Kenny Troutt’s WinStar Farm was recognized at Saturday night’s Eclipse Award ceremony with their first Outstanding Breeder Award, realizing a dream that began when the farm was established in 2000.
WinStar led all breeders in earnings last year with their 237 starters earning $10,516,427, with 239 wins, 184 seconds and 184 thirds in 1,417 starts. They were also the leading breeder by number of graded wins with 12, four of which were in Grade Ones.
WinStar’s President and CEO took the stage to accept the award:
“This is a great honor. Congratulations to all the breeders out there; Clearsky and Darley had a great year. Of all the awards presented tonight, I think the breeder is one of the most collaborative efforts, because you have the stallion team, the broodmares, the yearlings, the owners that buy our horses at the sales, the trainers that they give them to. And I do want to thank a few people. Our broodmare manager and his team, Jeff Danford, our yearling manager Donnie Preston and his team and our training division, Richard Budge and his team, Gerry Davis and his team. Larry McGinnis does an awesome job with our stallions and his team. our vet Natanya Nieman has been there from the beginning. and CFO Jack Mullikin and our good friend and general manager David Hanley. And Kenny and Lisa Troutt have given us the resources to get up every morning and work hard and make the dream possible.”
Walden referred to Clearsky and Darley, who were also finalists for the Award.
WinStar has added four new stallions to their stellar roster for 2017: Exxagerator, a 3-time Grade 1 winner in 2016; Outwork, the most exciting son of Uncle Mo to enter stud; Speightster, a beautifully bred son of WinStar stallion Speightstown; and Tourist, fastest winner ever of the Breeders’ Cup Mile (G1).