A link to horseracing royalty is calling a stable just west of Olds home for the next several months. And he's ready and willing to pass on some of his prestigious blood.
A link to horseracing royalty is calling a stable just west of Olds home for the next several months.
And he's ready and willing to pass on some of his prestigious blood.
Tinner's Secret, a four-year-old thoroughbred, is the grandson of Secretariat, a legend in horseracing circles, and he's standing at stud at the Harvest Willow stables.
Secretariat won the U.S. Triple Crown in 1973, setting world records in the three races making up the series— the Kentucky Derby, the Belmont Stakes and the Preakness Stakes— and that same year was named Horse of the Year.
His first male foal, Tinners Way, is Tinner's Secret's father.
Murray Cluff, a professional ski instructor and horse breeding hobbyist who lives outside Cochrane, bought Tinner's Secret in 2009, the year the horse was born, from Key Ranch in Texas, where Tinners Way was standing at stud.
Having grown up riding horses in Medicine Hat, Cluff said he watched horse races with his father when he was younger and he remembers watching Secretariat conquer the Triple Crown 40 years ago.
For years after, he dreamed of finding a way to connect to the great horse's legacy.
"All through my life, I always wanted to have a racehorse with some Secretariat blood in it," he said.
After he tracked Tinner's Secret down in Texas, Cluff decided to race the horse.
At his first race on April 20, 2011, however, Tinner's Secret was cut off by another horse while running at full speed and injured a tendon in his leg.
Cluff said the horse spent seven months in equine therapy in Bryon, Texas, and then tried running again.
But Cluff said he could see Tinner's Secret was "running too hot" and that his racing days were likely over for good.
Because he had purchased a mare at Harvest Willow and had a good relationship with the stable's farm manager, Nicole Pulu, Cluff decided to bring Tinner's Secret to the stable and the horse arrived last July.
Since the horse has such an impressive lineage, Cluff thought he would make Tinner's Secret available for breeding and he and Pulu starting advertising in January.
"We'll see if he can't carve himself out a niche here in the Alberta horse industry as a little stallion," Cluff said.
Pulu, who went to Lakeland College for its equine science program and has spent the last nine years working with racetrack programs at Olds College as well as the school's exercise rider program, said more than 100 people from as far away as Eastern Canada and the U.S. have expressed interest in having Tinner's Secret breed with their mares.
Breeding began in February at a cost of $1,000 for thoroughbreds and $750 for other breeds, Pulu said, adding the first 10 horse owners who booked for breeding received a free opportunity to come back next season for another chance to have Tinner's Secret sire a foal.
Cluff is also putting up a $3,000 incentive to the breeder of Tinner's Secret's first foal that wins an allowance race.
So far, one of Pulu's mares, Deviant Princess, is in foal thanks to Tinner's Secret and will give birth next January, she said, adding the mare also has a strong female lineage.
"So she should cross very nicely because Secret has a very strong male line. So the baby should be fantastic."
Pulu, who owns 12 horses at the stable, said she is caring for the mares that come to the stable for breeding and once a mare becomes pregnant, its owners will come to take it home.
The reason people are so interested in having Tinner's Secret sire a foal for them is his impressive, "rare" pedigree, which, besides Secretariat, includes five other horses of the year, she said.
"The other draw for him is that he is kind of a melting pot of absolutely everything you would possibly need to make your mare a winner," Pulu said, adding prospective breeders are hoping Tinner's Secret's rich bloodline will help create strong, fast foals.
"They're looking for everything. They're looking for temperament, speed, the heart measurements as well."
Many of the interested breeders, she said, include owners of quarter-horse mares and Canadian derby-horse owners looking to extend the pedigrees of their animals.
"It's a little bit scary, too. Because it's his first crop, we really don't know what he's going to put out, if he's going to be the dominant genetic maker or if the mare will be."
Cluff said Tinner's Secret will stay at Harvest Willow until the end of the breeding season in late May or early June and he will then go to Cluff's home before returning to Pulu's care for the next breeding season.
Pulu said just from the time she has spent with the horse, she's confident his foals will be impressive animals.
"He's really living up to his pedigree. He's big, he's strong, he's correct," she said. "His horses will be able to run when the thoroughbred track (in Balzac) is open (in 2016 or 2017.)"
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