LADY ANN REED--A MODERN FOUNDATION MARE

In the spring of 1955 in central Illinois, a bay filly was foaled on the Reed-Yates Farm, then one of the leading Standardbred nurseries in the Midwestern US. The Reed-Yates farm named all of it's colts with the Yates suffix, and all the fillies with the Reed suffix. Since the filly’s dam was Lady Ann Potempkin, she was named Lady Ann Reed.

Sold as a yearling for $600, the young daughter of Wayward was purchased by Day Mangus, a successful, flamboyant Missouri horseman who trained and raced his own horses. Mangus and the filly were a terror through the Midwest, and they were virtually unbeatable. One of the filly’s most notable triumphs was a 2:02.3h score at Northfield Park in Ohio, a mark which seems slow by today’s standards, but was in fact a world record for a 3-year-old trotting filly on a half-mile track in 1958. In two seasons of racing, largely at the Illinois fairs, Lady Ann Reed earned just over $33,000. But her success on the racetrack is not the reason that everyone with an interest in breeding trotters today knows her name. She is what we call a "modern foundation mare."

Many of our leading families can trace their roots back to the very beginning of harness racing in the time of the American Civil War, a period between 1860 and 1865. Hambletonian was a foal of 1849 but many of our greatest maternal influences sprang from ancestors whose lineage cannot be traced beyond the 1860's. Such well-known maternal families as Medio, Minnehaha, Jessie Pepper, Mambrino Beauty, Mamie and Kathleen have historic roots that are traceable through as many as 12 to 13 generations. Many of these families have in excess of 20,000 descendants. Lady Ann Reed is known as a modern foundation mare because her ancestry can only be traced to the early part of this century. Lady Ann Reed’s lineage can only be traced four generations from her before the trail becomes cold. This family has just barely 700 foals in its family tree, with earnings of more than $15 million. This must be compared to some of the older and bigger families with descendants all over the harness racing world. For example, the Medio family, one of the oldest and largest maternal clans, has more than 21,000 descendants who have earned in excess of $400 million.

Lady Ann Reed’s racing exploits brought her to the attention of prominent horsemean, and there were several attempts to buy her from Mangus, all of which fell through due to a strange variety of circumstances. In order to resolve what was admittedly a very bizarre sequence of events, Lady Ann Reed was entered into the mixed sale at Harrisburg in the fall of 1958 and was purchased by Delvin Miller for $20,000. The rest, as they say, is history.

LADY ANN REED BECAME A SUCCESSFUL BROODMARE

Lady Ann Reed produced 17 foals, and was bred to a number of different stallions during her breeding career, including Star’s Pride, Jamie, Harlan Dean, Noble Victory and Hickory Pride. Of those 17 foals, only two earned 2:00 marks, those being her 14th foal, the Noble Victory horse Deke Palmer 4,T1:58 2-5; and her 15th foal, Leander Blue Chip, an exported Hickory Pride stallion who took his 1:58 record as an aged performer. Delvin Miller thought Deke Palmer, in fact, was a very serious horse, although the son of Noble Victory was unsound through his racing career. Another of Lady Ann Reed’s successful sons was the 1966 Harlan Dean stallion Tarport Devlin, a 2,2:01 Grand Circuit record performer who went on to become a successful sire in Michigan, producing among others, the 1981 Hambletonian winning gelding Shiaway St. Pat. It was left to Lady Ann Reed’s daughters to create and sustain her new-found legacy.

Lady Ann Reed’s daughters have produced, among others, such noted high-profile performers as Supergill 3,1:53 3-5 ($664,194) and his half-sister Winky’s Goal 3,1:54 4-5 ($879,690.) She also appears in the immediate maternal lineage of such performers as international star Toss Out 3,1:54 1-5; ($1.6 million); To The Gate 1:54 4-5 ($320,000); Franconia 1:55 ($527,151); Model Home 3,1:55 3-5 ($276,608); Rigged Right 3,1:55 4-5. ($223,117); Earthquake 3,1:56 2-5 ($409,301); Swagger Hanover 1:55 4-5f ($422,378); Tarport Frenzy 3,1:56 1-5 ($763,977) and King Lavec 3,1:57 ($395,000.)

One of the most interesting aspects to the emergence of Lady Ann Reed as a modern foundation mare is the fact that her overall maternal pedigree is so thin. Her sire, Wayward, was a son of Volomite who toiled in near obscurity for most of his siring career and never really produced another son or daughter who found the sustained success of Lady Ann Reed. On the maternal side, Lady Ann Reed’s dam was Lady Ann Potempkin, a daughter of Peter Potempkin, a son of Peter The Great whose only notoriety was that he sired the 1:58 pacer Cardinal Prince. None of Lady Ann Potempkin’s other foals had Lady Ann Reed's remarkable ability, and no other horse of note has emerged from another branch of this family. Yet, single-handedly, Lady Ann Reed established a family of trotters that are now treasured the world over. In nearly every pedigree of such historic accomplishment, we can find a possible reason for the development and maintenance of a great family. Lady Ann Reed’s greatness will forever be shrouded in the mysteries concealed by the ages. As mentioned earlier, her parentage beyond her fourth dam cannot even be proven. About the only evidence of any prominence in Lady Ann Reed’s pedigree is that she has multiple, linebred crosses to Peter The Great in her pedigree, but even that is a stretch, since so many mares of her time were bred that way. Peter The Great’s footprint is too great to put much emphasis on the fact that he is the dominant ancestor in Lady Ann Reed's lineage.

W INKY’S GILL IS A GOOD EXAMPLE OF THE HIGH ESTEEM FOR THIS FAMILY

The highest-priced broodmare ever sold at public auction is the $800,000 final tag on Winky’s Gill in the fall of 1987 at Tattersalls in Kentucky. In a star-studded group of high-powered trotting mares, Winky’s Gill was offered as a part of the dispersal of the stables owned by Ulf Moberg, Hanley Dawson and John Gaines.

Winky’s Gill had been raced in a partnership between Ulf Moberg and her breeder Castleton Farm. At both two and three, the Bonefish filly established major world records for Hakan Wallner with marks of 2,1:57 and 3,1:55 2-5. She earned $472,154, and was third in a heat of the Hambletonian open division in 1983 won by Duenna. Castleton Farm was the successful bidder on Winky’s Gill when she sold, paying $400,000 for Moberg’s half interest, and keeping the mare as a part of Castleton’s powerful trotting broodmare inventory.

Winky’s Gill had been retained by Castleton as a racing prospect simply because her dam, the Speedy Scot mare Lassie Blue Chip 3,2:03 4-5 ($2,632) had perished in a barn fire at Castleton a years earlier, and Castleton did not wish to part with the filly. Lassie Blue Chip produced only three foals before the fire, and Winky’s Gill was her only filly. Winky’s Gill is a stellar member of the Lady Ann Reed family because her ill-fated dam was a daughter of the Jamie mare Lady Jamie, whose dam was Lady Ann Reed. Winky’s Gill subsequently won 15 races on the Grand Circuit at two and three for Moberg and Castleton, winning the Merrie Annabelle, the Coaching Club Oaks and several other Grand Circuit fixtures. Her two year old mark of 2,1:57 which was set at The Red Mile dethroned the fabled Impish from the world record books as the fastest racing two-year-old trotting filly.

The same year that Winky’s Gill sold for the record $800,000 (a sale price recently approached when Continentalvictory sold for $760,000 last fall at Harrisburg) her son Supergill brought a record $500,000 for a yearling, also at Tattersalls. Winky’s Gill is now a 19-year-old mare, but she is still producing for Castleton, who have recouped their $400,000 investment many times over. In fact, the 1998 filly by Pine Chip from Winky’s Gill sold for $200,000. Her 1997 filly by Pine Chip sold for $235,000. Winky’s Goal herself was a $210,000 yearling. It was, indeed, a very good investment. This year, Winky’s Gill will offer a colt by Pine Chip at Tattersalls, only her second living male foal.

SUPERGILL IS A RARE BIRD--A HIGH PROFILE YEARLING WHO BECAME A GOOD HORSE

Not only did Supergill sell for $500,000, he became a successful race horse and now is one of our hottest sires, having produced such recent noted performers as the very professional 1997 Horse of the Year Malabar Man 3, 1:53 1-5 ($2,143,903); Kentucky Futurity and Breeders Crown winner Running Sea 3, 1:53 3-5 ($774,392 in the US); the aforementioned Toss Out; the Valley Victory stake winner Promising Catch Q1:55 3-5 ($713,837); the filly star Gramola, and such other well-known trotters as Tony Oaks, Mostly Super, Super Ben Joe, Striking Sahbra, Sand Chaser, Supertoy and Allison Hollow. Supergill also appears to be one of the few saviors of his valuable Super Bowl-Star’s Pride male line and now stands in Italy, where he not only services a group of foreign mares, but his semen is shipped all over the trotting world.

Supergill’s racing career was hurt by the fact that he suffered from severe foot problems which plagued him at both two and three. He quit racing after only six starts at two, one of which was a triumph in the Peter Haughton Stake at The Meadowlands. He won five of his six starts at two. At three, he was still compromised by the chronic hoof problems, but earned a mark of 3, 1:53 3-5 over the forgiving dirt track at Springfield in the Review Futurity. In that triumph, one of the few times in his life that Supergill went to the track sound, he opened up the first quarter in :27 4-5 seconds and also trotted his final quarter in an identical time. This performance made him the fourth-fastest three-year-old trotter in history at that time. Later that fall, Supergill was also second in a heat of the Kentucky Futurity and dropped a narrow, nose decision to Firm Tribute in the season-ending Breeders Crown. Supergill is a handsome-headed horse and was a good-gaited trotter when he raced, particularly when he was feeling sound. He is a somewhat short-coupled horse and many of his offspring are built in a similar way. This, however, has not kept him from becoming one of our most successful stallions.

SUPERGILL IS LNEBRED IN A VERY INTERSTING WAY

Castleton bred Winky’s Gill to Super Bowl and Supergill was her first foal. This is an interesting, novel breeding scheme given the fact that Super Bowl is a son of Star’s Pride and Winky’s Gill is by Bonefish, a son of Nevele Pride, and grandson of Star’s Pride. This gives Supergill a 2 x 4 generation, linebred cross to Star’s Pride. Although this unusual cross to Star’s Pride clicked with Supergill, the mare’s three other Super Bowl foals earned only $65 in total, including two full sisters to Supergill. However, Winky’s Gill clicked again with Winky’s Goal, her filly by Hambletonian winner Armbro Goal. Given the recent success of Bonefish mares with Speedy Crown (Moni Maker, et al) we are left to ponder what may have happened if this world champion mare had ever produced a foal by Speedy Crown. Now at an advanced age, it is a certainty that all of her subsequent foals will be by Pine Chip. It is reasonable to assume that Winky’s Gill may have done quite well with Speedy Crown since Winky’s Goal, her biggest money-winner, is a result of her only successful mating with Armbro Goal, a well-bred son of Speedy Crown.

Supergill’s absence of Speedy Crown blood, however, has been favorable for him as a stallion because it opens him to breed Speedy Crown mares and those by Speedy Crown’s many successful sons. For example, Malabar Man’s second dam is by Speedy Crown and Running Sea is from a Speedy Crown mare. In fact, more than half of Supergill’s 1:57 performers are from Speedy Crown mares. Additionally, Toss Out is from a mare by Homesick, a son of Speedy Crown. Striking Sahbra, Supergill's very successful racing and siring son in Ohio, is from a mare by Speedy Somolli, a son of Speedy Crown. With Malabar Man in a very good spot to continue Supergill’s success story, the legacy of Supergill’s male line is relatively safe for the foreseeable future.

Lady Ann Reed’s bloodline is also, like many of our leading families, susceptible to be inbred in interesting ways. Supergill has had great success in breeding mares from the different branches of Lady Ann Reed’s family. Toss Out, for instance, a very good colt who had the very bad timing to be born in the same year as American Winner and Pine Chip, is a son of Supergill from Foreign Waters, a Homesick mare whose dam Reel Fish is a Bonefish mare from Tarport Lady Ann, Lady Ann Reed’s best daughter. This is what is known as a "sibling cross," and it often has been a very good way to breed a good horse. In Toss Out’s case, he is 4 x 3 to the full sisters Lady Jamie and Tarport Lady Ann. Another of Supergill’s good colts, the fast Earthquake, is also 4 x 3 to the same two mares, both daughters of Lady Ann Reed. Allison Hollow, one of the few colts to ever beat Malabar Man, is 4 x 4 to Lady Jamie and Meadow Effie, both full sisters and, again, daughters of Lady Ann Reed. These sibling crosses are nothing new in the breed, and many successful breeders have made good use of combining stallions with mares from their same maternal families. The most obvious recent example is the multiple world champion mare CR Kay Suzie, who is by Royal Troubador, and from a mare by Speedy Somolli. Royal Troubador's dam, Mae Jean’s Crown, is a full sister to Speedy Somolli in a near-incestuous, but extremely productive, pedigree.

Lady Ann Reed may have started in absolute obscurity, but her family tree continues to expand and her blood is treasured by breeders throughout the harness racing world. Such is the equitable nature of harness racing that champions can come from anywhere. Who would have thought that an obscure $600 filly with a modest pedigree foaled just 40 years ago would have the power to rival our most historic families, and become one of the most treasured names in world trotting?