A lingering storm

As winter trudges on into February, horse racing slowly gets back into the swing of things. More topnotch races start showing up on the calendar, last year's returning champions start prepping for their comebacks, and breeding sheds prepare to open for another season.

This year, even racing fans who normally couldn't care less about the breeding aspect of the game will probably pay attention. That is because two of the sport's leading ladies, 2009 Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra and 2010 Horse of the Year Zenyatta, are becoming moms.

On January 22, Rachel Alexandra delivered her first foal, a colt by two-time Horse of the Year Curlin. In a few weeks, Zenyatta is set to deliver her first foal, whose father is champion Bernardini. Incidentally, Rachel will visit the court of Bernardini this spring, while it has not been announced who will be Zenyatta's next date.

However, if this had been a decade ago, I can tell you with almost complete confidence who both mares would have been bred to: Storm Cat.

At the peak of his career, Storm Cat's stud fee was an astounding $500,000 per mare, and he commanded it for six consecutive years. If he were human, he would have been the guy all the other guys hated, and the one all the girls wanted to be with.

America's premier sire was pensioned in 2008 due to declining fertility. At the time, it was announced he would live out his days at Overbrook Farm. After all, it was home. He had raced for the operation and stood his entire stallion career at the Lexington nursery.

A lot has changed at Overbrook since then. In 2009, the farm began a complete dispersal of its stock, and it was made known the property would be offered for lease. The farm's founder, William T. Young, had died in 2004 and his son did not share his passion for the game.

Although Overbrook would maintain a small racing stable, all of the breeding stock -- from 1996 Kentucky Derby winner Grindstone to champion racemare Flanders -- were to find new homes.

Everyone that is, except for Storm Cat.

Now 29, Storm Cat still spends his days grazing on the land he helped make so prominent, and I wanted to check in on racing's elder statesman. Overbrook has in fact been leased to other equine operations, but those involved are honoring the commitment to leave Storm Cat be.

"There was never a consideration otherwise," said bloodstock adviser Ric Waldman, who managed most of the stallion's career.

Today, there is only one other Overbrook horse still living on Overbrook Farm. A graded stakes winner in his own right, 12-year-old Clock Stopper has a paddock neighboring Storm Cat's. The chestnut gelding with a distinctive white blaze has been tasked with keeping the pensioned stallion company.

"It is probably more for our benefit than his, but I think there is something to it, having another living creature with you," said Waldman.

Before Clock Stopper ever raced, he was turned out in a paddock near Waldman's house. While walking his dogs, Waldman would stop and feed the kindly horse a peppermint. When Clock Stopper came home for some down time during his racing career, he was again kept near Waldman's house.

"We reacquainted and he never lost that love for peppermints," said Waldman. "He's such a nice horse."

They make a funny pair in the barn: a flashy, relatively young chestnut gelding and a gracefully aging bay stallion. The first is a kindly taker of offered treats, the latter a demanding, proud creature. There is no doubt, however, that they are both content, happy horses.

"They know each other, they are very familiar," said Eduardo Terrazas, who leases part of Overbrook and sees to the two Overbrook horses' care. "These two have been together for a long time."

It is more than appropriate Terrazas is the one tending to Storm Cat in the twilight of his life. After all, he was the stallion manager at Overbrook early in the stallion's career. Terrazas later moved to nearby Taylor Made Farm before setting out on his own, which in turn led to him leasing part of Overbrook's land.

"He's always been a good boy," Terrazas said of Storm Cat. "We always got along. We were good buddies, in a way. Sometimes you have that relationship with horses."

There is no doubt that Clock Stopper and Storm Cat are receiving the best of care under Terrazas' watch. In the winter they spend the day outside and the night indoors. When warmer weather returns, their routines will flip.

You wouldn't know Storm Cat is 29 by looking at him, and knock wood, he remains as healthy as, well, a horse.

"Not a fever, nothing," said Terrazas. "He's still loves going outside in the morning. He doesn't flex his knees as much as he used to, but he really enjoys it. And in the summer he does like to be under his fan during the day."

Although Storm Cat's time at the top has come and gone, his mark on the breed is undeniable. He was known for his precocity as a racehorse, and it comes as no surprise that recently crowned juvenile champions Hansen and My Miss Aurelia both have Storm Cat blood in them. In the stallion ranks, Storm Cat's sons remain popular, especially leading sire Giant's Causeway.

Because his legacy is largely made up of his success as a stallion, it is easy to forget that Storm Cat was a Grade 1 winner on the track and finished a close second in the 1985 Breeders' Cup Juvenile.

It is also easy to forget that Storm Cat wasn't always synonymous with success.

"The reality is, in those first four years, he never bred a full book, not even for what was accepted in that era," said Waldman. "In spite of the market not accepting him, he still succeeded. That is the remarkable thing of the history of Storm Cat."

The number of talented racehorses he sired, the fact so many of his sons have become successful stallions, and the overwhelming popularity of his offspring at auction all are part of what makes up Storm Cat's legacy.

"Mr. Young wore Storm Cat's success proudly," said Waldman. "He had an optimistic attitude about everything in life anyway, so I am sure all along, even when people didn't want to breed to Storm Cat, he still felt a confidence that Storm Cat would make it as a stallion. To the extent that he did, and to the magnitude that it was, I don't think even Mr. Young could have foreseen that."

In all fairness, no one could.

Amanda Duckworth is a freelance journalist who lives in Lexington, Ky. Write to her at amanda.duckworth@ymail.com.

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