Stoneway Hoping for Another 'Grand' Result at Keeneland September

When Jim Stone's Stoneway Farm sold a son of Into Mischief out of its young mare Assets of War (Lawyer Ron) at last year's Fasig-Tipton July sale, Stone's racing manager and partner Terri Burch admitted she was happy with the result. Since then, Instagrand has lit up the Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream Sale when bringing a co-topping final bid of $1.2 million, went on to be 'TDN Rising Star', romped to victory in the GII Best Pal S. (video) and is the favorite in the future wager for the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile. Stoneway will offer a half-brother to the speedy juvenile during Wednesday's third session of the Keeneland September Yearling Sale. By freshman sire Cairo Prince, hip 663 will be consigned by Paramount Sales.

Stoneway's association with Instagrand's family dates back to one of Stone's earliest Thoroughbred purchases, Added Time (Gilded Time–Added Elegance), who was acquired for $170,000 at the 1999 Keeneland April Sale.

“Added Time was the first racehorse that Jim and I had purchased together,” Burch recalled. “We had really good success with racing and selling out of her–we sold a Grade I winner out of her.”

That Grade I winner was 2007 GI Spinaway S. winner Irish Smoke (Smoke Glacken), but when Added Time produced a series of colts, Burch started looking for another way to get back into the family. She found her answer with Assets of War, a granddaughter of Added Elegance. Stone purchased the filly for $165,000 at the 2011 Fasig-Tipton July Sale.

“She was very balanced and stretchy and with a nice family,” Burch recalled of the filly's appeal as a yearling. “And I just loved the family–it was a really deep family. There are a lot of good fillies in the family who had gone on to produce horses. So that's something that we wanted to bring back to the farm. We had sold Added Time's first three fillies and then she only had colts after that. We kept trying to get fillies. So we needed to get back into the family. ”

Assets of War won once in 13 starts before retiring to the Stoneway broodmare band in La Grange, Kentucky. Her first foal is stakes-placed Aerial Assets (Into Mischief), who races for Stoneway and is trained by Kelly Breen.

Instagrand is the mare's second foal and Burch admits she has only one regret about him.

“I loved him,” she said. “And I hated that he was a colt. I was trying for a filly and I got a colt, but I really liked him. He was really mature at a young age and he had a wonderful hip. We mostly race fillies, so I was severely disappointed that he was a colt. We are really happy for all the connections that have him now and we get just as excited as if he was our own. We're really having a good time watching him, but had he been a filly, she'd be in Stoneway colors.”

When Instagrand sold to Quarter Pole Enterprises for $190,000 at last year's Fasig July Sale, Burch thought it was a good result.

“We were happy with that result,” she said. “The sale market is pretty funny, but the stud fee at the time was really reasonable, it was $30,000 or $35,000. So we made enough money off of him. To me, he looked like a sprint horse and not really a two-turn horse. Sometimes we will keep a colt to race it, not very often, but sometimes we do and he just looked to me like he was going to be fast as lightning and I didn't think he would go two turns. The way he gallops out now makes me think maybe I was wrong.”

Instagrand worked a furlong in :10 flat before selling to Larry Best's OXO Equine for $1.2 million at the Gulfstream sale.

“We were just absolutely thrilled,” Burch said of the result. “He had a beautiful breeze, his stride length was really lovely and he got over the ground just really wonderfully. That helps our family, so we are really thrilled that he brought all that money.”

Stoneway will have its first chance to see what impact Instagrand's success will have on his siblings in the sales ring when Assets of War's Cairo Prince yearling goes through the ring at Keeneland Sept. 12.

“We wanted speed and Cairo had speed, but he could also carry it over a distance,” Burch explained of the mating decision. “We loved Cairo. He's very handsome. His babies that are on the ground, he stamps them really well and that's something else we were looking for. Because usually that's a sign of a quality sire. So we thought it was a lovely match. We'd had two Into Mischiefs that we were really happy with and we wanted to go in a little bit different direction with her.”

The yearling might just have all the best qualities of his older half-siblings.

“We really like him,” Burch said of the colt. “He's got a really big hip. He's a little bit longer than Instagrand at this time–he's a little bit more stretchy and he has a little bit of a longer neck. He's probably in between what Aerial [Assets] looks like and what Instagrand looks like. She's a little bit longer and definitely looks like a two-turn horse, where Instagrand looked really sprinty. This one looks right in the middle of them.”

Burch is already looking forward to Assets of War's weanling colt by Noble Mission (GB).

“When I first saw him, I said, 'We're keeping him. We're going to race him,'” Burch said of the weanling. “He looks so fast. But he may end up going to the sale because he may be too expensive for us to keep.”

Assets of War is currently in foal to Creative Cause and is expected to visit Into Mischief next spring.

Stone, who is president of the Louisville-based trucking company Mercer Transportation, began his breeding operation in La Grange in 1998. With the recent retirement of graded stakes winner Song of Spring (Spring at Last) and multiple stakes winner Pretty Perfection (Majesticperfection), the farm currently has a broodmare band of 22 head, but that number could drop this fall.

“We brought Pretty Perfection and Song of Spring home from the track this year and they will join our broodmare band, so that will pump us up to 22,” Burch said of the broodmare band. “I think we are going to cull maybe three, which is hard for us because so many of our mares are so young, we really don't know what they are going to do. But 22 babies would be a little strain on the way our farm is set up and having enough paddocks for everybody. So we are going to cull a few in November.”

She continued, “We are breeding to sell. We would probably keep a replacement filly from a family so we could continue the family and then we would sell.”

In addition to hoping for the occasional filly to keep and race, Burch admitted she also has one more plan for the broodmare band.

“I try, and this is silly, but … I'm going for gray fillies,” she said with a laugh. “Gray horses have been really good to Stoneway. Not that we haven't had graded stakes horses that were other colors, but the majority of our graded horses are gray. Maybe that's just because we have a propensity for grays.”

One gray in particular that Stoneway has had success with is Stonetastic (Mizzen Mast), winner of the 2014 GII Prioress S. The 7-year-old retired to the Stoneway broodmare band in 2017 after earning over $850,000 on the racetrack. She produced her first foal this year and is clearly reading Burch's script.

“She has a beautiful gray filly by Candy Ride (Arg),” Burch said of Stonetastic. “I call her Mini Me-tastic because she is a clone of Stonetastic, except she is going to be more of a red roan than a blue roan like Stonetastic.”

Burch, who also serves as the interim director of the University of Louisville's Equine Industry Program, had no hesitation about plans for that weanling.

“I'm keeping her,” she said. “She's the first one and she's a gray, it was meant to be.”

The Keeneland September sale begins with the first of four Book 1 sessions Monday, Sept. 10. Book 1 sessions begin at 11 a.m. After a dark day Friday, the sale resumes Saturday at 10 a.m.