By Katie Petrunyak
When it came time for Ma'am (Colonel John) to retire from the racetrack back in 2018, one of her owners Lance Gasaway began plotting how his star racehorse would live out her days at his home in Arkansas.
Then the mare's trainer Kenny McPeek stepped in. Prior to Ma'am, Gasaway had only owned a handful of Arkansas-breds and he knew next to nothing about the breeding business. McPeek explained that with her pedigree, soundness and easygoing nature, Ma'am had all the credentials to become a good broodmare.
Six years later, with her first foal to hit the racetrack, Ma'am provided Gasaway, his family and his partners with an adventure they never could have dreamed up when her son Mystik Dan (Goldencents) reeled off a stellar 3-year-old campaign headlined by a thrilling three-way photo finish win in the 2024 GI Kentucky Derby.
Owned in partnership with Four G Racing, Daniel Hamby and Valley View Farm, Mystik Dan is the first horse that Gasaway ever bred and the colt's Derby win–which came a year after Gasaway's father Clint passed away–marked a day that Gasaway would never forget.
“Derby Day was so wild,” Gasaway reflected. “So many people are there and everything is such a rush. After you sit back and reflect on it, you kind of really realize what we accomplished. I'm blessed to have a horse of this caliber. With people like Kenny and his whole crew, they deserve all the credit. They're the ones who did all the work. For us as owners, it's just a reflection of how good a job they do.”
McPeek's team has had a hand in every aspect of Mystik Dan's success, from foaling him and raising him at Magdalena Farm, breaking him in Florida and then developing him into a Derby winner. And it was McPeek himself who found Mystik Dan's dam back in 2015.
Gasaway and his family had owned a few horses with McPeek over the years, but then Gasaway told McPeek that he was looking to improve the quality of his racing stable and asked him to find a horse that would fit the bill. Shortly after, McPeek stopped by the Thoroughbred Training Center a few miles down the road from Magdalena to look at a few horses owned by Ted Bassett.
“He sent me a video of I think three horses,” Gasaway recalled. “He said, 'Hey, y'all pick which one you want.' And we chose Ma'am out of the bunch. Just a stab in the dark.”
It didn't take long for the Gasaways to develop a soft spot for the daughter of Colonel John. She went unplaced in her first two career starts, but was set to make her third start at Oaklawn Park on Gasaway's birthday.
Lance Gasaway stops in to visit Ma'am whenever he is in Lexington | Katie Petrunyak
“We go to the barn every weekend to feed the horses peppermints and we never could get Ma'am to eat them,” Gasaway explained. “That morning we finally got her to start eating peppermints and then we could hardly stop her. She ended up winning that day.”
Ma'am raced for three seasons, accruing four wins and eight additional placings from 23 starts and earning over $167,000.
“She was a filly that went out there and tried hard every day,” said McPeek. “She was easy to train and I always felt like if she was just about five or eight lengths better, she was going to be a stakes horse.”
After Ma'am retired at age five, her first foal died before making it to the racetrack. Then McPeek recommended the mating to Goldencents that produced Mystik Dan.
For McPeek, the most satisfying part about earning his first Kentucky Derby win was the journey that led to the victory, from purchasing Ma'am as a 2-year-old on through watching her foal grow up at Magdalena Farm and then make the starting gate on the first Saturday in May.
“How many people get an opportunity to handle a horse from conception through the birth, training and racing? It has just been an amazing journey and it's something that I personally have dreamed of doing all my life,” said McPeek. “Everything Mystik Dan has done has been because he's an extremely intelligent horse. I think that really matters and Ma'am was the same way. She was very easy to handle, a very smart filly, and she was kind from the very beginning.”
As special as that Derby victory was for everyone involved, it led Gasaway to making the difficult decision of presenting Ma'am at the upcoming Fasig-Tipton November Sale.
“One thing I've learned in this business is if you're going to stay in the horse racing business, number one you have to take money off the table when opportunities are there,” said Gasaway. “With 'Mystik' winning the Derby and all, we feel like this is the time to put her out there and let's see what happens.”
Consigned by McPeek's Magdalena Farm as Hip 285, Ma'am will be a unique commodity as the dam of a Classic winner at just 11 years old.
“It's very rare that you have the opportunity to sell the dam of the current Kentucky Derby winner,” said Fasig-Tipton's Boyd Browning. “She's in foal to Into Mischief, which produces an offspring very closely related to Mystic Dan. It also produces an offspring by one of the best stallions in the world. Into Mischief gives you both a sales horse and a racehorse and the opportunities are there for whoever buys Ma'am, whether you're buying her to breed to race or to breed to sell commercially.”
Katie Petrunyak
“Ma'am has a very interesting pedigree as well,” he continued. “She's the immediate family of Grade I winner Siphonic (Siphon {Brz}), Grade I winner Laragh (Tapit), and a successful stallion in Summer Front. She really has all the credentials to continue to be a great broodmare.”
The Gasaways will have plenty left in the Ma'am pipeline even after parting with their star broodmare. Mystik Dan, whose resume also includes a win in the GIII Southwest Stakes and placings in the GI Arkansas Derby and GI Preakness Stakes, is back in training and preparing to return for his 4-year-old season. They also have the mare's 2-year-old filly named Yes Ma'am (Unified), a yearling Knicks Go filly called Ford's Ma'am, and a weanling colt by the Gasaway's Grade II-winning sire Wells Bayou named Mystik Bayou.
Despite all those young progeny in the pipeline, Gasaway said that saying goodbye to Ma'am will be no easy task. Stopping in to visit Ma'am at Magdalena Farm has become a regular tradition during his visits to Lexington. The Gasaways even made the trip the morning of the Kentucky Derby to give the mare peppermints before her son's big day.
“You do get attached to them and she was a kind of special deal,” he admitted. “She was always so personable to you. It's going to be hard. I don't know if we'll make the sale or not. We might watch on TV.”
Gasaway said he believes that whoever becomes Ma'am's new owner will be acquiring a mare with a great deal of potential.
“With her personality, she transfers that on in the genes because Mystik Dan is identical,” he explained. “He is not like any colt I've ever been around. He'll put his head on your shoulder and love on you just like she does. And even before Mystik Dan ran, Kenny said that this mare was throwing some of the prettiest babies. He said that every baby she throws is the prettiest baby on the farm.”
McPeek, who is better known for being a buyer rather than a seller at Fasig-Tipton, said that he typically outsources when offering a horse at auction but opted to consign Ma'am himself because he believes the mare will speak for herself.
“I don't think you can go wrong because she's still young and she obviously produces talent,” he said. “It's going to be pretty easy to bring her over there and let her show herself off.”
Not a subscriber? Click here to sign up for the daily PDF or alerts.
