Cane Run Farm trots into Lexington with a talented group with some musicality to them
by Debbie Little
Historic Cane Run Farm comes into the 2025 Lexington Selected Yearling Sale with a consignment of 22 trotters and one pacer, spread across all five days.
Elizabeth Caldwell, co-manager of the Georgetown, KY-based nursery is getting good vibes from her nearly two dozen yearlings, 13 she is selling as an agent.
“We have a really nice group overall,” Caldwell said. “We have, obviously, a lot of Gimpanzees, some of our own, some for clients, so I’m hoping they’re going to like him still going forward. So, hopefully, they’ll keep racing and getting stronger and doing well.”
Cane Run’s lone yearling selling on Day 1, Hip #55 Double Four Time, is a colt out of a Hall of Fame broodmare, possibly her last.
“Our Danae yearling is a Gimpanzee,” Caldwell said. “He is probably the last foal out of the mare. She did not get in foal this year and didn’t have a foal, so we think he’s probably the last one. We own a 2-year-old, so we did not put her in the sale last year, and decided, you know, it’s a filly. [Danae] has a colt on the ground, what if she doesn’t have another filly? And you know, sure enough, she lost the pregnancy and then didn’t get in foal.
“But she’s 21 years old, and she’s done so much; she’s been quite a good broodmare for us. She’ll be hard to replace. Those don’t come along all the time, so hopefully one of the daughters or one of the other ones steps up.”
Caldwell thinks well of and has high hopes for her nine Gimpanzees selling in Lexington, but as with her entire consignment, she tries not to choose one over another.
“Most of [the Gimpanzees] seem to be, from what the trainers tell me, the size and the build of the ones that are racing well,” she said. “They’re a nice group, and I try not to pick favorites, because I know they’re going to get sold. Since I was a child, I tried not to get attached. But usually, the favorites are out of our top mares, so that’s kind of my bias. But I have noticed that our employees have a favorite, or it would seem besides the obvious one, [Hip #698 Anyday], is their favorite. She’s a Gimpanzee, and she’s chestnut with lots of white; they call her spicy. So, she’s a lot of fun.
“The interesting thing about the Gimpanzees is they all seem to be pretty easy to be around. They have a good personality and are easy to manage and get along with.
“[Gimpanzee’s trainer] Marcus Melander kind of told me that too, that they have their sire’s personality for the most part, the ones that he’s found that have done well. So hopefully that continues to be the case.”
If you noticed a bit of a musical theme in Cane Run’s consignment, you’re not wrong.
“So, our partner, Blue Stone Farms and I, we trade places naming them, so they named the yearlings, and he generally names them with the first letter of the dam’s name, and usually something related with musical lyrics,” Caldwell said.
The lone pacer in the bunch was not named by Blue Stone but fits in perfectly.
“That filly we own with another partner, [Hip #845] These Smiling Eyes, that’s a different song lyric,” Caldwell said with a laugh. “She’s a Pebble Beach filly [out of Badwintercoming]. I think most of her foals have been song lyrics… Her first foal [Lovethewayyoulie] was a Rihanna song, I think, with Eminem.”
Cane Run offers a variety of sires — Captain Corey, Chapter Seven, Ecurie D DK, Father Patrick, Gimpanzee, Muscle Hill, Pebble Beach, Tactical Landing, Temporal Hanover, and Walner — and most of their yearlings are dual eligible.
“The Muscle Hill fillies [Hip #240 Dancer’s Choice and Hip #248 Everybody Knows] are nice, those will make great broodmares one day too,” Caldwell said. “He’s kind of coming to the end of his stud career, sadly, and I think we had one foal by him this year that we own, also out of Eowyn [a sister to Anoka Hanover]. So, we’re really going to be missing that because we have some shares to him. We enjoyed a good run there.
“Our [Walner] filly’s a very nice individual [Hip #233 Cool For Cats], and she’s got current updates in the pedigree. The people that come to see her seem to really like her, and everything’s moving along like it should. But is she going to be able to compete with all the other Walners in the sale? I don’t know. They can’t all bring gazillions of dollars, so I just hope she does okay and stands out and makes a good racehorse for somebody, and the family keeps going. That’s been a good, solid family for us.”
Also selling on Day 2 is a nice Tactical Landing colt Hip #179 Percival.
“They’ve got the knights of the round table theme going with that family, Excalibur Bi, Lancelot, and Guinevere,” Caldwell said. “There’s some current racing going on there, Guinevere was in the Goldenrod series, doing pretty well.
“We have a half to Winner’s Bet [Hip #379 Blazing Bet], a couple of nice Chapter Seven colts [Hip #409 Weinberg and Hip #585 Archon] that look really good, and two Father Patrick fillies [Hip #167 These Days and Hip #720 Your Grace].”
Caldwell is optimistic for both the sale and her consignment to end on a high note.
“I hope that everything is going to be good,” she said. “Usually, we kind of gauge it on how the thoroughbred sales are going, and this year has been like gangbusters. Saratoga was high, Keeneland, I think they probably had one of their highest grossing sales ever. And people seem to be wanting to spend their money, so hopefully that’ll continue on to [Lexington] and beyond, for all of the standardbred sales. And the Ohio Jug Sale, I heard that was really good too. So, things seem to be going well for people that want to buy horses. So hopefully that is still the case next week.
“I think we have horses for every different range and level of buyer and hopefully people like what they see and hopefully they’ll do well for them. That’s what matters the most to us, that we see them next year at the track.”
