Strong Hope , a multiple grade II-winning son of Grand Slam, out of the Deputy Minister mare Shining Through, will move to Midwest Equine & Veterinary Hospital near Trafalgar, Ind. to stand for the 2012 breeding season.
At stud, Strong Hope has more than $5.5 million in progeny earnings. His runners have earned more than $2.3 million in 2011, alone, which would place him atop the leader board for Indiana sires. He is the sire of two-time 2011 stakes winner Clement Rock and the stakes-winning Seal Cove.
Strong Hope will stand for a fee of $2,500 (stands and nurses). He is owned by a syndicate headed by Eugene N. Melnyk’s Winding Oaks Farm.
Strong Hope earned $767,460 on the track while recording a 6-1-2 slate from 11 starts. A $1.7 million Saratoga sales yearling, Strong Hope was raced by Eugene and Laura Melnyk. As a 3-year-old in the summer of 2003 he won back-to-back grade II events in New York: the July 6 Dwyer Stakes at Belmont and Saratoga’s Jim Dandy Stakes. He later ran third in the Travers Stakes (gr. I). At 4 he placed in the grade I Carter and Metropolitan handicaps.
Midwest Equine & Veterinary Hospital is owned and operated by Dr. Roger D. Beam, and also stands Desert Warrior a son of Deputy Minister out of the Secretariat mare, Navajo Pass. Desert Warrior stands for $2,000 (stands and nurses) and is currently ranked fourth on the 2011 Indiana leading sire list.