go into business then. I looked young but sounded older when speaking to people on the phone and that helped. There were a lot of things I had to work out that made me react quickly and think outside the box.”

Steve also credits breeder Bill Shehan as being an influential mentor in his life.

“Bill (Shehan) built up a broodmare band at his Clermont Farm that was so impressive in the 1980s that Tom Crouch (of Kentuckiana Farm) went to Bill and told him, ‘I can’t beat you so I’m going to buy you out—I want to buy all your mares.’ So, in the late 1980s, Tom (Crouch) bought all of his mares for $8 million. It was a big move on Tom’s part.

“Then later Bill and Tom became the co-founders of the Kentucky Standardbred Sale because they got so aggravated when they felt they were getting pushed around. So, the sale that we have now in the fall at Lexington is actually a grouping of the Tattersalls, and the Kentucky Standardbred Sale Company.

“After Bill sold his broodmare band to Tom, he bought another farm with that $8 million, built up another terrific broodmare band, and then sold that group of mares to George Segal, and that’s how Brittany Farms started,” Steve continued. “Bill just had unparalleled success with that formula, and it made sense to me.

Steve acknowledged that Bill took he and Cindy “under his wing prior to his death in 1991.

“He really helped us, and eventually, Brittany bought Clermont from Bill, and when that happened, Bill only had a few mares left and he didn’t have his farm anymore, so he sent his three mares to Cindy and I, and that’s where we began to really learn a lot about the business,” Steve stated.

“One of the things Bill taught us was that there’s not a lot you can change about a horse. You can’t change its color, its head, its heart, or its confirmation. But what you can do is feed them well and have a good blacksmith on hand. Bill really stressed the importance of good feed and nutrition.”

Throughout his years in the breeding business with his various farms, Bill Shehan never stood a stallion, Steve said.

“That made me realize you could make it in this business with a great foundation of broodmares,” Steve noted. “If you called George Segal right now and asked him about Bill, he’d tell you that he was the greatest Standardbred breeder of all time.

“George’s horses were on our farm now. I saw the good and the bad of standing stallions—the good is that you can make a lot of money with them, but I learned that more than often than not, stallions fail. You kind of live and die by your stallions. Our thought process was to be like Bill and to live by our broodmares. You can do that as a breeder if you’re confident in having the ability to raise a good horse.”

Reflecting on his beginnings, Steve admits having the acreage and equipment was a big plus.

“Cindy and I started out with zero,” he said. “I was lucky to lease the family farm because I didn’t have to buy a tractor, I only had to deal with my ornery older brothers! But it definitely helped because I was able to focus on the horses. Cindy was a schoolteacher and stopped working to become a full-time mom and our kids benefited by her being home with them all day. We lived off her salary until we didn’t have too anymore. We always believed in our business and never wavered, even 15 or 20 years ago, we really believed in what we were doing.

“Ultimately, it’s worked out perfectly for us as we now have some of the best horses in the world,” Steve continued. “A lot of folks starting out with a boarding farm and attempt to lease mares and have foal shares. We realized early on that a lot of clients don’t want a monthly board bill, so we did a lot of partnerships on mares. I’d rather have a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow—working toward the goal of selling a foal, rather than just relying on board bills.

“With the foundation of knowledge that we gained from both Joe Taylor and Bill Shehan; we had good base early in our careers in the business. We were lucky to have been able to tap extremely knowledgeable horsemen. I wasn’t extremely comfortable borrowing money back then, so we started leasing mares.”

Over the years the Stewarts have bred such standouts as Galleria (Artsplace) p, 4, 1:49.1 ($1,814,453) and Run The Table (Landslide) p, 3, 1:51 ($1,171,053).

“We never really struggled per se, and had a lot of success early on,” Steve admitted. “When Galleria retired, she was the richest pacing mare of all time. We also bred Rocknroll Heaven (Rocknroll Hanover) p, 3, 1:47.3 ($2,748,818) and since 2014, have bred three Hambletonian winners; Trixton (Muscle Hill) 3, 1:50.3 ($947,057); Forbidden Trade (Kadabra) 3, 1:51 ($2,114,747); and Tactical Approach (Tactical Landing) 3, 1:50 ($1,544,489).”

Steve said he thinks when people study the breeding business, they often have varying opinions about how things work.

“If you look at some of the farms that are no longer in business, it’s not always what you think,” He stressed. “Look at Almahurst Farm, Walnut Hall, Yankeeland Farms, Peretti Farm and Castleton. A lot of the reasons some of those farms no longer exist is because people died, it had nothing to really do with the Standardbred business, it was because there was no one to continue with them. It’s one thing if you inherit a piece of artwork or something else, but a horse farm is a liability that costs a lot of money to maintain, and it’s a lifestyle—it’s all encompassing, and you need to be all in for it to succeed. Brittany Farms sold a lot of mares some years ago, and that was mainly due to the fact that George Segal didn’t have any children to leave the farm to.

“One of our reasons for success is that we’ve had some great partnerships over the years,” Steve confirmed. “Ninety percent of the mares we own, we own in partnerships, which serves us well, and that translates to money when you sell the yearling. Think about it, you have a better chance of being successful with a $100,000 mare than with a $30,000 mare.”

While Hunterton does not stand a stallion, they do invest in stallion shares, Steve said.

“We’ve gotten lucky by investing in stallion shares,” he admitted. “We really believed in Muscle Hill (Muscles Yankee) 3, 1:50.1 ($3,273,342) and Walner (Chapter Seven) 3, 1:50.2 ($567,652) for instance.”

One of the Stewart’s greatest acquisitions came when they purchased the mare Pizza Dolce (Conway Hall) 3, 1:52.4 ($668,824) for $500,000 from Dave McDuffee.

“That really escalated us to another level,” Steve said. “She’s had three sale topping yearlings. We do the research, and when a top mare becomes available and we like her, we buy her. Usually, the market comes to us instead of us the going to the market.

“The confidence in us being able to raise good horses is what sells us to folks. For example, Sarcy (Donato Hanover) 3, 1:53.1f ($261,333), the dam of Tactical Approach is one we liked, and we bought into her at $125,000 and she produced a Hambletonian winner.”

The Stewarts have also ventured into not just breeding but owning top racehorses.

“We are in an interesting situation now, in that we have a top racehorse in Jiggy Jog S (Walner) 5, 1:49.2 ($2,975,467),” Steve noted. “She was the aged trotting filly of the year last season and had already earned $2 million.

“We bought into her last February for $1.6 million and she’s made half her money back in just five starts this year and has beaten the boys every time out—she’s five for five this year. The trainer owns 10%. We’re hoping for good things from her in the Dayton Trotting Derby (this Saturday) and then the Breeders Crown. Our hope is to take her to Europe and race her there—first in the Prix d’Amerique in Paris in January and then the Elitloppet in Sweden at the end of May.”

The Stewarts also own a piece of the top 2-year-old trotting colt Maryland (Chapter Seven) 2, 1:52.3s ($795,378), who has won the $425,500 Wellwood (in 1:53.4 by nearly five lengths), the $390,000 Peter Haughton (in 1:54.1 by 3¼ lengths) and the $740,000 Mohawk Million (in 1:52.3 by 3½ lengths).

“Anders Strom of Courant Stable bought him for $475,000 last fall at Lexington,” Steve said. “He made us an offer we couldn’t refuse and so we became partners on the horse.”

Steve said that annually Hunterton Farm sells about 150 yearlings—100 at Lexington and 50 at Harrisburg.

“We don’t advertise a lot; we stay in our lane, put our horses in the sales ring, and hope they sell well, and we don’t buy them back,” he said. “We try to help people find success with the horses they buy from us.”

From those first 80 acres, Hunterton has blossomed into 1,550 acres.

“We’re not trying to get bigger, but we’ve had success and so have our clients, and we have grown internally, and Cindy and I often pinch ourselves,” Steve admitted. “We didn’t plan on all of this when we started off 45 years ago. But it’s proven what I learned early on, and that is, if you’re successful in raising horses well, that just takes care of everything else.”

by Kimberly Rinker, for Harnesslink