00:00It's been a Keeneland September sale to remember.
00:04For Stonehaven Steadings, the family-owned farm run by Leah and Aidan O'Meara celebrated
00:10the sale of the Book One Topper, a quality road colt.
00:13We talked to the family about their success and what they have to come.
00:18Expectations coming in were if we could keep the momentum going from last year, you know,
00:24we knew we had a nice crop, our best crop, but there's zero ever, there's zero expectations
00:30to sell a million dollar horses.
00:32Never any expectations of what has happened these last couple of days.
00:36In fact, Colby Marks is our farm manager and I was talking to Colby yesterday and I said,
00:43Colby, did you ever think that we would do this, what we did?
00:47You know, he said, no, he said, I didn't.
00:51We came out here thinking we'd have our strongest sale, but nowhere near where it's been incredible.
00:56There's been, it's almost in the twilight zone kind of stuff right now to be quite honest,
01:01but the horses, we're so proud of all the horses that came out here and acted so well
01:04and showed so well and it's just been incredible.
01:08So the Justify colt we had last year, he was one of our top two colts coming out here and
01:13we had very high expectations for him and he ended up being our first million dollar
01:17yearling and we were blown out of the water.
01:19At that stage, we pretty much had figured we'd peaked in life.
01:24His brother then at home was always one in the back of our mind that had the potential
01:28to maybe be that kind of quality of horse again for next year and over the summer then
01:32he just blossomed into what he did and he came out here and just, I've never seen a
01:38horse handle himself so well.
01:41We obviously started getting a little bit excited when the vet work came in.
01:44We had close to 25, 30 vet hits on him.
01:48The beating was kind of slowing down at one tree and I was getting ready to pop up and
01:51go, great stuff, and then he carried on and went on and they bumped it to two million
01:56and then that thousand acre, it was incredible, it was just a phenomenal moment for ourselves
02:02as a family operation and you know, we're just blown away.
02:08Aiden's years at Hillandale will always be a part of what has brought us to where
02:15we are today, but he came over to Hillandale when he was just a kid.
02:20He learned so much at Hillandale and he brought all of that with him when he came to Stonehaven.
02:27So Colby Marks bought this group of mares at the sale and I feel like the combination
02:35of Colby and Aiden has just been truly beautiful.
02:39To me, the biggest thing that's led us here is that teamwork.
02:43Aiden is such a good horseman.
02:48When they first met and he was working at a big farm around here at Hillandale and we
02:55would go view the stallions to, you know, see who we would breed to and stuff, I was
03:01always amazed at how he could speak about the horses.
03:05So I think he's a very good horseman and Leah was always interested in it also.
03:10And so I guess, you know, together, they're always together every day.
03:14They live and breathe the farm.
03:17So they make a really good pair.
03:20True feelings is everything out of her has been a beautiful moving horse with Nuclear
03:24last year and we stayed in with West Pinter Nuclear as well last year and on this colt
03:29this year and we're very excited to get $2 million horse to get $1 million out of any
03:34mare is incredible.
03:35Never mind to get two out of a mare, this is just crazy.
03:40Truly truly truly hope other people can experience what we experience, especially when you work
03:45hard.
03:46You know, it's such a good thing, you know, no matter what industry you're in, when you
03:49work hard, it's really a good thing when you have good success.
03:54Like now what am I supposed to hope for, you know, like, what do you, what do you want
03:57now?
03:58I want to live on the farm.
03:59I have a thriving farm.
04:00I want staff who are like family that you can lean on and trust and we just want to
04:05be here and enjoy it because horses are what we love and if we can do that for the rest
04:12of our days, I think we'll be pretty happy people.
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