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By Wandering Eyes · Posted
When Frank Taylor, the director of new business development at Taylor Made, started the Stable Recovery and the Taylor Made School of Horsemanship programs, the idea was to help those addicted to drugs and alcohol, get them sober and give them the skills to work in the horse racing industry. But Stable Recovery is branching out, ready to help anyone in need. Elizabeth Blythe once arranged the mating for Allen Paulson's horses and her work produced several champions, including the great Cigar and four other Breeders' Cup winners. But, for Blythe, little has gone right since Paulson's death. She has had to deal with three forms of cancer, breast cancer, bladder cancer and melanoma. That left her unable to work and she soon found herself in dire straits financially. She didn't have the money or the energy to take care of her house and the bank was ready to repossess her property. When Taylor got wind of Blythe's problem, he did what he always seems to do when he hears of someone down on their luck. He set out to help. He made a big enough payment to the bank to halt the foreclosure and he will soon send some of the people who graduated from his Stable Recovery program to help fix up the house this Saturday. “Frank is fantastic,” Blythe said. Blythe and Taylor have entered into an agreement. To pay Taylor back for all the money he has spent helping Blythe, Blythe has agreed to donate her Nicholasville house upon her death to Stable Recovery. “I thought that's something that I can do to help other people when I'm not here anymore and to thank Frank and everybody for the help that they've provided to me,” Blythe said. It isn't just the money. “He would come and pick me up and drive me to appointments at the hospital, that sort of thing, or pick me up after a procedure was over with,” Blythe said. “Usually they have to give you sedation and so you can't drive in and drive home. In the early parts of it, they would have to keep me overnight because I didn't have anybody to drive me. And that got to be probably a little bit onerous for the hospital because they had to keep me there when there might've been somebody else who had something more serious than what had happened to me. And so that's kind of a part of it as well. But Frank is just wonderful and I can't tell you how much his support and help has meant to me.” Frank Taylor | Sue Finley Christian Countzler, who runs the Stable Recovery program, knows firsthand how willing Taylor is to help those in need. “Frank went out of his way to help someone that deserved to be helped,” he said. “We're really excited about that. She's had a tough time, especially as of late, Anything we can do to help her we're absolutely willing to do. In return, she wants to help us by donating the house to us.” Frank Taylor is just a good soul. There's no other way to put it. He sees a problem and he works to find a solution. He decided to branch out from his Stable Recovery work and look to assist others who are down on their luck. “Elizabeth Blythe has been in horse business forever,” Taylor said. “She's probably about my age, late fifties, early sixties. She's well respected. She did a lot of pedigree work for Allen Paluson. I heard about a year ago that she had cancer and that she was really struggling with it. They were getting ready to take her house away. My wife and I put up $150,000 as a loan, which got the mortgage company off her back. She won't be able to pay it back but when she passes she's going to give the house to Stable Recovery. It's a really nice house. It's on three acres, but it hasn't really been maintained. It would be like having a yard that hasn't been mowed in 10 years. We're going to take our crew down there and clean it all up. We got her out of foreclosure, so she has a place to live.” Taylor said that the people from the Stable Recovery program will also benefit from helping out Blythe. “Part of of being sober and working the 12 steps is you need to give back,” Taylor said. “And help your fellow man. Volunteering is part of the recovery part. This is a project for these guys to help someone. Any time you're giving back and putting other people first is good for you.” So what is it about Taylor that he's so willing to help people, be they individuals struggling with substance abuse issues or are dealing with cancer and financial pressures? “Part of the 12 steps and being sober is that you need to give back and help your fellow man,” Taylor said. “The recovery part includes volunteering. We're using this as a project for these guys to spend their time on and help. Any time you're giving back and putting the people first is good for you.” “Why does Frank do what he does?” Countzler said. “I think he got this from his dad. He grew up watching his mom and dad do things for other people. I guarantee he would answer that question the same way. Joe Taylor, the patriarch of the family, showed all the Taylor brothers, and especially Frank, what it means to give back and help other people, especially people who don't have the means they've been blessed with. I would almost guarantee that it was Joe Taylor that did that.” The School of Horseman has had 89 graduates and has 25 legacy graduates. There have 10 that have made it two years of sobriety. “That's something we are really proud of,” Countzler said. Blythe is one of the first people not in the program that Taylor has helped. There's no doubt there will be many more. The post Stable Recovery Lends A Helping Hand To Elizabeth Blythe appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Stable Recovery opened its Women's Horsemanship Program at Spy Coast Farm Monday, marking an important milestone in the organization's mission to empower women in recovery. In partnership with Lisa Lourie and the Spy Coast Farm team, the program provides participants with hands-on training through the School of Horsemanship at the Spy Coast Farm Reproduction Center, offering the chance to learn from some of the leading professionals in the sport horse industry. “I am delighted to welcome the Stable Recovery Women's program to Spy Coast Farm” said Lourie, owner and CEO of Spy Coast Farm. “Our farm is owned by a woman and is primarily managed by women. We work hard to educate and promote best practices in equine care while fostering a culture of acceptance and inclusion. As such, we believe that we are uniquely positioned to assist women in recovery. Our partnership with Stable Recovery has been impactful thus far and we look forward to having an even greater impact by hosting their women's program. We thank them for their trust in us to do so and look forward to the future success of the women we will work with” Christian Countzler, CEO and cofounder of Stable Recovery added: “This is a milestone for Stable Recovery and a win for Kentucky. With Spy Coast Farm, we're building a program where women can find stability, learn a skill, and leave stronger than they arrived mentally, physically, and most important, spiritually. This unique opportunity not only equips women with specialized skills for the equine industry, but also prepares them for long-term success in their careers and lives beyond recovery. They will spend three months in the School of Horsemanship before finding further employment in the industry upon completion of the school.” The post Stable Recovery And Spy Coast Farm Open Women’s School Of Horsemanship appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority has announced that jockey Paco Lopez has been suspended for six months, effective Sept. 23.View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Goffs has catalogued 75 lots for its upcoming British NH Breeders Showcase, which takes place Friday, Oct. 31. In its third year, the sale will offer 65 NH foals in addition to 10 breeding stock lots, several of which at offered in foal to NH sires. The sale will feature foals by Bathyrhon, Capri, Choeur du Nord, Cracksman, Frontiersman, Jack Hobbs, Jeu St Eloi, Logician, Moises Has, Order of St George, Poet's Word, Postponed, Stradivarius, Subjectivist and Yeats. The breeding stock segment of the sale will follow the foal session. Covering sires include Golden Horn, Logician, Ocovango, Stradivarius, Subjectivist and Walk In The Park. “This sale was created at the request of British NH breeders who wanted a pre-Christmas quality outlet for NH foals in the UK and, in two years, they have ensured it is now an unmissable event,” said Goffs UK Managing Director Tim Kent. “In keeping with that strong start, Britain's leading NH breeders have once again thrown their weight behind this sale, and the catalogue is set to offer another standout selection, for which we are grateful and appreciative as it allows us to market the sale with confidence. To view the complete catalogue, click here. The post Goffs Catalogues 75 For British NH Breeders Showcase appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
The boy-made-good story of Wootton Bassett is as time-honoured as life itself. To a degree, it is a rags-to-riches tale, particularly when it comes to the phenomenal trajectory of his stallion career. And it is a story which is ending far too soon. The 17-year-old stallion died on Tuesday at Coolmore Australia in the Hunter Valley after developing acute pneumonia from a bout of choke, a condition in which food blocks the oesophagus, often leading to complications. His passing comes at a time when Wootton Bassett was in his pomp; his reputation, already on a high, is being augmented year on year by a burgeoning array of runners at the highest level. In 2025 alone, they include the French Classic winners Henri Matisse and Camille Pissarro, G1 Prix du Moulin winner Sahlan, G1 Irish St Leger hero and Melbourne Cup hopeful Al Riffa, and the brilliant filly Whirl. A growing number of his sons at stud means that Wootton Bassett has also featured as paternal grandsire this year of Gezora and Woodshauna, winners of the G1 Prix de Diane and G1 Prix Jean Prat. His 2025 fee in Europe was €300,000, behind only Dubawi and Frankel, who, as the world's most expensive stallions, each stood for £350,000. Quite something for a horse who started his career covering mares in France for €6,000, dropping to €4,000 for his third and fourth seasons at Haras d'Etreham. Not everything comes down to money of course, but in the stallion business, tracking the rise and fall of nomination fees is a telling marker of a horse's success and reception by a market which can quickly be blown hither and thither by the winds of fashion. That Wootton Bassett would rise to the level he has would have been hard to predict. His first four crops at those lowly fees numbered 23, 18, 45 and 47 foals respectively. Then came a champion three-year-old from his first crop – the 2016 Prix du Jockey Club, Irish Champion Stakes, and Champion Stakes winner Almanzor – and the penny began to drop that this was a stallion who could be a little out of the ordinary. Thereafter, his stock began to rise – both literally when it came to crop numbers, and reputationally. His current tally of individual Group 1 winners stands at 16, but that will only grow in the years – perhaps even weeks – to come, as the autumn's major contests are settled. In this Saturday's G1 Middle Park Stakes, for example, his sons Puerto Rico, Kansas and Brussels remain engaged, while Beautify is among the fancied runners for the G1 Cheveley Park Stakes. Wootton Bassett's stallion career has been conducted from France, Ireland and Australia, but his life began in England where he was bred by Colin and Melba Bryce at their Laundry Cottage Stud. For a relatively small farm, the Hertfordshire nursery has packed quite a punch in recent years, with the 10-time Group 1 winner Via Sistina (Fastnet Rock) also being among the Bryces' graduates. Of the Iffraaj colt born on February 4, 2008, to their Primo Dominie mare Balladonia, Colin Bryce recalled on Tuesday, “I suppose there are two things about Wootton Bassett that I would say. One, he was the most incredibly chilled horse that we have ever had on the stud. He would lie down in his stable all the time, snoozing, sleeping, whatever, and you would give him a little bit of a tap and help him get ready for action, and he'd do whatever you wanted to do. Then when you'd finished, down he went again and had a gentle snooze. He was so easy to handle, so kind, and a beautiful, very dark day horse to go with it.” He continued, “And the second thing I would say about Wootton Bassett is, although we bred him and are very proud to have done so, really without the skill of Nicolas de Chambure and the way he developed the stallion's career, I think he wouldn't have got to where he got to. “We've been privileged to breed him, and we were privileged to be involved, using him to cover our mares and buying his early stock. We've been involved all the way through until he became too expensive for us at Coolmore in the last few years. But we still watched with interest, and have loved to see him doing so well. “Obviously he was massively upgrading his mares all the way through, and so there was a natural talent there, but I think Nicolas mined that very intelligently. He was a rising star of the stallion ranks, and has risen almost to the top of the pile. He may yet do so in memoriam.” It was Bobby O'Ryan who signed for the young Wootton Bassett at the DBS Premier Yearling Sale (now Goffs UK), buying him for £46,000 to join Richard Fahey's stable. He raced in the ownership of Frank Brady & The Cosmic Cases, who already had Wootton Bassett's half-brother, the seven-time winner and Listed-placed Mister Hardy (Kyllachy), in training. “I know our yard is sad this morning,” Fahey said on Tuesday, speaking from the Tattersalls Ireland Yearling Sale. “It's the people who looked after him that you feel for, the Coolmore team and everyone involved with him directly and the people who cared for him along the way.” From Fahey's Yorkshire base, Wootton Bassett ran in Scotland, England and France in his first unbeaten season, raking in the prize-money from York's DBS Premier Yearling Stakes and the Weatherbys Insurance £300,000 2-Y-O Stakes at Doncaster before completing his season with victory in the G1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere, a race which had been won the previous year by another luminary of the European stallion ranks, Siyouni. “We knew he was a very good horse from the start really,” Fahey said. “We cheated a bit as we went for the sales races and took the easier option, but the Lagardere was always going to be his race. “He's been an incredible sire and an incredible horse, and he was a good-minded, kind horse.” At three, Wootton Bassett managed a fifth-placed finish in the Poule d'Essai des Poulains back at Longchamp, and was seventh in Frankel's St James's Palace Stakes. Dropping back from a mile, he ran twice more in the Prix Maurice de Gheest and Haydock Sprint Cup but never recaptured the winning ways of his juvenile season. Retiring after those four unplaced starts in 2011, he was bought by Nicolas de Chambure to stand at his family's Haras d'Etreham in Normandy. Not only did the stud play an important role as the home of Wootton Bassett in his formative years as a stallion, but Etreham is also the breeder of his breakout star Almanzor. The latter was bought by his trainer Jean-Claude Rouget for €100,000 and was one of two first-crop sons of Wootton Bassett to fetch six figures at the Arqana August Sale of 2014. That in itself was telling for a stallion who was launched at such a lowly fee. For de Chambure, the fourth generation of his family to take the helm at Haras d'Etreham, Wootton Bassett was the first stallion he signed up to join the roster in the year following his return to run the stud after stints working in Ireland, America and Australia. Casting his mind back to his decision to buy him, de Chambure said, “I've always been a bit cautious about too much inbreeding, and so he was a bit of an outcross and he was also carrying blood that we didn't really have much of in France. I thought he was going to be well suited to the French population of mares. “As a racehorse he showed toughness, and I know a lot of people don't believe it, but I really fell in love with him physically when I saw him at Richard Fahey's. It probably took a while for the breeders to share that. I was lucky that he transmitted his looks and his walk.” He added, “Ed Sackville was very important in making the deal happen at the time. We did the deal together and he introduced me to the owner and to Richard. He was also very positive about the horse, and having his confidence and his support was also a big help for me to make the deal.” Despite his own faith in Wootton Bassett, and the support of Colin Bryce as the first shareholder in the stallion's syndicate, de Chambure admits that it remains difficult to get a sire off the ground. “When you retire a horse it's a four-year commitment, so it's not easy. When you're syndicating those horses, even if you have a good group of loyal clients, in the end it's really you that has to carry the whole thing, with your team, so it can be a bit lonely. And it was: it felt very lonely indeed with Wootton Bassett for a few years. “But he's been so good; he could improve his mares so much. He was the horse of a lifetime, he got us out of trouble. Even with the difficult start, he pulled his way up and he made himself, really.” De Chambure adds, “That day in Chantilly when Almanzor won the Jockey Club, it was by far my best day, my best memory at the races, because it meant a lot for us. And just seeing Wootton Bassett continuing to do so well for Coolmore, who didn't go halfway in supporting him. They went all the way and sent all their best mares, and the results have been incredible. “But, you know, that's what makes it even more sad, because I think he would have been a breed-shaper. To have another few years with those really good mares, it would have been great to see. We've got a few generations to come, daughters and sons, and hopefully they will leave a strong mark.” Wootton Bassett has had no shortage of support in more recent years, and it is quantity which is backed up by quality. His departure will only enhance the demand for the remaining three crops of youngsters to come, beginning with the 19 yearlings at the Goffs Orby Sale next week and a further 30 at Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Sale. The 206 mares registered as being covered by him earlier this year, in what has transpired to be his final season in Europe, include Lady Bowthorpe, Opera Singer, Ramatuelle, Tahiyra, and Treve, as well as the dams of Camille Pissarro, Churchill, Palace Pier, and Vandeek. The list goes on. Following his private purchase for an undisclosed but presumably vast sum, Wootton Bassett has been on the Coolmore roster since 2021, dividing his time between County Tipperary and shuttle stints to New South Wales. In Australia, his first-crop numbered 10 winners from 36 runners to put him in second place, behind Ole Kirk, in the racing season that ended in August. His return to Australia this year was at a record fee of A$385,000. “In his time at Coolmore, he developed into a world-class sire, with 25 stakes winners and six Group 1 winners from his current two- and three-year-old crops conceived in Ireland. Included amongst these are multiple Group 1-winning sons Camille Pissaro and Henri Matisse as well as this season's multiple Group 1-winning filly, Whirl,” read a statement released on Tuesday by Coolmore to announce the stallion's death. “His current two-year-old crop in Europe already includes six Group winners. Albert Einstein, who defeated subsequent Group 1 winner Power Blue in the G3 Marble Hill Stakes, is considered by both Aidan O'Brien and Ryan Moore to be one of the best two-year-olds ever seen in Ballydoyle.” At the time of writing, Wootton Bassett, who was the champion sire of two-year-olds in 2024, is poised to take that title again and to be the European champion sire of 2025. He has come a long way. The one consolation on a sad day for those involved in the horse's life is that, in a sense, the very best of the breed never die. Their bloodlines can live on for generations, and this indeed looks to be the case for Wootton Bassett. In that regard, his story has chapters still to be written, even though its leading actor has now left the stage. The post ‘Horse of a Lifetime’ Wootton Bassett Remembered On His Death At Age 17 appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article
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