Morgan's Ford Farm added yet another stakes winner to their operation's résumé March 20 when Chess Chief, a son of Into Mischief, jumped up to win the New Orleans Classic (G2) at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots. BloodHorse MarketWatch spoke to Wayne Chatfield-Taylor and his wife, Susie, about their farm, their broodmare band, and what they hope lies ahead for Chess Chief and all of the horses they breed, race, and sell off their Virginia farm.
MarketWatch: Tell us a little bit about the history of Morgan's Ford Farm
Wayne Chatfield-Taylor: We're approaching the anniversary of our 43rd year here. When we got here in May of 1979, there were six broken down buildings and no fences. What we wanted was a nice place away from the city and we were very fortunate to find this farm and here we are. It's a family operation and an outcross of a breed and race operation started by Susie and her mother. It's grown into a breed, race, buy, and sell operation that we have been involved in for 43 years now. That's our story. It started out at 370 acres and then tripled in size. It's a little smaller than that now because we've been involved in agricultural preservation here since we got the farm. We had to buy six farms to set the example of a farm in conservation so, on we go.
We're happy to be here and it feels almost like we're starting over because we've been here this long and we have families that go back four generations. That means that the mares that are giving birth, in many cases here, are foaling in the same stalls where they were born.
MW: How large is your current broodmare band?
WCT: I think right now we will breed 21 mares this year which is a little further out on a limb than we like to be but that is the way it is. In general, the majority of those are fillies out of mares of ours that we've had. We have 10 foals on the ground and we're waiting for six more right now. It's been a roller coaster of course.
MW: How did you acquire Chess Chief 's dam?
WCT: Chess Chief is out of a mare, Un Blessed, that is really a new family for us.
Susie Chatfield-Taylor: She has that good old Darby Dan blood.
WCT: We have been trying to get a mare from her family for decades and they are very hard to buy.
SCT: We really bought her because we could afford her.
WCT: She was in foal for the first time to an unpopular stallion and we could live with that because we really wanted into that family. She looked like what the family members have looked like for the past 35 years we've been trying to buy into the family.
We definitely have a wish list when it comes to mares. The great Paul Mellon said in one of his memoirs, "Don't drown in your own blood." You have to bring new blood into the farm because that keeps everything fresh. I bet a good third of our mares were not born here.
MW: Chess Chief, like many of your horses, is a registered Virginia-bred. Do you mainly breed to Kentucky stallions or to regional stallions?
WCT: We breed mostly in Kentucky. That takes more effort for us, people in Kentucky certainly have it easier than we do. We are breeding one or two in Maryland this year.
MW: Is Un Blessed back in foal? Who is she booked to this season?
SCT: Un Blessed is in foal to Candy Ride right now and she's getting ready to foal at any time. She's booked to Kitten's Joy this season.
WCT: We're really excited about that. I think that's a great mating for her. I think the first goal of our farm is to breed a good racehorse and the second goal is to sell it. But you really have to breed a good one and let the other parts fall into place. People buy our horses and we get lots of return customers and that tells us good things.
MW: How did you feel watching Chess Chief win the New Orleans Classic?
WCT: He's had a pretty tough hill to climb and he's been running in graded (stakes) a lot. It would have been nice if he had won the (Toyota) Blue Grass (G2) and nice if he had won the (Runhappy) Travers (G1) but he ran in both of those and ran respectfully.
SCT: He was a nice colt but he was a little tough. All of Un Blessed's babies have a bit of toughness to them. We sold her yearling at Keeneland (November Breeding Stock Sale as a weanling) by Ghostzapper.
WCT: But her Gun Runner 2-year-old filly, we kept her and it's nice to have another from that family looking toward the future. She wasn't ready to sell so we decided we would race her because that was what was best for her. She's a big and attractive filly.
SCT: All of a sudden we have six 2-year-old fillies this year and we're trying to figure out how we will manage them. We will probably send them to a number of trainers going forward. We do have a few more than usual because I had a friend of mine (Binnie Houghton) die (in 2017) and she left me all of her horses. One of those horses is a mare we had named Crabcakes.
WCT: Crabcakes has just had her first foal, a filly. That mare won over $400,00 and was the fastest filly in Maryland two years in a row. Her first foal is by Ghostzapper and she is on her way back to the shed now. She's being bred to Tiz the Law . We are excited about that.
MW: As commercial breeders and sellers, how have you found the market in the wake of COVID-19?
WCT: It hasn't been easy, that is for sure. I liken it to saying that we're selling a third less than what you aspired to have. In many places we're taking it and in some places and other places we're not. But I'm so proud of the horse business that we've been able to sort of tip toe through this difficult time and keep going.
For whatever reason, maybe against a lot of advice, we personally are breeding more mares and foaling more mares than usual. We have a lot of fillies coming out of training and we inherited some as well.
Our farm is a great place to raise horses. It's never been sprayed with any chemicals so it's good land and we have a lot of room to grow up a nice horse. It's nice to see Chess Chief finally cross the line and become a stakes winner. We've always liked him and always knew he could do it and it might be a good year for him I think. He's one of a couple of stakes winners we've had this year that we've bred and we root for all of them. Whenever one jumps up to win a nice race is a nice reflection on us and on the mare. We sell all the best and if they can't (sell) because of a little this or that, then we run them ourselves. We love the game.
