00:00There's a certain buzz that comes with adding a Kentucky Derby winner to a farm's roster.
00:07This fall, Airdrie Stud welcomed breeders to check out their latest Derby winner, Mystic Dan.
00:12In 2026, Airdrie will also add Jonathan's Way to their roster, the first son of Vekoma to go to Stud.
00:18He first came on our radar the same day that he came on everybody's radar, and that was a Kentucky Derby afternoon.
00:34Sierra Leone, Forever Young and Mystic Dan, a wild finish, here's the wire, photo finish!
00:40And I think when you look back historically at the field that was in the starting gate that day, between Dan, Sierra Leone,
00:48Forever Young, Door Knock, Fierceness, just an absolutely incredible Kentucky Derby.
00:54He came back, had a really, really good season, won two great stakes races, won the Lucas Classic in his last start,
01:02extremely impressively, very game, came between horses.
01:05One of the races that we always try to call everyone's attention to was actually his two-year-old when he first broke his maiden.
01:13He did it going five and a half furlongs early in his two-year-old year, ran away and won by seven lengths or so, ran a 96 buyer speed figure.
01:22But I don't know that he ever ran a more impressive race than when he won the Southwest by eight lengths.
01:27Super, super impressive. He goes to Pimlico in the Preakness two weeks after that really gutting Derby run,
01:34and runs a great second in American Classic. So this horse took his track with him.
01:39He's such a good-minded horse.
01:41Your TDN viewers just saw the first time he's ever shown outside at Airdrie Stud, and he did it in the midst of a pretty windy afternoon.
01:50And he handles it with the same class that he handles everything.
01:53We've been totally busy since we announced that we were showing him, and people come away super impressed with not only how well he handles everything,
02:01but what a beautifully balanced colt he is. Just made like a sire. He's that medium-sized, well-balanced, plenty of strength,
02:11just a very nice individual, and I think breeders are coming away with that takeaway.
02:16Jonathan's Way is a horse that kind of was on everybody's radar very, very early.
02:25That first race at Saratoga, his two-year-old debut, I don't know how a horse could be more impressive first out than he was.
02:34He broke a little slowly, came around horses, exploded in the stretch. TDN Rising Star, everybody's talking about the horse.
02:43And then backs it up in the grade three Iroquois. Churchill, again, wins it as easy as you could, this time does it on the lead.
02:52You know, he had the makings of a really top three-year-old, and he was in training, getting ready for his prep in New Orleans,
02:59and unfortunately had got very, very sick. And so he was robbed of a real opportunity to be a major talking horse on the three-year-old scene.
03:10But we had seen enough talent-wise, and I know Richard Rigney and Phil Bauer believe he was a very, very special horse.
03:19He was Vekoma's most expensive first crop weanling. So when you have that type physical, when you have the first horse to market by a really exciting stallion like Vekoma,
03:29those are major feathers in his cap, and it will guarantee interest and really guarantee opportunity.
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