Alan Briggs and Bob Cromartie are relocating the breeding operation of their Ardmore Stud and their bloodstock agency, Briggs & Cromartie Thoroughbred Consultants, from Florida to Kentucky. They are developing 125 acres near Versailles, Ky., into a horse farm, which will be named Ardmore Stud, and are looking for a farm in Florida for a yearling operation.
Briggs and Cromartie’s Ardmore Stud in Florida was sold in a package of land that used to be David Hutson’s Silverleaf Farm to Benjamin Leon, who will use the property for a Paso Fino operation.
“We vacate the property (in Florida) Dec. 31, and we’ll be stationed in Kentucky Jan. 1 (2009),” Cromartie said Sept. 10 at the Keeneland September yearling sale. “It was a logical business decision for us to relocate our breeding operation to Kentucky. It’s all about transportation and fuel costs and getting horses to where they need to be. Florida had put us at a distance from where we were breeding our mares -- Kentucky, New York, Pennsylvania, and Canada – and we were coming to Kentucky to sell.
“We still think Florida is a great place to raise a yearling,” Cromartie continued. “We’re trying to find a farm there for our yearling operation; we’ve been looking. But I’ve been focused on trying to get this farm done in Kentucky. We know we’ve got plenty of time in Florida. It’s not as ‘weather conditional’ on developing there as in Kentucky.”
The new Kentucky location for Ardmore Stud’s breeding division “never was a horse farm; it was a family farm, a cattle farm,” Cromartie said. “We’re building an 18-stall broodmare barn, a six-stall quarantine barn, a 10-stall yearling barn, a maintenance barn, roads, bridges, an entry, and restoring a lot of other buildings, including a Federal period house.”
Briggs and Cromartie manage, but do not stand, stallions.
“All of those (agreements) will stay in place,” Cromartie said. “We don’t have any hands-on contact with them; we just do all of the paperwork.”
Briggs and Cromartie, as agents, purchased a $1-million Dynaformer– Western Wind colt during the first session (Sept. 8) of the Keeneland September yearling auction.
Cromartie declined to reveal who would own the colt.
“We were asked to buy the horse for them, and they’re in England,” he said. “Their plan is to send him there.”