Blue Grass Winner Halory Hunter Moving to Iowa

Halory Hunter, who won the 1998 Toyota Blue Grass Stakes (gr. II) for the Celtic Pride Stable of basketball coach Rick Pitino, is being moved for the 2002 breeding season from William S. Farish's Lane's End Farm in Versailles, Ky., to Wade and Fred Feuring's Rockin River Ranch in Winterset, Iowa.

Rockin River is acquiring the son of Jade Hunter -- Halory, by Halo, on a year-to-year lease agreement, said Jeff Greseth, who helped arrange the deal for the Feurings. Halory Hunter will remain the property of a syndicate, and his stud fee will be $2,500 live foal, payable Sept. 1. Halory Hunter's first-year stud fee in 1999 was $7,500; in 2001, he stood for $5,000.

Rockin River also stood Kyle's Our Man, Mercedes Won, and At the Threshold during the 2001 breeding season.

Trained by Nick Zito, Halory Hunter won three of 10 career starts and earned $713,120. In addition to his Blue Grass victory, he was second in the Remsen Stakes (gr. I) and third in the Florida Derby (gr. I), Moet Champagne Stakes (gr. I), and Fountain of Youth Stakes (gr. II). He finished fourth in the 1998 Kentucky Derby (gr. I), closing from 15 1/4 lengths back to be beaten 2 3/4 lengths by Real Quiet, then suffered a career-ending injury to his left foreleg five days before the Preakness Stakes (gr. I).

Halory Hunter was purchased as a 2-year-old by Zito and Shelby Spano on behalf of Pitino for $135,000 at a dispersal of breeder Elmendorf Farm's racing stock at Keeneland in April 1997. He is a half-brother to graded stakes winners Prory, Brushed Halory, and Key Lory. Halory Hunter's half-brother by Storm Cat recently sold for $6.4 million to top the Keeneland September yearling sale.

Halory Hunter's first foals are yearlings of 2001, with 17 from his crop of 48 having sold thus far this year for an average price of $10,679, topped by a filly and colt that sold for $40,000 each.