Coltimus Prime Entering Stud in 2020 in Alberta

Beau Valley Stable has acquired a majority interest in Canadian classic winner and Panamanian champion Coltimus Prime  and will launch the stallion's career at its breeding operation near Didsbury, Alberta.

The original plan for 8-year-old son of Milwaukee Brew  was to enter stud this year. He had been forced into retirement, however, due to a soft tissue injury sustained while in training at Gulfstream Park in January 2018 and could not be sent north to learn his new job on test mares until April. By then the breeding season was all but done, according to owner/breeder Jayson Horner.

The delayed launch of Coltimus Prime's stud career opened a door for Western Canadian breeders.

"We are always looking for a good horse, and our farm manager Mike Hoffman and Jayson saw an opportunity," said Anthony Bilotta, the owner of Beau Valley Stable.

The pitch went like this: Coltimus Prime would be a young sire in a market that traditionally attracts older stallions that started their careers elsewhere, he is a Canadian classic winner, an international champion, and a horse that thrived at distances over a mile on the dirt. Alberta welcomed the opening in Edmonton this year of Century Mile Racetrack, Western Canada's first one-mile dirt racetrack.

"Bringing a young sire to the Western Canada market is a fresh change and it aligns with the excitement of the two new world-class racing facilities that we have north of Calgary—Century Downs and Century Mile," Hoffman said. Century Downs, which opened in 2017, brought Thoroughbred racing back to the Calgary area after a nine-year hiatus, set off by the closing of Stampede Park in June 2008. Both Century Downs and Century Mile are owned by Colorado-based Century Casinos.

Coltimus Prime won or placed in 10 black-type stakes, of which seven were graded. His biggest wins came in the 2014 Prince of Wales Stakes, with a final time of 1:54.58, making it the fastest running in 20 years; the 2017 Clasico Presidente de la Republica, recognized as a grade 1 stakes in Panama and the country's richest race; and the Invitational Cup Stakes, which was part of the five-race Clasico Internacional del Caribe program hosted by Gulfstream Park for the first time in 2017.

Honored with two Panama titles in 2017 as champion older horse and champion stayer, Coltimus Prime retired with an 8-7-5 record from 38 starts and earned $644,125.

Bilotta said Coltimus Prime's pedigree also sold him on the stallion's potential.

First, Bilotta had horses stabled with Tino Attard when the trainer raced Milwaukee Brew in 2000. He watched the son of Wild Again win the Marine Stakes (G3) at Woodbine and go on to win the Ohio Derby (G2), finish a close third in the Haskell Invitational Handicap (G1), and be runner-up in the Durham Cup Handicap (G3) back at Woodbine that year. Milwaukee Brew would later wind up with Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel and win the Santa Anita Handicap (G1) in 2002.

"Then I look on the female side and the dam's progeny has won over $1.1 million and she's got Ribot on both sides, which I love," Bilotta said, referring to Certainly Special, a daughter of Distorted Humor . "His pedigree is rich with many of the great horses of the past. All that foundation is like concrete. It's all there."

Coltimus Prime is the first stallion venture for Horner, who is co-founder and CEO of CanDeal, which operates an electronic trading platform for the institutional bond market.

A 2020 stud fee for the stallion is expected to be announced soon, according to Hoffman.