Small-Time Breeder Scores Big With Destin

The Belmont Stakes (gr. I) will be contested June 11 in the Big Apple, but there is a small-time California breeder who might just have the last say in who enters the winner’s circle.

Jim Weigel, a retired sonar engineer who worked with navies from around the world, will be watching the action from his Valencia home north of Los Angeles, seeing if his dream comes true. His mare Dream of Summer, having already produced grade I winner, millionaire, and Kentucky sire Creative Cause  , is at it again. Destin, a full brother to Creative Cause (by Giant's Causeway  ) has this season won the Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby (gr. II) and Sam F. Davis Stakes (gr. III) and finished a good sixth in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I). He’s got a big shot in the third jewel of the Triple Crown.

Weigel bred Destin along with Taylor Made Stallions. He keeps Dream of Summer at Taylor Made Farm in Kentucky, and is a regular visitor there—including the day after the Derby, when he stopped by to see Dream of Summer’s yearling colt by Graydar   and her weanling full sister to Destin. Now 17, Dream of Summer is close to Weigel’s heart.

“When Creative Cause got good, the phone kept ringing with offers to buy her,” said Weigel. “No price could have bought her. There is an emotional attachment, and I love going out there and giving her a kiss on the nose and rub her neck and hug her. You can’t put a pricetag on that.”

Weigel got into racing 45 years ago as one of 37 owners of a gelding that never finished in the money. He continued owning one or two cheap claimers at a time, and eventually decided to try breeding. He bought Mary’s Dream, an unraced daughter of Skywalker, for $7,000 at auction and bred her to grade I winner Siberian Summer.

Weigel took the resultant yearling to auction, setting a $10,000 reserve on her. The bidding stopped at $7,000, and the yearling returned to Marianne Millard’s Here Tis Ranch in California. Fighting off a series of injuries, the filly, named Dream of Summer by Weigel, didn’t make it to the races until she was 4, winning at first asking at Hollywood Park. At 5 she won the A Gleam Invitational Handicap (gr. II) and Rancho Bernardo Handicap (gr. III). The following season she took the Apple Blossom Handicap (gr. I).

“When she started winning those stakes races,” said Weigel, “I would get to the winner’s circle and face the grandstand and say, ‘Hey, so you wouldn’t give me $10,000 for her, huh?’ ”

Weigel retired Dream of Summer at 7 after she had won 10 of her 20 races, six stakes, and $1,191,150. Creative Cause, who today stands at Airdrie Stud in Kentucky, brought $135,000 at the 2011 Keeneland September yearling sale, and Randy Gullatt of Twin Creeks Farm parted with $400,000 for Destin at the 2014 edition of that sale.

Weigel hasn’t found reason to expand his operation much. He owns just two broodmares besides Dream of Summer, one of whom is her full sister Marry by Summer, who has not matched her sister in the breeding department. Weigel owns two racehorses, both claimers, but certainly keeps tabs on the more celebrated products of his breeding operation.

“I’m not sure that Destin is quite as good as Creative Cause, but he’s right up there near him,” Weigel noted. “He ran the two good races at Tampa Bay and seems to want to have his races spaced out, though perhaps not as far as the eight weeks between the Tampa Bay Derby and Kentucky Derby.”

Weigel is waiting to find out whether Dream of Summer has gotten in foal to Tapit   this year. As she gets up in years, Weigel knows he’s going to have to somehow find another like her if he is to continue breeding these graded stakes-winning classic runners (Creative Cause was third in the 2012 Preakness, gr. I).

“Dream of Summer is doing O.K., but if I’m going to keep working Kentucky, I’m going to need to find a replacement for her,” Weigel said.

Hopefully, one that likes getting kissed on the nose.