Diamond Creek having a golden summer

If Bryan Adam’s was ever to do a follow-up of his 1984 smash hit, Summer Of 69, with a harness racing twist, Adam Bowden and Diamond Creek Farms’ summer of ’23 would be one worth singing about.

The 41-year-old Bowden has made a significant investment in the sport of harness racing since diving in boots and all as a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed 24-year-old back in 2005. After 18 years of refining his craft, both he and Diamond Creek Farm are beginning to bear the fruits of his labour.

Racing in the Diamond Creek silks, Confederate and Cannibal have lit up the track this season in one of the strongest crops of pacing three-year-old males seen for some time. Underpinning their success is the fact they are sired by the great white blaze and Diamond Creek resident stallion, Sweet Lou.

Furthermore, across the board, the Diamond Creek brand is realising success with the stallion roster from top to bottom with stakes victories around North America coming thick and fast.

Bowden took time from his busy schedule (two days prior to Confederate’s world record!!) for a frank and refreshingly honest conversation about the whirlwind year to date, lessons he has learned after nearly two decades in the sport, and the exciting prospect of Confederate taking on the aged pacers in the season defining Breeders Crown.

Adam, when you decided to get into the sport back in 2005 and set up about creating Diamond Creek Farm, is the 2023 season you and the team around you are experiencing everything you dreamed of?

I mean it’s pretty hard to top what’s happened so far this year. When I first started, I naively thought it would happen a lot sooner.

I think now that it’s been going on for 18 years and we have finally gotten here, it was certainly worth the wait and probably better than I thought it would be.

To that success, at what stage did you realise you had a special crop of colts in the race team? I mean it’s fair to say this crop of three-year-old males is as deep and talented as we have seen for some time. It must be pretty surreal to have not just one, but three of the top dozen or so in your own colours!

You can’t just say this group of three-year-old’s is the best and we knew it all along, but as these horses grew up and we had decided which ones we were keeping very early on, you had a feeling it was different than anything that we had had up to this point.

When we sent them off to the trainers, the expectations were high. Obviously, you never expect them to be this high. But it wasn’t long after the horses were in training when our racing manager who gets to sit behind everybody early and give us reports, it was probably early January 2022 when he called me and said I think we have the best horse in the whole country (laughs). That’s quite a big statement to be making so early!

We had sent him (Confederate) late, he had gone into training around Christmas time. He had only been jogging and was quite green obviously, but we just let him develop and let the trainers do their thing and we try and guide them by staking them hopefully the right way, and to date it’s worked out.

Without giving away all of your trade secrets, how do you and the team go about selecting the race team as opposed to the group of horses we are about to see go through the sales ring?

There are really two different groups of mares that we purchase. One is for the public and the yearling sales, and another group is a homebred group of mares that is ever-changing but also by design.

Western Montana (Western Hanover – Incredible Margie) was one of the original mares that I had bought with the intention of keeping the progeny. Her pedigree told me that if I was patient and bred her the right way, she would give me very good horses. Along the way, I got Pure Country (Somebeachsomewhere) who developed into a three-time Dan Patch winner and two-time Breeders Crown Champion.

Another colt of hers, Grand Teton (A Rocknroll Dance) won the Tattersalls Stakes and won $564,639. We have a three-year-old daughter of hers in Charleston (Downbytheseaside) who is one of the top fillies in the country and obviously, Western Montana has produced the dam of Confederate in Geothermal (A Rocknroll Dance) and this whole family has really paid me back for the patience I’ve bestowed.

She’s not the only one, there were a couple of other fillies we had purchased early on with the intention that we were going to develop the families over a long period of time and be patient with them. That’s been our process this entire time with most of the horses we have kept yearlings by.

Obviously, Confederate was a monster last season as a juvenile and was massive in defeat in his final start at the Breeders Crown. Were you confident he was going to come back and resume on the same note as a sophomore?

I think so. Obviously, his two-year-old season was brilliant and like you said, he just missed in the Breeders Crown at Woodbine after getting a ways back.

We always felt that he was the best horse in that two-year-old crop and it was by design that he was only ever going to have eight or fewer starts that season. It just so happened that seven was the number, and we tucked him away and he was happy and healthy when he went out to the paddock.

He’s a very good horse to be around, he has a great personality, he takes care of himself, he is easy on himself and we sent him back to Brian Brown’s who had done a great job with him at two. Part way through the spring he had been training great in Florida and anticipating we were going to have a great year, we consolidated all of our horses to New Jersey where our Racing Manager is based so that we could have a better handle on all of their progress.

That led us to transfer Confederate from Brian to Brett Pelling and luckily it was a seamless transition. There have been no problems along the way and the scary thing is he might be getting better. He thrives on his racing and the best is yet to come, we believe.

He went terrific and was the likely run of the race behind It’s My Show at Woodbine in the North America Cup. What were the expectations like heading into the Meadowlands Pace? First of all, you have three of your colts qualify for the final which is a hell of an achievement. But when Timmy Tetrick let the big guy roll at the half and just put them to the sword, that must have felt like a coronation of sorts for all you’ve endured to get there?

It’s a race that we have wanted to win so badly for a number of years, and at times felt like we had the right horse and were unable to get the job done. In saying that, this was the first time I really felt like it was our race to lose and I hate to sound cocky, but he inspires that kind of confidence.

We felt like he was the best chance, but again, we had won the other elimination with Cannibal who has turned out to be one of the top two or three colts in the country, and even Christchurch who just never goes a bad race.

It was surreal, wonderful and every emotion under the sun. My oldest daughter was there with me which was special to share that with her. A lot of our Diamond Creek team was there. It’s one of those things you hope to happen, but a lot of the time it doesn’t so for everything to come true on a night like that was great.

You mention your daughter. Before we get back to the horses I want to ask you about their involvement, having three young kids and a wife. How entrenched are they in what you are doing and have they been bitten by the harness racing bug?

I don’t push for it. Our kids are four, eight and ten. The two eldest are my daughters and they are just starting to understand what I do for a business. My son is the youngest and he thinks they are his horses which is great (laughs) and he thinks it’s wonderful, he likes to be on TV and things like most kids his age and I enjoy having them there with me when circumstances allow.

My wife is super supportive of what I do. Obviously, it’s a crazy industry to be a part of and is not exactly a nine-to-five operation. She gets the lifestyle and gives me plenty of freedom to be as successful as we are. What I would say is it’s a part of who they are, but I wouldn’t say it’s their entire life. Trying to keep it separate is the real challenge.

And in a similar vein, Shaun Laungani joined you in the business some years ago. Not only is he a colleague and Vice President of Diamond Creek, but a close friend who you’ve known for a long time. How much fun is it being able to share in the journey with a guy you’ve got such a close bond with?

Shaun and I have been friends for a number of years and he started working for me back in 2018 and he has been here with me through this transition as we have got these great results with the stallions and racehorses.

Marcus Johansson is another. He is the Racing Manager for Diamond Creek and we have been friends for a number of years. I think sharing it with the important people in your life is what makes it really special. Some of the girls have been with me since the beginning, and one of the farm managers has been there since 2010. It’s family, through and through whether by blood or choice and it’s fantastic and makes the ride we are on even more satisfying.

A lot of this success we speak of is tied together by one really special stallion. Probably more so down under than up there because of his profile, he wasn’t given the utmost of respect early on. Despite what he achieved. His pedigree being such an outcross was always going to be an advantage, how proud are you to see him delivering on the potential and doing the job as a shuttle stallion?

He was always a dynamic horse and I really like that in a stallion prospect. Yes, he was a little off-bred, but he was such a good two-year-old. He weathered some storms, and returned at five and was such a brilliant, brilliant racehorse.

Those guys who owned him, from Ron Burke to Mark Weaver and the rest of the ownership group. They bet on me as well as their horse, very early on in the Diamond Creek stallion endeavours. I have a tremendous amount of respect and love for them for giving me that opportunity, and we ran with it.

We believed in him. It’s taken us a little while to understand the type of mares he needs and the right crosses and things like that. Mark Weaver probably more than anybody else has believed in this horse, and he’s made it his life mission to make sure this horse gets the respect that he deserves.

I give a tonne of credit to him, he kept pushing us to make better choices with the mares, to breed some of our best stuff to him and believed that if he got those good mares, he could throw these types of great horses. And like you said, he is doing it here, and now he is starting to earn the respect down under with some great results in the Southern Hemisphere as well.

Is there a touch of irony for you that he’s produced two of his best in Condederate and Cannibal from mares by A Rocknroll Dance? A sire that the breeders in both continents were quick to drop, possibly somewhat unfairly?

A little bit, because we loved him as a racehorse, he was tough as nails, and he has definitely instilled that in his daughters. We always felt that if you found the right cross with him, this is what could happen, he would deliver that determination and will. Then you cross it over with the speed that Sweet Lou brings and the finesse he puts into his foals. It’s a great recipe. Maybe it’s the new golden cross?!

Confederate and Cannibal are the only two in the crop that were bred on that cross, and now we find it very hard to buy A Rocknroll Dance mares (laughs) because they are bringing a lot more money than they should because of the success! They are not the prettiest-looking mares but they inherit his grit and determination. They are also big and correct and that goes a long way to being a good producer of talent.

I got to see Lou in the flesh at your PA farm back in February. He had just got out of quarantine and despite having seen him in film and knowing he was 16 hands, he was one of the most physically imposing horses I’d ever seen and had that aura of a horse who knew he was special. Have you noticed much of a change in him since he began dual hemisphere duties?

It’s taken him a while to furnish into stallion duties and sort of follows the path he had as a racehorse. He was a brilliant juvenile but then it took some time for him to find his feet as an aged pacer. It was the same with becoming a stallion, it took him a while to get accustomed to the fact he was no longer a racehorse and similarly with the travel and being a shuttle stallion.

As you said, he stands 16.2 and weighs 1350 or 1400 pounds and he is fricken solid. There isn’t an ounce of fat on him! He has a great personality and he’s such a cool horse to be around. He has the signature blaze which has been the easy way to market him and continues to be, and the fact he stamps his horses. Except for Confederate and Cannibal, they didn’t inherit the bling (laughs).

But from the time he came off the track, he loved the attention, he loves people taking pictures of him. We have a big open house every year where 1000 people come and watch the stallions go through their duties and he’s the centrepiece of the day. He is perfectly fine with having a few hundred people watch him be collected and I don’t know that most stallions could handle that, he is just different.

Getting back to the two big guns in the three-year-old ranks, what is the roadmap going forward? I read elsewhere you wouldn’t supplement Confederate for the Jug and it appears they are destined to clash infrequently for the rest of the campaign?

I think both horses, we will try to keep apart as much as possible. They are both racing on Monday here in the Kentucky Sires Stakes and we actually moved Cannibal down to a lower level so they wouldn’t have to clash, which probably goes against the logic of what most others would think.

But my thought is, I have two potential stallions and I would like to keep them apart as much as possible. They are both going to race on Monday, Confederate is going to race in the Kentucky Sires Stakes Final, Cannibal will go to the jug, and from that point, they are probably on a collision course to the Breeders Crown.

But I have left the option open and haven’t really told anybody this as of yet, but I would consider if everything continued on and he still looked like a complete star, I would give serious thought to racing Confederate against the older horses at the Breeders Crown instead of taking on his own age group.

Partly for legacy, partly to keep them apart and I wouldn’t be adverse to take that chance. The thoroughbreds do it, three-year-olds race against the older horses in the summertime, and for whatever reason it’s not common practice in harness racing but if the stars aligned, I would lean towards taking that chance. I am not sold on it, but at least it’s an option right now and not a bad problem to have.

That could only be a good thing for the sport should it come to fruition and it’s not a bad problem to have!

One of the other big guns in the crop who has managed to lower the teams colours on a few occasions is another son of Sweet Lou in It’s My Show. Is it somewhat serendipitous to know that when you have been beaten, it’s another world-class son of Lou?

Cannibal got beat by him, and it took a world record to beat him. If we are going to get beat, we’re not going to get too out of joint about running second to another son of Sweet Lou in world record time, and he’s a heck of a horse who we have a tremendous amount of respect for.

There’s another well-performed horse in the crop by the name of Seven Colours who we happened to sell as a yearling, so we touch a lot of these horses who happen to be the best in the sport right now which is pretty neat.

And then in the two-year-old ranks, there’s the season’s first sub 1:50 juvenile in Geocentric, and a filly no less.

Yeah, she’s another that we bred which is fantastic. It’s almost surreal how everything has come together for us in 2023. All the blood, sweat and tears.

It’s easy to sit here and get carried away with the success of Sweet Lou but Diamond Creek is obviously a much bigger stallion operation than just one horse.

They are all having a great 2023 in their own right. Talk to me a bit about Bettor’s Wish who with about half the foals of some of his contemporaries finds himself tenth on the 2YO money list with his debut crop.

Luckily the first year, he had a small crop but he was in New Jersey and he was able to do well in the Sires Stakes races there and it looks like he has the best two-year-old colt in Kentucky, and he is doing a bang-up job already.

But again, he got great support, his ownership group bred a lot of their best mares to him and gave him the best opportunity to shine. That’s what you need, and it’s what we say when we start these stallions out, let’s give them a shot and if you go down the list, we have tried to follow that model with all of them.

Downbytheseaside is doing a great job in Ohio like we knew he would.

Joe McLead and I are always on the lookout for the next horse and it wasn’t that long ago we were kicking around the idea of sending Sweet Lou to him at Sugar Valley Farm. Ohio is becoming that state where you can literally stand any quality horse and realise success. Joe does a wonderful job and we have a couple of trotters there with him in Creatine and Marseille. Joe is a horseman through and through and so far it’s been a great partnership.

As far as ‘Seaside’ is concerned, he continues to produce top, top horses. It looks like so far in the season, Bythemissal is the best older horse in the country by a couple of lengths and last year he had Pebble Beach who we stand and he had a full book in his first crop, so everything seems to be going quite well for him at the moment.

Always B Miki has hit home run after home run with six Breeders Crowns to his name but he had a tougher-than-expected year in terms of numbers.

What is it about Always B Miki in that regard? It seems that the breeders and horseman to some extent are pretty hard on him given what he has accomplished in a short space of time.

He’s a home run stallion. But people want horses to make money for them and I think if we are being honest, he lacks those middle-of-the-road horses.

I’m not saying it’s brilliant or bust, but he has produced brilliant horses like Grace Hill, Monte Miki and Perfect Sting. Newsroom is doing a great job this season. He gives you that chance to have an all-time great horse, but he has lacked in giving you that stallion series horse that wins you fourty or fifty thousand.

Captain Crunch seemed to be sitting in a similar boat and that was before the juveniles even began racing! I think it goes without saying he produces a quality individual and as the season has worn on, he’s started to put his best foot forward in the toughest state to compete in North America.

That was the thing for him, his foals were awesome when they dropped and the yearlings we sold were fantastic, so maybe our expectations of him were a little too high for a start.

When stallions begin slowly like he did early in the season, the lustre can wear off and you start to wonder whether you’re in trouble and doubt your own judgement. Then all of a sudden he comes with a  couple of big-time winners and you can exhale and have some momentum you can build upon into the fall and that has been nice to see. One thing our sport doesn’t do is it doesn’t give any room for error, it doesn’t give any time for a horse to build into himself as a stallion.

Greenshoe got bad marks right from the beginning, and so did Captain Crunch, but as you’ve seen over the last couple of weeks, more and more of them have been out at the races and winning which has been encouraging. We are still obviously in a wait-and-see approach with Crunch, but we are more positive than negative now which is great.

How frustrating is it in standing stallions with the role the horseman can play in making or breaking you? It seems to only take a bad experience with one of the offspring for them to all be tarred by the same brush.

Especially if they make a big investment in a yearling that doesn’t turn out to be any good or the couple they have don’t meet the lofty expectations, it’s commonplace for the horseman to start running their mouths a bit.

It can be disappointing because it doesn’t take long for the word to get around that the trainers don’t like a stallion. But as you said, June is when our babies start qualifying, and if there isn’t a huge volume of winners there, it’s like ‘Oh that stallion stinks’.

We’re like wait a minute here, there can be more than 20 of them qualify when nobody has started racing yet and they already have black marks against them?

I wish we would allow a couple of crops of offspring to race before we make a determination of a stallion’s potential, but like in racing, you are dealing with fine margins between winning and losing and that crosses over to the stallion market, rightly or wrongly.

One of your boys who has probably overcome that and is going through a renaissance of sorts is Father Patrick. He obviously got off to a flyer and came back to earth a touch but it must be pretty rewarding to see him competing at the top of the trotting stallion tree?

That’s been nice. The first crop he gets Greenshoe so the expectations become almost unattainable. He went through a lull maybe in crops three or four, but now you’re starting to see some of these crops of mares that were bred on the back of Greenshoe come through and that’s been great to see him have that nice bit of renaissance like you said and stamps him as one of the top four or five trotting stallions in the sport.

Creatine has done a great job for us and he can leave a really quality animal. We also stand Gimpanzee whose first crop is going to get sold this fall, and again, like Bettor’s Wish, he didn’t breed a big crop, possibly 60 or 70 mares, but I have massive expectations for them. To me, he is that horse… I don’t want to make a grand statement, but I think he will shock the sport. These horses are very cool, he was an awesome horse who just came along in the wrong crop.

Obviously, at the moment, the focus shifts significantly from the stallions to the yearling sales. Talk to me about what that looks like for Diamond Creek Farm in 2023. How many have you consigned across Lexington and Harrisburg?

We are selling 55 in Lexington, but half of them are ours and half of them are ones we prepare for clients or yearlings we are in partnerships with.

We will have another dozen or so for Harrisburg and we will put together a draft of maybe seventy to eighty in the Mixed Stock Sale so the next couple of months are really straight out on the focus of selling horses.

And am I right in saying you’re not just there with a focus on selling? You like to invest for the racing team to fill the gaps and potentially identify some bloodlines for the future broodmare bands?

We are keeping six from our own group of yearlings for the race team, and we try to have a minimum of 10-12 two-year-olds which we think is the minimum amount to give us that chance to find that really special filly or colt for the future. So we will look to add around four to six yearlings, both colts and fillies, between the Lexington and Harrisburg sales.

We’ve covered some ground and appreciate you are busy but I wanted to ask you to finish, what is something Adam Bowden knows now that he wishes he knew when he was starting out in Harness Racing?

I think at the beginning I thought I was smarter than everybody else, but that was just a reflection of my age and being young.

But I think you realise pretty quickly there have been a bunch of people that have been doing this a long time and you have to wait your turn. You have to put your licks in, you have got to have failures along the way. I think failures have allowed humility to enter the picture, and then that drives you to work that much harder at your craft and really study it, and be selective and that’s helped us get here more than anything else.

Patience, time and a commitment to the journey. It’s something we always believed we could achieve, but having that fortitude and resolve has allowed us to whether the hardships that racing has. Anybody who has done this for a long period of time knows that there are plenty of lows experienced along the way.

by Brad Reid, for Harnesslink