Hinkle Farm's Huge Weekend at Churchill Downs

By any measure, the biggest weekend of the year at Churchill Downs will be extraordinary for family-owned Hinkle Farm.

The 90-year-old farm near Paris, Ky., has bred or has ties to three horses competing during the two-day racing festival wrapped around the Longines Kentucky Oaks (gr. I) and the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I). They bred Weep No More, who started in the May 6 Oaks; bred graded stakes winner Divisidero, who will be starting May 7 in the $500,000 Woodford Reserve Turf Classic; and own the dam of Kentucky Derby favorite Nyquist.

Weep No More finished seventh in the Oaks, but plenty of excitement still lies ahead.

"Win, lose, or draw, this weekend as a breeder is the biggest thrill I’ve ever experienced," said Tom Hinkle, who runs the farm with his brothers Henry and Buck, and his daughter Anne. "These horses are live and they have big chances, but a lot can happen. With most businesses if you work hard, try to make solid decisions, and surround yourself with good people, you’ll find some success. We try to do the same thing with the horses business but there is one little component you have to have—a little good fortune or luck. With horses, anything can happen at any time. There are usually a lot more things that can go wrong than can go right.

"We recognize how fortunate we are and don’t take it for granted," he said.

Hinkle Farm has been a working farm since 1926, when Tom Hinkle’s grandfather bought it. Over the years the land, then under the name Hidaway Farm, developed into a commercial breeding and boarding operation that Tom Hinkle ran full-time for 10 years after college. Later he joined the family’s road-building business, Hinkle Contracting, which operated until six years ago when the company got sold. Now the family is refocused full-time on the horses under the name Hinkle Farm.

"We had to change the name, because no one could pronounce it right or spell it right," Hinkle said. "They always wanted to put in an ‘e’." The farm also got out of the boarding business and cares primarily for its own broodmare band.

The family made one of its savviest broodmare purchases in 2013 at the Keeneland November breeding stock sale. They had short-listed a daughter of Forestry named Seeking Gabrielle, who won nearly $8,000 on the track but was out of a stakes winner and stakes-producing mare named Seeking Regina (by Seeking the Gold). In the same sale was Seeking Gabrielle’s first foal, a colt from the first crop of Uncle Mo  . That colt was Nyquist.

"He was just a standout—just gorgeous," Hinkle said. Nyquist, bred by Tim Hyde Jr.’s Summerhill Farm and sold by Paramount Sales, brought a healthy $180,000, a lot for a first-year stallion.

"That looked pretty good," Hinkle said. "Then they were struggling to get $100,000 for the mare, so we bought her. What really pushed us to buy her was how nice a weanling Nyquist was.”

Hinkle noted that even though Seeking Gabrielle did not do much on the track, her dam Seeking Regina produced grade III winner Seeking the Sky, who in turn produced grade I winner Sahara Sky and stakes winner Animal Style.

"Also, she was by Forestry and it is not easy to get daughters of Storm Cat. Forestry seems to be an up-and-coming broodmare sire," said Hinkle, who is looking forward to what this family will produce down the road.

Seeking Gabrielle had a filly by Blame   in 2014 and delivered a colt by Flatter   this year. She has been confirmed back in foal to War Front  .

Hinkle said they chose War Front because, at the time the decision was being made, the jury was still out on how Uncle Mo’s first crop would performance as sophomores.

"Obviously they have," Hinkle said about Uncle Mo’s first crop. "He’s incredible. But we felt War Front worked well with her and felt she deserved to go to the best stallion we could get to. We used to breed to War Front before he went off the charts. If we were ever going to go back to him, we needed the right mare, so this was the time to do it.”