Mating Plans, Presented by Spendthrift: Pike Place Farm

With the 2022 breeding season underway, we continue to feature a series of breeders' mating plans. Today we have Jake Bennett of Pike Place Farm.

“My wife, Jaclyn, and I have just recently moved to Kentucky to start up our breeding operation,” said Bennett. “We have a small farm in Georgetown with four broodmares (three that we will get bred this year), a retired gelding (that I joke is my wife's horse), one yearling that we are preparing to sell this fall after acquiring him at the Keeneland November sale, and one 2-year-old that is back home in Seattle preparing for his racing career.”

EURASIA (m, 7, Pioneerof the Nile–Laurasia, by Black Mambo), to be bred to Vekoma

We first acquired this mare as part of our racing operation and she had some tough luck unfortunately. She is just beautiful and was a $135,000 purchase as a 2-year-old. She is inbred to some influential female lines and the great broodmare, Lassie Dear, and stems from the well-respected breeding operation of Bonnie Heath and his family down in Florida. She is due to drop a Mo Town foal any day for her first foal and she will be bred back to Vekoma. This may be the mating we are most excited about overall; we strongly feel Vekoma has every right to be a top-tier stallion given his pedigree and race record. This appears to be a great match for our mare in terms of physical compatibility, as well as the cross of Candy Ride (Arg) over sons of Unbridled, breeding the Fappiano line back through itself, proving to show an affinity for top-notch racehorses with a most recent example being Rock Your World.

GETINTHEREONETIME (m, 17, Bertrando–Common Hope, by Storm Cat), to be bred to Gift Box

This is a half-sister to champion Shared Belief (Candy Ride {Arg}) that we recently acquired. We will be breeding her to Gift Box to try to recreate some of the magic that the cross between Candy Ride and this female family created. Candy Ride and his son Twirling Candy both had such modest beginnings and, as I've already mentioned, we really love this sire line. Gift Box himself is an outstanding individual, he's priced right and we're hoping to get this mare on track to produce some runners and carry on a deep female family that has been nurtured over the years by the Wygod family.

MOONSTONE MAGIC (m, 11, Malibu Moon–Never Fail, by Holy Bull), to be bred to Vino Rosso

We purchased this mare just before moving to Kentucky this fall and we're excited to have her here in the bluegrass and optimize her potential to produce some quality foals. She strongly resembles her broodmare sire, Holy Bull, and is a bit of a throwback type physically: full bodied with lots of bone. She was a nice allowance runner at a mile and a sixteenth and we feel she can throw a true classic type of horse. Her female family is laced with plenty of black-type runners and producers and has seen success when bred to sons of Mr. Prospector, including Abraaj, the sire of one of our other mares. With this in mind, we decided to breed her to Vino Rosso. This is a cross that has been tried and true: Curlin/A.P. Indy and their sons. We feel this mating really clicks on all cylinders from a pedigree standpoint as Curlin also has enjoyed success when mated to Holy Bull mares including his son Connect, who is off to a great start at stud. Vino Rosso was such a talented horse that really blossomed over time in his career. Being a son of Curlin and hailing from a rich female family, we're excited to see his first runners hit the track.

Let us know who you're breeding your mares to in 2022, and why. We will print a selection of your responses in TDN over the coming weeks. Please send details to: garyking@thetdn.com.