In April of 2010, Edward Stanco sent his mare Storm Dixie to Kentucky to be bred for the first time. He’d purchased her for $67,000 in 2006, and after she won just once in 10 starts, he decided, after years in the racing business, to take a shot at breeding a horse.

The mating didn’t go quite as planned.

Storm Dixie was sent to Ashford Stud outside Lexington to be bred to Grand Slam, a proven stallion who had sired hundreds of winners with earnings in the tens of millions.  But when Storm Dixie got to the farm, Grand Slam was unavailable for breeding after having been kicked by a mare.

Stanco’s bloodstock adviser, Joe Brocklebank, suggested that they breed to another Ashford stallion, Majestic Warrior, a lightly raced colt in his first year in the breeding shed.

“Trust me,” Brocklebank told Stanco.

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