She is presently in foal after a couple of years of misses, so her owner, Jeff Miller, still has hope. Eternal Camnation was trained by Miller and she resides on his Ohio farm with her first daughter, DJ Cameo. “Cammie,” as Miller calls the mare, is presently carrying a foal by Always A Virgin and is due soon.
“She’s had one colt, and a bunch of fillies that were not made very well,” said Miller of Cammie’s six offspring thus far. “Cammie has the Cam Fella knees, a touch off-set, but all of her fillies were even worse, and every filly has been great big, much bigger than her. They haven’t been like her at all.”
Eternal Camnation’s best offspring from the standpoint of both earnings and record is Rocken Camnation p,4, 1:52.2f ($71,612), her only son.
Miller said “Cammie” had a couple of barren years because her reproductive system needed work to be healthy, but with the help of Dr. Maria King of Victory Hill Farm in Indiana, she was able to be bred last year.
“I think I’m going to take her to Victory Hill at the end of the week, just to make sure she’ll be in good hands for her foaling,” said Miller, who has his hands full with his racehorse stable, which numbers 16.
Interestingly, the Eternal Camnation stake, sponsored by the Woodbine Entertainment Group and raced at Mohawk,is for 2-year-old pacing fillies and has traditionally been scheduled as a prep for the richer She’s A Great Lady Pace.
Eternal Camnation won every stakes for females that Mohawk and Woodbine offer except the She’s A Great Lady, which wasn’t inaugurated until 2000, when “Cammie” was a 3 year old.
By the way, Jim Avritt gave me a call to tell me that his mare Precocious Beauty, who won the 2013 She’s A Great Lady, has been bred and has an embryo by Somebeachsomewhere that has been transferred to a recipient mare.
Precocious Beauty is staying in training and will be qualifying for trainer Gregg McNair sometime in May.
While I was reflecting on Eternal Camnation’s work north of the border, the Ontario Standardbred Alliance sent outa press release with some good news. The group announced that between April 1, 2014, and March 31, 2015, wagering pools for Alliance tracks grew by 16.6 percent thanks to “the increased distribution through an integrated off-track wagering network, as well as schedule coordination among Signature tracks, which maximized wagering opportunities. …overall wagering, including Alliance tracks and WEG’s on-track and off-track operations, exceeded targets by more than $14 million, reaching $808 million for the fiscal year.”
While the improvement in business at the tracks is most certainly good news, Ontario breeders have a mixed response when asked if they believe more mares are being bred to Ontario stallions this season.Larry Drysdale, who manages Winbak Farm of Ontario, said he thought bookings were good “right from the start” this year.
“I’ve got people breeding mares that I haven’t heard from in a few years,” said Drysdale.
Drysdale added that collectively, that four Winbak Ontario stallions will service more than 500 mares this season. Bettor’s Delight, who is back in Ontario after a one-year stand in the province in 2012, had a book of 165 mares at the end of April; Betterthancheddar, who was bred to 68 mares in New York last season, has a book of 110 mares; Shadow Play also
has a book topping 120.
Winbak Ontario’s new trotting stud is Archangel, who stood in New York in 2013 and returned to the track in 2014 before being retired again. He will likely breed around 95 mares. “He has great semen, but he doesn’t give us the numbers, otherwise we could have bred 150 mares based on his popularity,” added Drysdale.
David Heffering, who operates Tara Hills Stud, believes this breeding season is only on par with last year.
“Our strength was always with people who breed and race, and I don’t see some of those people breeding their mares,” said Heffering.
“Those were people who raced at Kawartha and Georgian, and those tracks are just not racing as many dates.”
Tara Hills stands five stallions at stud—Kadabra, Mach Three, Sportswriter, Sunfire Blue Chip and Royalty For Life. Heffering said Tara Hill Stud’s top sires Kadabra and Mach Three will be breeding about the same number of mares this year as last.
While Kadabra and Mach Three have sired Horses of the Year (Bee A Magician and Somebeachsomewhere, respectively), Sportswriter is a new star for the farm. He bred a whopping 230 mares in 2014 (remember, Canada does not have stallion limits) and according to Mike Klau, who handles management of the stallion’s book for Southwind Farm, he’ll be at about the same number this year.