BY GLENYE CAIN OAKFORD
When the young Florida sire Girvin left Ocala Stud and headed north to Kentucky for the 2023 breeding season, his relocation provided yet more evidence of the Sunshine State’s strong position as a launchpad for stallion breeding careers. With this year’s total Florida breeder and stallion awards increasing 52% to more than $8 million—including stallion awards at 20% of gross purse for Florida black-type stakes winners, up to $20,000 per race—Florida Thoroughbred industry leaders say there’s even more for both mare and stallion owners to love about the state. That likely means that the market spot—and the state’s good broodmare population—that Girvin left will quickly be filled by attractive new stallion prospects.
The road to success for a first-year stallion can be as much of a gamble as any in the Thoroughbred business. But Florida’s past-performance line for fine young sires who went on to success in the Bluegrass State is flecked with stars like Mr. Prospector, Fappiano, and Kris S., who were followed by such popular stalwarts as Stormy Atlantic, Successful Appeal, Northern Afleet, Saint Ballado, and more recently, Kantharos.
“It’s going to be much easier for someone to say, I’m going to consider investing a little more money in a stallion and stand him in Florida,’ because the economics are there to support the model.”
– George Isaacs
That pipeline has prompted Kentucky farms to keep a close eye on Florida—and cultivate it—as a proving ground. When Barbara Banke’s Stonestreet moved Kantharos in 2016 from Ocala Stud to Hill ’n’ Dale Farms (where he ranked 11th nationally last year by progeny earnings), Stonestreet advisor John Moynihan put it succinctly, telling Daily Racing Form, “Florida is an excellent place to stand a young horse and get him off the ground.”
When Girvin started making headlines in 2017 on the Kentucky Derby presented by Woodford Reserve (Grade 1) trail, owners Brad and Misty Grady realized they were headed into uncharted waters as Thoroughbred owners. As they cheered their Tale of Ekati colt to victory in the Risen Star (G2) and Twinspires.com Louisiana Derby (G2), the Gradys knew they had a valuable stallion prospect on their hands—and standing stallions wasn’t something they had done before. Guided by agent Jacob West, they entered a partnership with the O’Farrell family’s Ocala Stud and Kentucky’s Airdrie Stud, launching their horse’s career at the Ocala property in the hopes that his career trajectory might follow that of Kantharos.
Brad Grady recalls that West and Airdrie Stud President Bret Jones proposed Florida for Girvin’s stud debut, noting that the athletic Grade 1-winning millionaire would have market appeal there, in addition to having strong mare support from Ocala Stud, Airdrie and the Gradys themselves, who had committed to buying breeding stock for the purpose.
“They presented it to me, and it makes sense, right?” Grady recalled. “It’s easy to look back now and say, ‘Wow, the bottom of his pedigree is great.’ But at the time, his pedigree was a little unknown. I had a farm in Reddick and had committed numerous mares to Girvin the first two years, and the others had done the same, so it was like, ‘half his book is already accounted for and David [O’Farrell] was confident in the market in Florida where we could give him a fair shake. You know, looking back, it turned out to be a brilliant play.”
In 2023, Girvin cracked the top 10 on the national second-crop sire list, ranking seventh in the U.S. with more than $4.5 million in progeny earnings.
“Florida has been nothing but good to us in the horse business,” Grady added.
“Florida was the catalyst for Girvin. From his first crop, he had a Grade 1 winner [Faiza], he had Damon’s Mound, he had Dorth Vader, the list goes on. Without Florida, that wouldn’t have happened; Damon’s Mound and Dorth Vader are both Florida-breds.
“We sometimes have to think outside the box here in Florida,” Ocala Stud’s David O’Farrell said, noting that while Girvin was “a very good racehorse, a very good-looking horse who ran big races and won big races,” being a son of Tale of Ekati “maybe didn’t pique a lot of people’s interest in Kentucky. But we were eager to take a shot on a horse like that.”
With Girvin, Ocala Stud burnished Florida’s record of developing stallions with under-the-radar pedigrees into successful sires with market potential in Kentucky, something O’Farrell feels also benefits the Florida breeders who offer early support with their mares.
“We accept that, you know, it’s bittersweet when you lose a horse to Kentucky. But at the end of the day, that’s kind of the goal if it proves that the horse has done his job and we’ve done our job,” O’Farrell said. “And the breeders who did support the horse are going to be in a good position, because when he goes to Kentucky that just adds value to their product.
“I think Florida is a great place to start a horse,” he added. “If they’re not a slam dunk or a highly desired stallion prospect, I think it’s a really good option. Our breeders here in Florida are very resilient, they’re very hands-on and they make good decisions.”
Having sent Girvin to the Bluegrass, would Grady consider starting his next stallion prospect in Florida?
“Absolutely,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Why indeed, especially with the allure of Florida’s all-time high breeding incentives.
“That really should help the breeding industry,” said Brent Fernung, whose Journeyman Stud has stood leading Florida sire Khozan since 2016. “You’re getting a huge kick up in breeders’ awards from what they have been in the past 10 years. That should inspire a lot of confidence in Florida breeders, because it’s an ongoing committment from the state, so it’s going to be there for the foreseeable future.”
Those incentives include the higher cap of $20,000 on stallion awards this year, as well as more money for breeder awards, which now offer a combined 20% of gross purse for Florida-bred win, place, and show finishers in Florida races.
“It’s a win-win for the racetracks, it’s a win-win for owners of horses, and it’s a win-win for breeders,” FTBOA President and Bridlewood Farm General Manager George Isaacs said. “It was a 52% increase in breeders’ and stallion awards and a 66% increase in racing incentives. All of us as horsemen know that it all trickles down from purses at the racetrack: if you have strong purses, it provides the trickle-down economics for everything to work properly and allows you to make enough money to stay in the game.”
Isaacs points to a strong broodmare base and nationally prominent auction house in the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company as key to supporting a new stallion in Florida. But there are other obvious advantages, too.
“We have really good horsemen down here, and we have all the bells and whistles—top veterinary care and clinics, all the resources you need,” O’Farrell said. “And the weather and the landscape play a vital role, too. Our climate is so horse-friendly, especially in the winter months and early spring when foals are born. I think we just raise a really good horse here in Florida.”
Now Isaacs hopes the new breeding and racing incentives package will strengthen another Florida asset that, while perhaps less obvious to a casual observer, is alluring to canny owners of young stallion prospects: a community of nationally respected Florida farms that have established relationships with Kentucky’s breeding industry. That kind of network can help a young horse like Girvin get off the mark quickly with his early foals and runners, as O’Farrell noted.
“I think it builds confidence with our breeders here locally,” O’Farrell said. “It certainly helps get the stallion off to a good start. We’ve been very fortunate and blessed to have the support of some big owners that are willing to try our program and start a horse out here in Florida.”
“I hope we’ll see even more of that now that we have this stronger awards program back in place,” FTBOA President Isaacs noted.
“It’s going to be much easier for someone to say, ‘I’m going to consider investing a little more money in a stallion and stand him in Florida,’ because the economics are there to support the model. And I think you’ll see Kentucky farms also considering Florida for that reason.
“You don’t see too many Kentucky farms standing [only] Grade 2 winners or Grade 3 winners, but the right Grade 2 or Grade 3 winner that has a nice pedigree and really good 2-year-old form can potentially rise through the ranks in Florida and maybe even stamp his ticket to go to Kentucky,” he added, recalling how Bridlewood’s Stormy Atlantic—managed by Isaacs for Bridlewood’s founder, the late Arthur Appleton—took that trip in 2003.
“A lot of people know that for a long time Florida has been a launching pad for making successful stallions that sometimes are important enough and breed-shaping enough to be able to get the opportunity to move to Kentucky,” Isaacs said. “It’s okay with us to stand stallions here and try to make them important and valuable enough to potentially sell them for considerable amounts of money that can make owning and running a farm more lucrative.”
But the prospects are also brighter for a young Florida stallion to follow in Khozan’s footsteps and have a long and profitable stud career without leaving the Sunshine State.
“There’s nothing wrong with being a top stallion in Florida, because the breeders’ awards are there for people who are actually owning and racing the progeny, the stallion awards let you receive some nice checks, and you have the Florida Sire Stakes series,” Isaacs said. “All of that works in concert. If you can monetize in a pretty significant way in a regional market like that, it can be very lucrative.”
Back at Journeyman Stud, where Khozan looks set to clinch his fifth title as Florida’s leading sire by earnings, owner Brent Fernung has been seeing positive signs in the state’s stallion market following the new incentive package’s approval.
“This year, it seemed to me that people were bringing better prospects into town on some of these other farms, and I can’t help but believe maybe people are looking at that program and saying, ‘You know what, if I’m trying to choose between here and New York, I think I can do about as good here as I can in New York, and I don’t have to dig my way out of a snow bank.”
And if some of those new entrants into Florida’s stallion market ultimately relocate to Kentucky, that just proves Florida’s worth as a proving ground.
“It’s like the Tampa Bay Rays,” Fernung said. “They sell off their good players and they go find new ones and remain competitive. That’s what Florida does.”
