first published in the September 2024 Equiery
The Maryland Horse Breeders Association held its 90th Annual Yearling Show on July 21 at the Timonium Fairgrounds. The show is broken up into four classes with a Grand Champion and Reserve Champion being selected from the winners of the four classes. This year’s show was judged by veteran bloodstock agent Rick Abbott.
All class participants judged are eligible for the Yearling Show Purse Awards, totaling $40,000. There are two opportunities to win the purse awards – $20,000 will go to the top four money-winners racing as 2-year-olds and another $20,000 will be awarded the following year to the four highest-earning 3-year-old performers.
David and JoAnn Hayden’s Dark Hollow Farm in Upperco nearly swept the awards. Their 2023 colt by The Factor and out of Silver Sides (Bandbox)), co-bred and owned with Ellen Charles (Hillwood Stable), was overall Grand Champion and the winner of Class II, for colts and geldings out of mares covered outside of Maryland. Their 2023 Honor A. P. filly out of Bread and Butter (Pure Prize) was named Reserve Champion and winner of Class IV, for fillies foaled in Maryland out of mares covered out of state. A third Dark Hollow horse, a 2023 Great Notion colt out of Flit (Not for Love), won the class for colts and geldings foaled in Maryland out of mares covered in Maryland (Class I).
Dark Hollow is no stranger to the top honors at the yearling show. Its Honor A. P. colt Tremendously was the 2023 Grand Champion, and Ellen Charles’s Bandbox colt was Grand Champion in 2022.
The Northview Get-of-Sire Trophy went to Blofeld (KY), who stands at Murmur Farm in Darlington. He had three ribbon winners over two classes, including the winner of Class III, for fillies out of mares covered in Maryland, who is out of Celtic Music (Yarrow Brae).
Celtic Music is a broodmare that not only produces quality horses for the track, but also produces horses that go on to have promising second careers as sport horses. For example, her 2018 colt by Petionville, Galway Lad, was in the money for 3 of his 8 starts and last raced in September 2022. Less than two years later, on June 28 of this year, he won the Novice division of US Eventing’s 2024 Area III Championships in Fairburn, Georgia.
Before that, on April 13, he won the Open Novice division at the FENCE Horse Trials in Tryon, North Carolina. Most most recently, on July 20, he won the Novice division at the Ocala Eventing Derby in Florida.
