Owner/Breeder Looks Past Tragedy to a Brighter Future

Making a livelihood with Thoroughbreds requires dealing with loss. The lost pregnancies, mares lost during foaling, injured foals, or injured racehorses endured by owners, breeders, and trainers are reasons that when the successes come they are so sweet.

It's said the Thoroughbred community is full of eternal optimists, who cope with losses and heartbreak by looking ahead.

Texas owner/breeder Frank Sumpter Sr. is one of those optimists who draws his patience and strength from an unwavering religious faith. His optimism got tested last week in one of the rawest ways when he lost his homebred Kentucky Derby (G1) contender Wild On Ice . The colt fractured a bone in his left hock in a spot not conducive to repair following an April 28 work at Churchill Downs, and Sumpter had to make the call to euthanize him.

"It is a sad day, and my heart is really broken for (trainer) Joel Marr and his family," said Sumpter, the day of Wild On Ice's fatal injury. "I cried along with him this morning and I tried to cheer him up any way I could, but he was just so devastated. He was just a nice, easy work away from trying to see what this horse could do."

Sumpter turns to his faith when reconciling the loss of Wild On Ice, thankful for the thrills his 35-1 Sunland Park Derby (G3) winner has given him and grateful for the doors the graded stakes winner opened for his one-mare breeding operation.

"My wife and I are Christians and we know that God's got something bigger planned," he said. "I hate to lose this horse because I love him so much and he's given us so much enjoyment. He also has given me this platform to talk about the Lord and to breed to a nice horse in Kentucky, raising up my breeding. If it wasn't for him, I couldn't do it."

Sumpter has a contract to breed his Grand Slam mare Slamitagain  to Juddmonte Farms' Mandaloun  , a son of Into Mischief   who was awarded a win in the 2021 Kentucky Derby following the disqualification of Medina Spirit  due to a medication violation. The first-year stallion's book was full when Sumpter called but special consideration was being given to qualified mares. Wild On Ice helped open the door.

"I just love this cross, there are so many angles that seem to work," said Sumpter. "If you want to see something that will turn your toes up, look at Authentic  ."

Authentic, a son of Into Mischief and 2020's Horse of the Year and champion 3-year-old colt, is out of the Mr. Greeley mare Flawless, whose broodmare sire is Wild Again. Slamitagain is bred on the same cross as Flawless, by a stallion who is a son of Gone West and out of a Wild Again mare.

Wild Again, who won the inaugural Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) in gritty style, was one of the attractions for Sumpter when he first spied Slamitagain entered in a claiming race at Zia Park in November 2013. Another is that the mare was inbred 3x3 to El Gran Senor, a stallion Sumpter knew to be a powerful source of racing class from his research into pedigrees.

Sumpter got his education in pedigrees through a trainer he worked with at Sam Stevens' farm near Lamesa, Texas, where he has been the farm manager for more than 45 years. Gilbert "Gib" McClanahan regularly challenged Sumpter to do his own research into why certain crosses seemed to be successful.

"I would ask him about a pedigree, and he would say, 'You check it out and call me in a few days.' I would dig into it and then as we talked about it later, he would start laughing. That's how I knew I was on the right track," Sumpter said. "Learning from him was like I was in a candy store all the time and that just made me want to breed horses."

McClanahan's mentor in pedigrees was none other than prominent owner/breeder Col. E.R. Bradley, who bred and raced four Kentucky Derby winners. As a teenager McClanahan worked for his grandfather who was training horses in Kentucky. During his time in Kentucky, McClanahan told Sumpter he struck up a friendship with Bradley and they talked pedigrees almost every day.

"Gib and I broke horses together and as he taught me pedigrees, he talked about Mr. Bradley all the time," Sumpter recalled. "(McClanahan) had the ability to see beyond with a horse because time after time he would tell me things that came to pass. We'd be breaking a horse and he could tell a horse needed to start at 3. Or he would tell me about a pedigree to stay away from. When it came to breeding, he'd ask me, 'If you want a blue marlin, where do you go?' I'd say, 'You have to go to the ocean.' He'd tell me, 'Kentucky is the ocean.'"

Slamitagain had the ideal pedigree, Sumpter thought, but he wondered why she wasn't performing better at the track. She had won three times and placed 10 times from 23 starts but never got closer than fourth in a stakes. After a long layoff and five months of racing in Colorado, the mare resurfaced in New Mexico at the Downs at Albuquerque in August 2014. Sumpter went to see her for her second start at Albuquerque and right away he noticed she was slightly pigeon-toed in her left front foot.

"I thought, that's nothing," he said. "She won't raise any foals that look like that. I'd been around so many mares that were pigeon-toed and they were Mr. Stevens' best mares."

Sumpter claimed Slamitagain for $5,000 from owner/trainer Temple Rushton and sent the pedigree to McClanahan. Three days later McClanahan came to see the mare for himself.

"Oh my gosh, Frank, you've got something. You need to send her to where the blue marlins are," Sumpter recalled McClanahan telling him.

Slamitagain has produced three winners from three to race, with two of them black-type performers. Besides Wild On Ice, who is by Tapizar , her second foal is Unique Babe  (by Lookin At Lucky  ), who has won three of 11 starts so far and was third in this year's Bluebonnet Stakes at Lone Star Park. This year, the mare had a filly by Cupid  .

"Gib always taught me to imagine what you're going to get, and this foal was more than I could imagine," he said of the Cupid filly. "I couldn't believe when she came out of the mare, it was just so exciting. My wife, when she first saw her, said 'Oh, we got our next Derby qualifier.' She's so, so beautiful."

The Cupid filly and all the potential the mating with Mandaloun possesses have Sumpter looking with wide-eyed anticipation at the horizon.

"I know how the Lord works, and he has something bigger planned," he said. "God has given me this talent to work with the horses and I have so much enjoyment watching these babies grow and working with them. It was such a blessing to have a horse like Wild On Ice in a rich man's game ...and it would have been nice to try to shock the world, but I ain't done yet."