Mark Toothaker

This past year marked a new record for Spendthrift Farm when they came just six short of covering 3,700 mares during an exceedingly busy breeding season. After adding three new recruits for 2025, they'll likely surpass that number next year with a growing roster of 29 stallions. It's the biggest sire lineup in Spendthrift's history since the farm was purchased by B. Wayne Hughes 20 years ago. With such a wide array of stallions, open house season is a busy time at Spendthrift. As the Keeneland November Sale transpired some...

The New York Thoroughbred Breeders Inc. will host its annual general membership meeting and educational seminar Sunday, Oct. 13 at the Fasig-Tipton sales pavilion in Saratoga Springs. The event, which features a free dinner and cocktail hour for attendees, will run from 5-8 p.m. This year's seminar topic will focus on equine financial management. Attendees will learn about stallion syndication deals, evaluations, and farm business management. The seminar, sponsored by the New York State Thoroughbred Breeding & Development Fund, will feature Mark Toothaker, stallion sales manager for Spendthrift Farm, Len...

The TDN team barely had time to stop in at Spendthrift Farm to visit Forte this past November before the champion was booked full for 2024. Here's our video feature on the son of Violence. But Forte is just one of the four in-demand newcomers at Spendthrift, where the breeding shed is sure to be busy as ever this year as Into Mischief continues his reign as the leading sire in North America and the top four freshman sires of 2023 take on their fifth season at stud. To learn...

Breeding plans was the topic for the 10th and final panel of the 2023 OwnerView Virtual Thoroughbred Owner Conference, which was held Tuesday, Dec. 5, The Jockey Club said in a release Thursday. Panelists were Carrie Brogden, owner of Machmer Hall Farm; Alan Porter, founder of TrueNicks; and Mark Toothaker, director of stallions at Spendthrift Farm. The panel was hosted by OwnerView's project manager, Gary Falter. Topics for the breeding panel included matings, nicking, conformation traits, inbreeding, broodmare preferences and stallion selection. The first question to the panelists referred to...

It didn't take long for champion Forte (Violence - Queen Caroline, by Blame) to settle in at Spendthrift Farm and after just a few weeks of breeder inspections, the 'TDN Rising Star' is already booked full for his first year at stud. "Any time you get a chance to show a champion off to your breeders, it makes the sales team's job pretty easy," said Spendthrift's Mark Toothaker. "He has been hugely popular and is completely sold out. Most every mare that he got is a blacktype mare, so he's...

"Her dad should have shot me," says Tim Hamlin wryly. Needless to say, he had met Nancy at a horseshow. She had just started out on her veterinary studies. "And she quit school to come to a little town in northwest Iowa to help me," Hamlin recalls. "This was '84, we were kids, had no money. We lived in a single wide trailer house for seven years. Nancy would get up at 4 a.m. to make donuts, so we could buy horsefeed." Eventually they found a filly that emboldened a...

The Indiana Thoroughbred Alliance is hosting a seminar "Harness the Mare Power in Breeding" Aug. 19  at Pudder's in Shelbyville beginning at 11:30 a.m. The seminar will encompass a wide range of topics, including genetic considerations, performance analysis and potential for sales. Speakers will include Spendthrift Farm's Mark Toothaker and Daniel Toffey. Registration for the seminar and lunch is free to all ITA members. Membership to the organization can be purchased on-site for a discounted price of $20, paid at the door.

4th-Belmont, $90,000, Msw, 5-28, 3yo/up, f/m, 7f, 1:25.06, ft, neck. VIRTUAL REALITY (f, 3, Cloud Computing--Miss Malibu Style, by Malibu Moon) had been on the work tab religiously since the middle of February, and put it all together here at first asking, finishing best of the inexperienced runners in the field. Breaking inward at the jump, Manny Franco was able to correct her but wound up three wide before jostling with eventual third-place finisher Ms. Solveig (Bernardini) as that one steadily inched closer to the rail. The bumper cars came...

Tom McCrocklin was calling all that winter, on and on about the same horse. "Listen," he said. "I got a Bolt d'Oro filly that can really run. I'm telling you, maybe as good as anything I've ever had." Mark Toothaker had to take heed; had to pass on the word to his employers at Spendthrift, where he is Stallion Sales Manager. After all, he has known McCrocklin since 1985, when he'd arrived at Louisiana Tech and found this guy who was a real man of the world: already a graduate,...

GI Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf winner Tuesday (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) will be bred to perennial leading sire Into Mischief this year, Spendthrift Farm confirmed. Tuesday raced for her breeder Coolmore, in partnership with Swiss car manufacturer Georg Von Opel's Westerberg, and racked up a career line of 10-3-3-1, $1,828,827, which also included a victory in the G1 Cazoo Oaks (Epsom Oaks) and a second in the G1 Yorkshire Oaks. Tuesday is a daughter of English champion and MG1SW Lilly Langtry (Ire) (Danehill Dancer {Ire}) and therefore a full...

Spendthrift Farm has added four new stallions to their extensive roster for 2023. Of those, two carry the weighty distinction of winning a graded stake at two. Both precocious horses furthered their success on the racetrack after their juvenile campaigns. Mo Donegal (Uncle Mo - Callingmissbrown, by Pulpit) took home a hard-fought win in the 2021 GII Remsen S. and went on to claim a Classic victory this year. His new studmate Jackie's Warrior (Maclean's Music - Unicorn Girl, by A.P. Five Hundred) came close to an undefeated season at...

The 2022 class of first-crop yearling sires features a diverse batch of Kentucky-based young stallions including a pair of Breeders' Cup champions, two sons of reigning top sire Into Mischief, five graded stakes winners at two and five Grade I winners on turf. Throughout the course of the yearling sales season, we will feature a series of freshman sires as their first crop points toward the sales ring. Check out past editions of our series here.   Omaha Beach (War Front--Charming, by Seeking the Gold) set the bar high for this...