Barton All In as Baldwin Bloodstock Makes its Third January Appearance

When Amy Bunt and John Barton teamed up to present their first consignment as Baldwin Bloodstock at the 2021 Keeneland January Horses of All Ages Sale, Barton was still based in Southern California and making a living underwriting auto loans. Two years on, Barton has made the transition full-time to the Bluegrass and Baldwin Bloodstock is set to present six horses in its third January consignment. While earning a living in the industry might have been a new experience when he joined forces with Bunt two years ago, Barton was anything but a novice to the sport.

“I grew up in San Gabriel, which is a stone throw from Santa Anita, about 10 minutes south of Santa Anita,” Barton said. “My dad, Neil Barton, owned horses back in the early '70s. And he went to a high school called Mark Keppel in Ahambra. He and Wayne Hughes of Spendthrift used to take bets out for their teachers during class. This was in the late '40s and early '50s. They would drive up to Santa Anita, make the bets and come back. My dad and Wayne were best friends forever, he was kind of like an uncle to me. So that's kind of how it got started.”

Barton's cousins Bob and Jude Feld have been involved in all facets of the game and, early on, Barton had dreams of following Jude into the Southern California training ranks.

“In the summer of 1996, when I thought I wanted to be a trainer, Jude said, 'Well, I have a string of horses at Fairplex.' I said, 'I want to give it a shot.' So that summer, I would walk hots for him. I did it for a full summer, seven days a week getting up at 4 a.m. Bob was the supervisor for that string at Pomona while Jude was at Del Mar during the summer. So Bob was running the show and I was a hotwalker. After three months of that, I said, 'I don't want to be a trainer anymore.' I went back to school that September and got my degree in finance in 1997 and went straight into auto financing.”

But Barton never lost his love of racing.

“I still had my eye on horse racing and the business,” he said. “I would go to Santa Anita whenever Wayne had a horse running–he still lived in Southern California at the time and hadn't purchased Spendthrift yet. So every time he ran a horse, my dad and I would go and I was able to pick his brain and talk about the business.”

It wasn't until 2020 that Barton finally made his first trip to Kentucky.

“My mom and dad used to come out a lot and visit Wayne and his wife Patty,” Barton recalled. “They would come home and tell me how great it is. But I never got to. Then in March of 2020, right as the pandemic hit, I kind of invited myself to Spendthrift. Wayne and his wife said, 'Yeah, come out and stay with us, you can see the farm and you can see if you like it out here.' So I got to Kentucky and I fell in love with it. I walked around Spendthrift, saw all the stallions and all the babies–it was March, so babies were being born as we were out there. My sisters and husbands were with me and they said, 'You know so much about the farm and everything,'–because I was rattling off statistics and numbers and history, they said, 'You should get a job here.' And we kind of laughed it off.”

He continued, “I went back home to California, to my auto finance, but I was kind of tired of it. I came out again to Kentucky in September of 2020 for the yearling sales. I stayed with Wayne and Patty. Spendthrift was very involved with the yearling sales, so I walked around with Ned Toffey, the general manager of Spendthrift, and their crew just learning about everything. One thing led to another and Wayne said, 'Why don't you move out here?'”

As he was contemplating the jump to Kentucky, Bob Feld introduced his cousin to Bunt, who was just launching her Baldwin Bloodstock. Bunt had been a partner in the Select Sales Agency, but was looking to pick up the slack when that consignment disbanded.

“I thought it sounded interesting,” Barton said of the opportunity to partner on the consignment, but Hughes had other ideas.

“I got on the phone with Wayne and he said, 'I don't know much about consignments. But I want you to come out here and be the tour guide for Spendthrift. You are a hard working, you like to talk, you know your history, you'd be perfect for it.'”

So Barton decided to do both. He sold his home in Southern California in February of 2021 and moved to Lexington the following month. He lived in a cabin at Spendthrift while giving tours to MyRacehorse owners.

Living on the farm gave Barton the opportunity to spend time with, and learn from, Hughes in the final months of the entrepreneur's life.

“I think he saw a little bit of my dad in me,” Barton said. “That's why we got along so well. He loved telling stories from way back when. And we talked horses and the business. And he was always worried about me. He told me, 'I think you'll do well as long as you work as hard as your dad did.'”

Baldwin Bloodstock had its biggest results at the November sales of 2021, selling C J's Gal (Awesome Again), dam of GIII Pocahontas S. winner Hidden Connection (Connect), for $450,000 at Fasig-Tipton and Jazz Tune (Johannesburg), dam of GI Breeders' Futurity winner Rattle N Roll (Connect) for $585,000 at Keeneland.

By 2022, the Baldwin consignment to the Keeneland November sale included 24 horses and was led by a son of Tiz the Law who sold for $105,000.

After that success with a first-crop sire, Baldwin returns to the Keeneland January sale with six horses, four of whom are short yearlings by first-crop sires. The group includes a filly by Global Campaign (hip 111), a daughter of Gift Box (hip 181), a filly by Higher Power (hip 1128), and a colt by Thousand Words (hip 1166).

“I know those first-crop sires, those babies sold well for all of them pretty much, we just hope it keeps going,” Barton said.

The Baldwin consignment also includes a short yearling filly by GI Belmont S. winner Tapwrit (hip 1175), whose unbeaten 3-year-old son Victory Formation just acquired GI Kentucky Derby points with a win in the Smarty Jones S. Sunday at Oaklawn. The gray filly is the first foal out of stakes-placed Duchess of Sussex.

“We are excited about her,” Barton said. “Duchess of Sussex was a black-type placed filly owned by Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners. She has Eclipse written all over her because they owned Tapwrit and they owned Duchess of Sussex. And the timing is perfect with Victory Formation winning Sunday.”

The Baldwin consignment is rounded out by the 6-year-old broodmare Mopolka (Uncle Mo) (hip 962), who is offered in foal to Improbable.

“These days everybody is looking for young broodmare prospects, so we like her a lot,” Barton said.

The business partnership between Barton, with his financial background, and Bunt would seem to be a match made in heaven. Bunt's vast experience in the racing industry includes stints with Coolmore in Australia, Van Meter Sales, Niall Brennan Stables and Eaton Sales, as well as time as a veterinary technician at Hagyard Davison McGee.

“Together, we make a great team,” Barton said. “It's absolutely perfect that I handle the financial stuff and she does the horse stuff. I am learning more about the horse stuff, about conformation. I knew a little bit about the breeding, but I am learning more. And you can't help but learn when you are around Amy because she just knows so much. If anyone was born to be in this business, it's her. She lives and breathes it. And I am starting to do that myself.”

As for the future of Baldwin Bloodstock, Barton said, “Hopefully someday we would like to get into the yearling sales, but right now we are still focused on the weanlings and mixed sales. I'd like to go Maryland and maybe Saratoga, we will see how it goes. We would love to expand, but still keep it small enough to where we can provide the attention that the horse and the client deserve.”

The Keeneland January sale will be held next Monday through Thursday with bidding commencing each day at 10 a.m.