The Acorn That Made Oak Tree Mighty

[Wandering Eyes]

You would want to go easy with that lot in the trailer.

“Weekend had the box stall in the back by herself,” Callan Strouss recalls. “She was the queen back there, and the boys were riding on the ground level.”

This was back in 1984 and, for Lane's End, a radical departure. Because when its longest-serving employee was first hired by William S. Farish III–longest, at any rate, since his old buddy Mike Cline retired as manager in 2020–there had been no sense that the farm might become what this precious cargo would help to make it.

“That first small section he bought, that was as big as it was ever going to be,” Strouss says. “The house was there, and it was beautiful but needed work. But where you come in today, from the guard shack, none of that was Lane's End. We had a yearling barn and two mare barns, and that was going to be it.”

Strouss was working with the mares, still his favorite aspect of the job; and they all helped with the yearlings. But now here he was supervising a game-changing transfusion.

“So that day I rode back with the first three stallions,” he says. “And Weekend Surprise. We picked her up from Belmont, Del Carroll's barn. Young Del. And we got Fit to Fight and Hero's Honor from Mack Miller. And Dixieland Band at Bayard Sharp's farm. All on the one trailer.”

Two of Weekend Surprise's first three foals, Summer Squall and A.P. Indy, would themselves return to Lane's End as stallions. Farish and partner W.S. Kilroy had bred her by sending Gay Missile's daughter Lassie Dear to Secretariat (half-brother to Gay Missile's sire Sir Gaylord). Nowadays, this dynasty comprises some of the modern breed's deepest roots, but back then it remained merely green shoots.

No matter how successful a program may become, after all, the uncertainty always abides.

“A.P. Indy was a sale-topper, of course,” Strouss says. “He was always special, always looked the part. When he scratched the morning of the Derby, we were all on the floor. But you can look at a yearling and it's the most perfect individual, great walk, great everything. And it does nothing. And then maybe a lesser type, one of those you weren't so sure about, goes on and becomes a great runner. What did they pay for Seattle Slew, $17,500?

“It's the same with mares. They can surprise you, whether for good or bad. But that's what keeps it all going, the fact that nobody can ever have it all figured out.”

His entry into this unpredictable walk of life had been suitably adventitious. Strouss had no background on the Turf, his father having sold musical instruments and run a center for their instruction, but the family loved riding and polo. And a single summer with a law firm in his hometown of Youngstown, Ohio, had been enough for Strouss.

“I just couldn't be inside,” he says wryly. “My mom had wanted me to go to law school, but as soon as I graduated from college, I packed my Volkswagen Rabbit and drove straight down to Kentucky. I had a sister here, who'd gone to UK, and I lived with her right on the Kentucky River, a house that eventually got flooded.”

Strouss had no plan other than to drive up Midway Road, calling at farm to farm, asking if they happened to need help.

“But no one was hiring,” he recalls. “And by the time I got down to Waterford Farm, it was late afternoon. So again I asked did they need any help, and Dr. West just grabbed my wrist, taking my pulse. It was like, if I was alive, I would be hired.

'When can you start?' And I said, 'Right now.' But it was already after four, so he said, 'Just come in the morning.'”

Smiser West and his son Bob proved to be valuable mentors in what was his first real engagement with Thoroughbreds.

“I got there as the breeding season was ending; we might have bred a few mares late May,” he remembers. “But for four years after that, prepping yearlings as well, I learned an awful lot from them both.”

A.P. Indy at Lane's End | Horsephotos

A relentlessly modest man, Strouss is hardly going to acknowledge what everyone in the Bluegrass community could tell you: that he doubtless reciprocated with priceless service of his own. According to marveling peers, his appetite for work has always been (and remains) prodigious. Nor did the Wests stand in his way when Strouss befriended Cline, who was helping Farish establish his farm, and was urged to come aboard. Strouss talked it over with Dr. West and they agreed that he should undertake the next chapter of his equine education at Lane's End.

That next chapter, however, has also proved to be his last. Forty-four years later, he's still there. At first the farm remained so embryonic that Strouss was living at Lane's End but working with mares still at Big Sink. For the last three decades, however, Strouss has presided over the farm's Oak Tree division, base for the farm's partnership with the Niarchos family.

As a result, he has been on intimate terms with paragons of the modern breed, above all the great Miesque.

“She had a strong temperament,” Strouss confesses. “She was a little fiery to work with. But actually I quite like some temperament in a mare. You want some strength in their character. But it's like everything; there have certainly been quiet, gentle ones that have been just as successful.

“It's not like she was dangerous, just really didn't want you petting her neck. She must have had the strongest heart. She beat the boys her whole career, right from when she was two, and then threw Kingmambo, East of the Moon, so many good racehorses. She did everything.”

There's no mistaking the trust that has developed, over the years, between Strouss and the Niarchos operation.

“Alan Cooper has been there that whole length of time, as well,” he notes. “It's just been a great team to be part of: looking at the horses, figuring out who to sell, who to race. I never really worked with Mr. [Stavros] Niarchos, I didn't have much involvement back when they were buying the earlier mares, like Northern Trick. But Maria will come down and look at all the horses several times a year.”

Miesque | ScoopDyga

Somehow it has become a hallmark of this program that it produces horses with extra flamboyance. Paradoxically, however, that is seemingly founded in plain, yeoman virtues: patience, for instance, and just getting the basics right.

“We do try to keep them outside,” Strouss says. “We don't hothouse them, don't overdo things. We try to let a horse mature, let them grow up. We don't use tons of supplements, just a real good feed program with good, solid hay. But they've got that land, so it's a case of getting all they can from that, and slowly putting it into their physical development.

“You have your top nutrition, veterinary care, staff. But as much as anything it's trying not to mess them up: stay out of their way, and let them be all they can be.”

That said, the families have always been seeded by the classiest sires. That way, if managed well, the blood will keep refining just by cycling through genetic quality.

“Those with good family are the ones you'll give chances to,” reasons Strouss. “You certainly see genetic traits and dispositions carried through from some of the Lane's End mares–the old, old ones we had, like The Garden Club and [her daughter] Up the Flagpole. Bold Bikini was not quite as rangy and long. She had a champion in Europe, Law Society. He was a tough, temperamental horse, I think Alleged threw that to him.”

Names carved in tablets of stone, for the rest of us, but flesh and blood to Strouss. (And indeed bones: Gay Missile is among those buried at Oak Tree.) And that sense of heritage extends from remarkable horses to remarkable horse people, right up to Queen Elizabeth II, who would come and visit mares like Highclere.

“Oh, she knew her horses, she really did,” Strouss says. “Whenever she visited, she wouldn't have seen them in a long time but could always pick them out. I think she became more comfortable each visit. The first time, it was just me and one other guy showed her all the horses. The next time more people did, then the third time she literally just went around the farm. I even had a couple at Oak Tree, later on.

“But also meeting Presidents, Vice-Presidents. Just the experience, the good fortune we've had, working for these people. They've always treated me like family. It's just been very lucky, to be involved with groups like that.”

The relaxed team spirit that has suffused the farm during his long service is captured in one humorous vignette from the early days. Strouss was already playing polo with Farish before moving across, but nearly made his new employer repent of hiring him when hitting a ball so violently that Farish was knocked clean out of the saddle. The boss was fine, so the farm trainer at the time, Hector Garcia, rushed up and demanded: “Who hit Mr. Farish?!” Strouss held his hand up sheepishly.    Garcia chuckled and congratulated him: “Great shot!”

But while Strouss enthuses about the loyalty and insight of these two families, whose branding is instantly recognizable in a Niarchos page, a Farish page, that cuts both ways. For anyone to hold such a position of responsibility, for so long, also speaks to his own diligence, skill and integrity.

“I think it's from being around a good environment,” Strouss reflects. “All the people I've worked with have had the same kind of attitudes. Once you find people like that, you want to keep them. It's just nice to go to work every day.”

To be fair, that was something inculcated long before he came to Lane's End.

“I think my parents instilled a good work ethic in me, and that's just carried through,” Strouss says. “My mother was a fiery individual. She wanted things done exactly how you were told. And I guess I come to work every day and want to do a good job and see some results.”

First and foremost, however, that ethic is sustained by an undiminished passion for the horses themselves, above all in the foaling and breeding seasons. That Youngstown law office feels blessedly distant then.

“I don't go to every single foaling anymore, but I do a lot with the vet,” Strouss says. “And yes, I still find it challenging. And it changes. Things you think are just the same routine, but then some variation comes along that you want to keep up with. Some of the newer vets bring in different theories and ideas, and you want to see whether they'll work. But yes, just to see those foals get up and nurse, and then watch them develop, it's surreal.”

And that magic abides throughout, in all his daily dealings with the animal.

“Why do they let us do what we do?” he asks. “If they didn't want us on their backs, I don't think you're going to get up there. So you always want to find ways to get along with them. And sometimes you figure, 'Okay, we won't push this.' So you try to work together, whatever you need to accomplish: whether it's palpation, or showing at the sales. You have to be ready to adapt, be flexible, make it mutual. It's a mystery, really, and all a challenge–but that's what makes it so fulfilling.”

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