HAPPY MY WAY, MERRY MEADOW AND SOUTHERN HONEY EACH WIN A GRADED STAKES RACE  

May was a busy month for Hidden Brook horses, and leading the pack with impressive stakes wins were Happy My Way, Merry Meadow, and Southern Honey, who each added graded black type to their respective resumes.

Merry Meadow

The win increased Merry Meadow's lifetime earnings to $428,600, and marks her fifth win in twenty career starts. So far in 2014, she's won two of her three starts, earning $146,400 in those three appearances alone.

The four-year-old filly is trained by Mark Hennig, and was bred by David Howe and William Parsons.

Happy My Way

Happy My Way, purchased by Hidden Brook as a two-year-old in May 2012 for $23,000, has now earned $362,485 in fifteen career starts.

His most recent start at Pimlico on May 17 marked his first graded stakes win in the G3 Maryland Sprint Handicap. Happy My Way has now won three races in a row (four of his last five), including the March 29 Sir Shackleton Stakes at Gulfstream Park.

By Wilko, out of Holy Queen, Happy My Way now has a lifetime race record of 15-6-2-2. He is trained by Joe Orseno.

Southern Honey

Bred by Whisper Hill Farm and owned by Ashbrook Farm, Southern Honey has now won her last three starts, bringing her lifetime record to 5-3-1-0. After nabbing the $66,067 first-place prize at the Winning Colors Stakes, she increased her total earnings to $150,017 in just five career starts.

HIDDEN BROOK SUCCESS IN MAY  

Contend, born and raised on Hidden Brook for breeder Paul Pompa Jr., won the Budweiser Allowance Stakes at Sunray Park on May 20. The daughter of Big Brown, Contend now has a career record of 7-3-1-0.

 

Ball Dancing, a three-year-old filly born and raised at Hidden Brook and bred by Kirk and Deby Wycoff, was victorious in her first career start during the Prix De La Seine in France on May 11. Hidden Brook sold the filly as a yearling in January 2012 for $55,000.

 

By Exchange Rate, out of Ball Gown, Ball Dancing's first-place finish earned her 27,500 €, or about $37,488.

 

Weekend Hideaway

On May 2, Weekend Hideaway, who was sold by Hidden Brook (as agent for breeder Flying Zee Stables) in 2011 as a yearling, finished in 3rd place in the Affirmed Success Stakes at Belmont Park. He is a multiple stakes winner who has now earned $315,572 with a career record of 13-4-3-2.

 

The seven-year-old Great Attack, sold by Hidden Brook as a yearling in 2008, came in 2nd place in the Jim McKay Turf Sprint Stakes at Pimlico on May 16.

Now with twenty-five career starts under his belt, including eight wins and six 2nd place finishes, Great Attack has earned $512,610. He was bred by Edward Seltzer and Murray Durst.

 

Hey Leroy, who was bred by Spruce Lane Farm, managed to squeeze in two races during May, which included a first-place finish in an Allowance race at Gulfsteam on May 3, and then a 2nd-place finish in the Longines Dixie Stakes (G2) at Pimlico on May 17.

 

The four-year-old gelding finished one length off the leader at Pimlico. He has won three of his last five starts, and is 10-4-5-0 in 2014, earning $230,648 so far this year. Hey Leroy was sold by Hidden Brook as a yearling in October of 2011.

 

Ferocious, sold by Hidden Brook as a yearling for $145,000 in September of 2012, finished 3rd in the Lazaro Barrera Stakes (G3) at Santa Anita on May 10.

 

The three-year-old colt has now earned $91,600 in his young career, which includes four starts, two wins, one second-place finish, and now one third-place finish in a G3 stakes race. He is trained by Ronald Ellis, owned by Kretz Racing LLC, and was bred by Andres Bezzola.  

REMEMBERING BIG BROWN 

With industry excitement building over the possibility of a Triple Crown winner in California Chrome, we reminisce about Big Brown, another Triple Crown contender that the Hidden Brook team was proud to have been associated with.

Purchased for his original owner Paul Pompa, Jr. at the Keeneland two-year-olds in training sale, the handsome bay colt was arguably considered the most talented potential Triple Crown victor in the last decade.

SAYING GOODBYE TO COY, SAYING HELLO TO KELLY   

Coy Martinez

Coy Martinez, who has worked at Hidden Brook for nearly five-and-a-half years as our Equine Administrator, recently started a great new job at Keeneland as an Assistant to the Sales Department. Her new responsibilities, which she took over on May 27, involve processing sale entries in the administrative offices of Keeneland.

 

Though we're very sad to see her go, we are extremely happy for her and supportive of her decision, and we wish her the best of luck in her new endeavor.

 

"Oh my gosh, I miss it already," Coy said of her time at Hidden Brook. "One of the best learning experiences I've ever had." She expressed the importance of the knowledge she was able to acquire over these five years at the Hidden Brook office.

 

"Because I was able to have a hand in so many things, I'm able to sit at the job I have now and say, I know about this, I know about that," she said. "The sky was the limit with what I wanted to learn in the business. From the guys, from conversations, from meeting clients, to sales, to breeding, to everything."

 

Kelly Hurley

As Coy moves on, we'd also like to take this time to welcome a new face to the office: Kelly Hurley.

 

Kelly comes to us after having worked at Dixiana farm for the past five years doing bloodstock research and maintaining horse records. She heard about the job opening from Coy, who's a friend of hers. "She told me it was a great place to work, with great people," said Kelly.

 

When she was little, her grandfather, who had twenty-six grandkids, used to take her and her cousins out to the track for a picnic, so her interest in horses started at a very young age. But her main interest was riding horses. "Every waking moment I spent in the barn, cleaning stalls and doing whatever chores they would let me do so they would let me ride," she said.

 

We welcome Kelly to the Hidden Brook team, and we very much look forward to working with her down the road.  

 

 

When did you first become interested in horse racing?

Tell me a bit about River Mist farm, and what your role is there? 

My role is owner and semi-manager, because I have really good people working for me. I have a manager who is just fantastic. So I don't have a lot of input as far as daily care, but I use Mike McMahon to advise me. I met him long ago and he has done super well, I think. I listen to him a lot. And he's the one who put me onto Sergio [de Sousa] as far as boarding horses, and I have been very pleased with Sergio and his farm and the way he attends to the mares and the babies.

In what ways are you involved with Hidden Brook?

I foal them in Florida. I used to foal them in Kentucky, but I like to have them here. That's the main reason I do it. So then I send them up to Hidden Brook and they get in foal, and then they send them back to me. I've only been to Hidden Brook once, but I'm super impressed with the management, with Sergio, and with the way they have taken care. This is only the second year I have boarded with them, but they do a very good job, as far as I'm concerned.

Why do you prefer working with mares?

Well, I'm not about to go into the stallion business. I have no interest in it. I like the mares and I like the babies, and I like bringing a good yearling to the sales, or if need be, a two-year-old. But this is what I do.

What is your own personal most exciting moment in racing so far?

Racing doesn't excite me very much. It's wonderful when one of mine wins a stakes race or something, or a mare I bought produces stakes winners, but there's no one time that I would say that I got truly excited. I had a filly I sold at Keeneland as a yearling last year and she just won a lovely maiden, and Mike McMahon congratulated me and said she'd be a very nice filly, so that to me is very nice, when that sort of thing happens occasionally. Everything has gone very well for me, and I prefer that than having high points and low points.

Well it's nice that things have been going well for you.

Well, sometimes they don't, but I don't talk about that. [Laughs]

So do you get most of your enjoyment just spending time with your mares?

And being on the farm. Absolutely.

What's the most difficult thing about your job?

I think it's all wonderful. Of course, you have disappointments sometimes, but I've been doing this for a long time. I mean, I've had a mare die foaling and that kind of thing. That is very difficult. Anytime one is injured is, for me, quite difficult, but you have to deal with it, so that's just a part of life, I'm afraid.

Describe a typical work day for you.

We travel a lot, so I don't have a typical work day. I have people from my office, and I kind of oversee it and decide when to pay the bills and which bills to pay, and hopefully have plenty of money in the accounts to pay everything. I just kind of supervise that, and I talk to my manager and sometimes we talk about a single horse, but mostly it's the program. As long as that runs well, and the yearlings get sales prepped and look the way I feel they should, I'm very happy.

Do you enjoy going to the races?

No. I did that for a long time, but I don't do it much anymore.

When you did go to the races, what was your favorite racetrack to visit?

Gulfstream, because I lived in Ft. Lauderdale.

What's your favorite horse of all time?

Secretariat.

What advice would you have for someone who wants to break into the horse business?

[Laughs] You better have enough money and be very dedicated and be willing to go out at 3:00 in the morning to foal a mare if you have to. Your mindset has to be that you'll do whatever you need to do to make things go right.

Thank you, Sally Andersen, for giving up a few minutes of your time Inside the Winner's Circle.