BH Interview: Tommy Wente of St. Simon Place

St. Simon Place has had a remarkable past few years, on the racetrack and in the sales ring, with its latest feat coming Nov. 30 at Churchill Downs when homebred Rattle N Roll  won the Clark Stakes (G2).

Tommy Wente operates the farm in Lexington, where he and partners Calvin and Shane Crain have 47 mares in foal, with some of them in partnership with Scott Stephens and Brandon Stocks. 

Wente supported Connect   in his first year at stud, resulting in two of his homebreds—Rattle N Roll and Hidden Connection —becoming the stallion's first graded stakes winners. Rattle N Roll took the 2021 Breeders' Futurity (G1), and Hidden Connection won the 2021 Pocahontas Stakes (G3). 

Wente sold Rattle N Roll as a weanling at the 2019 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale for $55,000 where he was purchased by Rexy Bloodstock. Kenny McPeek bought him as a yearling at Keeneland's September sale for $210,000, and the 5-year-old son of Connect now has earnings of more than $2.1 million.

Following Rattle N Roll's win in the Breeders' Futurity, Wente sold his dam, Jazz Tune , in the Keeneland November sale for $585,000 to Hunter Valley Farm, a nice return from the $20,000 he paid for her five years earlier. 

BloodHorse: What was Rattle N Roll like as a foal? 

Tommy Wente: He had a hard time going when he was a baby. We had a few of them that year, they had problems getting going, and it was because his gut and stuff didn't work, so we had to do a bunch of stuff to get his gut going so he could get stuff moving through his body. It was a little bit of a touch-and-go situation. In about 10 days, he came out of it. 

BH: What goes into the decision of selling your horses as weanlings? 

TW: Us being baby sellers, you know we don't always want to sell them as babies, but in order to run the farm, we have to sell a lot of our horses as babies. He was one of the ones I really regretted selling, and it's not just because he went off and made a lot of money, it's just I really regretted what we sold him for. It was just one of those things I knew in my heart that he just wasn't ready, I should've just sat on him. But you know what? I'm a big believer in things happen for a reason. And if Rexy (Bloodstock) wouldn't have bought him and went on with him ... they did a phenomenal job prepping him for the (Keeneland September) yearling sale. I think all the cards were just perfectly placed right for him, and he looked like a rock star as a yearling. 

Kenny (McPeek) is very good, I think he should get a lot of the credit, because he took a chance on that horse, right? Rexy Bloodstock made him look like a rock star, Kenny bought him, and the rest is history. And, if we would've kept him, who's to say all this would've happened? If he ended up somewhere else, with somebody else on a different road ... things just happen for a reason, I guess.

BH: You've had a lot of success the last few years. What does that mean to your program and does that give people confidence to keep buying St. Simon Place horses?

TW: We want people to know that when we put weanlings in the sale, they're not culls, right? When we put them through there, they're good horses, and they've been raised right. We want people to feel confident when they're buying them that we don't mind, and we don't get our feelings hurt, when they make a bunch of money on them. I think that's part of the game. If people don't make money on your horses, they're not going to come back and buy off you. Everybody needs to make money. 

It's cool to see people come back like Brian Graves, Peter O'Callaghan, and people like that, Rexy Bloodstock, Ted Campion, and guys like that, I think they feel comfortable buying from us. 

BH: What did it mean to be there for Rattle N Roll's victory in the Clark Stakes? How closely do you follow his career?

TW: It was awesome. I try to go to all of his races when he's around. He's just a really cool horse to be around, and we're always rooting for him. 

He was laid off after some bone bruising was discovered, and he needed it, he was on a big three-year crusade, and it paid off. He came back in the Lukas Classic this year (where he finished third), and it was a muddy, nasty track. He just got too far back to make all that ground up. But he ran good, and he was training like a bear, and they made the decision to try and go to the Breeders' Cup with him, to try and draw in. That didn't work out, so they brought him back. 

He's kind of like our flagship horse for the farm. Just a good story. 

BH: You had a lot of luck with Connect with your two homebreds from his first crop—Rattle N Roll and Hidden Connection. What instilled your confidence in him? 

TW: We bred two different kind of mares to him. He was a first-year horse and we're big fans of Curlin (Connect's sire). It was kind of crazy that both of them ended up being Connect's first graded stakes horses. 

BH: What keeps you going in this business of highs and lows?

TW: We just keep on clicking away, we had that really phenomenal year in 2021, right? And now you're chasing it. You're always trying to get back there. You put a pretty high standard on yourself, when you win four 'Win and You're In' races. It was just a crazy year. So, you're just always trying to get back that way. 

This year was probably our best crop of babies. I think hands down, that we've had in the sale, and that we've got on the ground still to sell as yearlings. 

BH: How much effort goes into your matings and sale selections? How important is the team around you?

TW: When we sit here and try to get all these mares booked, and you're trying to stay out of certain books, we're always trying to be real careful who we're breeding to, that you're not spending too much money. Everybody seems to be breeding to the same horses, which is really hard, because you don't want to be one of 300 horses, right? It's really tough. 

We are blessed to have people around us like Carrie and Craig (Brogden), they help us every day. Like every day, I'm calling Craig or Carrie about something and just asking. I'm not afraid to ask, because I don't know everything, and we're just blessed to have people like that around us that will give us criticism when we need it. I take the criticism very seriously. 

This is not just us, it's everybody that's involved—the stud farms that give us the breedings, Carrie and Craig give me the knowledge I need to know, what I should buy, what I shouldn't buy, it's a lot more that goes into it. 

I think it's really important for the owner of the farm to get on a mower and go mow his grass out in the paddocks and just sit and look at your horses, when they're walking and see what they're doing. I mean, I see stuff all the time like that when I'm out there. You see a horse lame or moving the wrong way. You might not see those things from the fence, but I just think it's important that you need to look at your horses every single day.  A lot goes into this business.