Breeder Reflects on Tepin's Ascot Victory

Robert Masterson's champion turf female Tepin took her game on the road and delivered in a big way June 14. The 5-year-old daughter of Bernstein—racing without Lasix for the first time—defeated an international cast in the Queen Anne Stakes (Eng-I) on Royal Ascot's opening day.

Running on soft turf, she held off the late run of group I winner Belardo over the straight course for a half-length win.

Watching from Machmer Hall Farm near Paris, Ky., was Carrie Brogden, who along with her husband, Craig, bred Tepin.

"The only way I could have been happier was if I was there," Brogden said. "Everybody on the planet told me to go, but I'm one of those people that is so focused on what is going on at the farm, it's hard for me to break away.

"Tepin could have had a million excuses: the drugs, the nasal strips, the soft going—but in the end it didn't matter."

Brogden said she believes the lack of race-day medication in England—along with the royalty and pageantry—has helped Royal Ascot's meet gain traction among players in the U.S. racing industry.

"We don't need the drugs," she said. "I'm hoping today proves they don't need it. When no one has it, it's an equalizer; no one has the advantage."

Brogden also believes the land where Tepin was raised is a big factor. At 560 acres on Route 627 in Bourbon County, Ky., Machmer Hall is in close proximity to major farms such as Claiborne, Stone, and Hidden Brook.

"Two weeks ago there were six graded stakes winners that were raised within a six-mile radius on this one road," she said. "There is something about the roll and the pitch of the land. That is a big, big factor as long as you are raising your horses out on it.

"A lot of the farms on this road, whether Beau Lane, or Tom VanMeter's place, or Claiborne, Stone Farm, Siena Farm—we all have this same philosophy where the horses have to be out on the land. We keep them in the stalls as little as possible."

Consigned by Select Sales (Carrie Brogden is a co-owner), Tepin (out of Life Happened, by Stravinsky) sold to Masterson through the late David "Fatty" Greathouse for $140,000 at the 2012 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga yearling sale.

Tepin has now won seven straight, dating back to last fall's First Lady Stakes (gr. IT), with a victory in the Breeders' Cup Mile (gr. IT) her crowning 2015 achievement. The Queen Anne clearly highlights the first half of 2016.

"She was always uncomplicated, and every time she wins I always think of Fatty Greathouse," Brogden said. "I remember him coming up to the barn at Saratoga and how much he loved her and saw the athlete in her. I give him so much credit for that."