A Bargain Buy, Boerne Proves Worth the Wait for De Luca

Aldo De Luca and his wife Kelley purchased a 30-acre farm in Williston, Florida two years ago to have a place to retire to where they could enjoy breeding Thoroughbreds and raising foals. One of the first yearlings to grow up on the couple's new farm was a Texas-bred daughter of Fed Biz they purchased for $10,000 at that year's Fasig-Tipton October Sale. Now named Boerne, the speedy filly won her third straight race in dominating fashion with a 4 1/4-length allowance victory at Gulfstream Park Sunday (video). After over two decades in the sport, De Luca, a native of Curacao, is reveling in the success of a filly who might be the best he's ever had.

When he first saw her as a yearling at the Fasig October sale (hip 1251), Boerne made an immediate impression on De Luca.

“She was a very attractive and correct, big black filly,” he recalled Tuesday. “She stood out from all of them.”

Of the filly's bargain price at the auction, he added, “We think she was overlooked by all the buyers because she was a Texas-bred. A lot of people think it's only Kentucky and Florida where they breed the good horses. But that is all baloney because whenever a horse is born with a big heart like Boerne, she can be born anywhere.”

De Luca named his new filly after his wife's hometown in Texas and only later found some intriguing coincidences.

“Her name comes from a beautiful city in the Hill Country north of San Antonio, Texas,” De Luca explained. “Boerne was established by German colonists in the 1800s and was named after the German poet Ludwig Borne. This is where my wife and her family come from, so that's why of course we used that name.”

The filly's dam Seeking the Jewel (Seeking the Gold) died shortly after giving birth in 2017, leaving breeders Randi and Eric Moreau-Sipiere to find a nurse mare for the new foal.

“They found a first-time foaling mare by the stallion Bernstein that had foaled two days before and this mother gave Boerne milk the first hours of her life,” De Luca said. “That mare's nickname was Bernie.”

A few days later, Boerne finally had a nurse mare of her own in a mare named Amiga.

“Amiga was a little plain buckskin Quarter Horse,” De Luca said with a chuckle. “Isn't that cute? Boerne, being a big black filly, even as a weanling, was almost as big as Amiga.”

He continued, “After we bought her–we go to all these auctions in Florida and Kentucky–we met the breeders and told them we had bought Boerne and they were very pleased. Then we heard all of the stories. We've stayed in contact with them and they are very proud, she's like their horse every time she runs.”

While Boerne has impressed Gulfstream watchers with her turn of foot-she's won her last three starts by a combined 15 lengths-it was something the De Lucas saw even before she got to the track.

“Boerne has always been special,” De Luca said. “When she arrived at our farm as a yearling, she immediately became the alpha of the group. She was very bossy. It was amazing to see how she never lost a single race in the paddock against her fellow yearlings. When they run up and down the fence, she was never ever second, she was always in front. Always. She'd be in front by one or two lengths and then the group comes close to her, she looks back and when she sees, 'Oh, you guys are here?' She puts it into second gear and she is gone again.”

That trend continued when Boerne joined trainer Juan Avila's Gulfstream stable.

“When she started training at Gulfstream, we noticed she was doing the same with every horse she trained with,” he said. “She never lost a breeze with any other horse. She does the same thing, when they get close to her, she changes gear and she's gone.”

Despite the early optimism, Boerne never made the lead in her debut at Gulfstream Park West last November and checked in a well-beaten fifth. She put it all together for her second start however, with a wire-to-wire 3 1/2-length victory in Hallandale Mar. 15 (video), and was even more untouchable with a 7 1/4-length triumph Apr. 11 (video).

“We laugh about it,” De Luca said. “In the first race that she won, she went in front by four lengths. Then everybody came close to her and we were laughing, 'Wait a minute. Wait until she notices they are coming.' And she did. Her ears goes up and she hears them coming and she's gone. The second race the same. She goes and wins by seven. She has done that in all the three races that she's won. The same pattern. She goes in front, she relaxes and the jockey says she does all this by herself. She is a very, very special horse and we are very honored and happy to have her. I've been 25 years in horse racing and I have had, here and there, a couple good ones, but it is so hard to find a Boerne.”

De Luca and his wife were traveling as restrictions were being put up around the world due to the pandemic in late March and have been at their Curacao home watching remotely, not only Boerne's success, but also foalings at their farm in Williston.

“I always wanted to have a farm in Florida where I can retire and also do breeding,” De Luca said. “We love babies. I am here [in Curacao] because we had to travel in March and a couple of days later they closed all the flights. So I am here in the island, but I would rather be in Florida because all of these babies are being born.”

De Luca currently has seven broodmares at his Florida farm, with the star of the band being the 10-year-old Lateen (Henrythenavigator). He purchased the mare, in foal to Commissioner, for $5,500 at the 2019 Keeneland January sale. Months after the auction, her first foal Great Winner (Karakontie {Jpn}) won a Russian Group 1 event in Moscow.

“We have a beautiful colt by Commissioner now who is a yearling,” De Luca said. “But the bigger story is Great Winner. We are following him and we are very excited to have the mother.”

Lateen is currently in Kentucky and booked again to Gainesway's Karakontie. The resulting foal, De Luca notes, will be bred on the same cross as this year's GIII Sam F. Davis S. winner Sole Volante (Karakontie), who is also out of a Kingmambo mare.

De Luca said his breeding operation will include a mixture of racing and sales prospects.

“We are planning to sell, of course you cannot keep them all,” he said. “I have 11 yearlings–seven of them were bred by me at the farm, but five I bought as weanlings at auction. I cannot bring 11 horses to the racetrack-you now how expensive that is to maintain them? We will try to sell them at a good price. The same happened with Boerne. At a certain time, I put a price on her, but people thought she was a Texas-bred and it was a little too much. I think I asked $70,000 for her and no one took her, so I kept her. So I am going to do the same with the ones that I have. I will put a reserve on them where I can make some money.”

After Boerne's effortless trio of victories, would he consider selling his star filly?

“You can hardly put a price on her. She is a special animal for us, we waited so long,” De Luca said. “But as they say, for everything there is a price. Because of all that is going on in the world, there is not so much attention now on the horses. So I am not getting as overwhelmed like if it was a normal world. Let's put it this way, if the price is right, we might consider, but we are not thinking about it right now.”

De Luca expects Boerne's next start will be in stakes company at Gulfstream Park.

“There are a couple of stakes coming up in the next months at Gulfstream,” De Luca said. “So we said, 'You know what, why do we need to go out there and find races for her now to prove something? No, we will stay and try to enter in one of those stakes or maybe both in the coming months. And then she will be the one telling us, 'I've had enough of these, let's go and find some better horses.' We will see where she goes.”