Mention Canadian breeding and thoughts immediately turn to the pint-sized patriarch Northern Dancer and all the wonderful horses his owner E.P. Taylor bred from him at Windfields in Oshawa: Nijinsky, Storm Bird, The Minstrel and so on.
Nothing wrong with being associated with those titans of the turf, but there is more to the Canadian Thoroughbred industry than that.
Take the sire of the moment, Justify , for example. He might have been foaled in Kentucky, but Canadian John Gunther bred him, and nine of Justify’s ancestors within four generations boast the CAN suffix. Cut him, and he would bleed maple syrup.
Canada’s bountiful contribution to the breed is smartly illustrated in a sumptuous new book published by The Jockey Club of Canada. “50 of the Finest,” as it is named, updates and expands on a celebration of the country’s champions produced in the 1980s.
There are the great racehorses, from Afleet to With Approval, other important sires like Awesome Again, Deputy Minister and Smart Strike, and several highly influential blue hen mares on the world stage.
Doug Anderson, the chief steward of The Jockey Club of Canada who oversaw the task of chronicling Canada’s best Thoroughbreds, says: “We realized last year that it was 50 years since Mr. Taylor founded the organization and decided we’d celebrate the anniversary in two ways.
“First, we sponsored a race at each of the major tracks across Canada: Woodbine and Fort Erie in Ontario; Assiniboia Downs in Manitoba; Century Downs and Century Mile in Alberta; and Hastings Park in British Columbia.
“Then we set about producing this book, ’50 of the Finest,’ taking our inspiration from the book in the 1980s. We drew up a list of 100 of the most distinguished Thoroughbreds of the last 50 years, not just racehorses but stallions and broodmares too, and invited members of the Jockey Club to vote for their favorites or suggest another horse.
“We tabulated the votes to produce the final 50 but were clear from the outset that the horses would be organized alphabetically, so there was no ranking of the horses. One of the idiosyncrasies of the book is that it’s actually 51 of the finest, as there was a tie in the voting, and we couldn’t bring ourselves to leave one out.”
All of the 51 horses have a page to themselves, featuring a picture, profile, and pen portrait produced by award-winning writers. The finished product, not a commercial endeavor, was distributed to The Jockey Club of Canada members at its AGM in June, and a digital version will be available to view on the organization’s website.
Northern Dancer, the horse who revolutionized the country’s breeding industry, has two pages dedicated to him at the start of the book.
“Understandably, there is a substantial skew to the 1970s in the book,” says Anderson. “It was a wonderful time for native Canadian breeding. Northern Dancer fell outside of the timeframe, as he was born, raced, and went to stud well before 1973, but everything we’ve got flows from him and Mr. Taylor.
“We calculated that 34 of the 51 horses in the book descend from Northern Dancer through either the sire or the dam, and nine are descended from him through both. That’s pretty typical, as Northern Dancer shows up in about 70% of pedigrees.”
The Current State of Canadian Breeding and Sales
It has to be said that Canada is nott the force it once was in breeding, but then it set itself a dizzyingly high standard with Northern Dancer and his offspring.
“There’s been a re-energization,” says Anderson. “Since COVID, the Canadian foal crop has rebounded. We have a mare recruitment program that gives breeders a subsidy if they bring an in-foal mare to Canada and foal her here, which is half the value of the mare up to CA$25,000. We’ve had 275 or so pregnant mares come into Ontario in the last three years with the help of that scheme.
“We have people like Dave (Anderson) and the Kemps at Ballycroy breeding really good horses. There’s also Adena Springs, the Krembils at Chiefswood Stables, Highfield Stock Farm and many more operations going well. Charles Fipke foals mares in Canada as well as the US, and there are plenty of other entities who do that too.”
The health of individual breeding jurisdictions is usually dependent on its stallion population, and the country lacks a world-class name who would attract more inward investment at present.
“The last stallion of true international repute we had was probably Silver Deputy, a son of Deputy Minister who eventually went to Kentucky,” says Anderson. “But we’ve got some decent horses here. Point Of Entry and Souper Speedy do well, and Silent Name has been Canadian champion sire twice.
“We have an exciting new horse for next year, too, with the Krembils standing their high-class Pioneerof the Nile colt Weyburn in Ontario.”
Similarly, the Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society’s annual yearling sale might not have been turbo-boosted by Northern Dancer for decades, but it is on a bit of a roll.
The CA$115,000 top lot in 2022 was the Cairo Prince colt My Boy Prince , third in the 2023 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf (G1T) and a close second in the Aug. 23 King’s Plate at Woodbine for trainer Mark Casse and owner Gary Barber. Last year’s CA$150,000 sale-topper was a full-brother to the brilliant sprinter Pink Lloyd , one of the recent additions to 50 of the Finest.
This year’s auction, featuring 244 hips, takes place at the Woodbine sales pavilion Aug. 28.
“We worked quite actively this year to invigorate the sale, recruiting yearlings who might otherwise have been directed to Keeneland or Fasig-Tipton in September and October,” said Anderson. “We’ve also been busy getting U.S.-based buyers on board.
“The bloodstock agent Donato Lanni was at the sale last year, and as well as buying for Madaket, SF and X-Men Racing, he also has a group called Canuck Racing that he buys for here. Mark Casse, who trains at Woodbine in addition to his bases in the U.S., also looks at horses here for owners like Gary Barber.
“We’ve got yearlings by stallions such as Cairo Prince, Caravaggio, Kitten’s Joy, Liam’s Map, Maximum Security, Nyquist, Omaha Beach and Practical Joke, as well as Frosted, who’s rebounded. We don’t get the Curlins or Into Mischiefs, but we’ve got their sons.”