By Jessica Martini
Mark Dodson, who grew up on his father's Hopefield Farms in Ontario, took something of a hiatus from the sport to build a company and raise a family, but the Canadian businessman returned to the industry six years ago and has enjoyed quick success with a pair of graded stakes-performing fillies, both slated to go through the ring at next week's Keeneland January Horses of All Ages Sale in Lexington. Through the Eaton Sales consignment, Dodson will offer stakes winner and multiple graded stakes placed Sister Nation (Into Mischief–Evita's Sister, by Candy Ride {Arg}) (hip 622), as well as multiple graded stakes placed Banree (Macho Uno–Grand Glory, by Distorted Humor) (hip 730), during Tuesday's second session of the four-day January sale.
“Fillies like this are hard to come by,” Dodson said. “They are high-caliber. They are both really attractive and with good race records behind them. We wouldn't be going if we didn't think we'd get some good results. They'd be a great addition to any broodmare band including my own.”
Dodson got an early start in racing on his father's 200-acre farm in Georgetown. Among the standouts bred on Stan Dodson's Hopefield Farms was 1992 Canadian champion 3-year-old filly Hope for a Breeze (Briarctic). The farm was represented last year by graded stakes winner Gigantic Breeze (Giant's Causeway), a grandson of Hope for a Breeze.
“My dad has been racing and breeding for about 40 years,” Dodson said. “When I was a kid, he was racing and he had five or six mares that he was breeding. He had some good success for a small operation. So when I was in my teens, in the summers and after school, I would work around the farm. I was cutting grass, cleaning stalls, I was bringing horses in and out and feeding them and doing the whole bit. I was getting $50 a day and I saved that money for a few years. He had some pretty decent mares, so we ended up with a father/son kind of a family foal share agreement. I didn't have much money to offer, but at around the time, horses like Conquistador Cielo, Riverman and El Gran Senor–they were old boys at the time, but obviously very proven horses, and we were breeding on no-guarantee seasons to these old horses. We bred a couple of horses together and sold them as yearlings. And we did pretty well.”
Real life intervened and that early success in the horse business was put on the shelf for a few years.
“I went off to school and I started in business and in my 20s and 30s, I wasn't doing much in the horse business,” Dodson admitted. “We tried pinhooking a few weanlings, which didn't work out that well. And we tried claiming a few horses. I was involved in a couple of syndicates. So I was never completely out of it, but I wasn't particularly active.”
Dodson's steel door manufacturing company Daybar, based in Ontario, employs some 150 workers and has four locations in Canada and the United States.
“It's a big organization and it was taking 100% of my time,” he said. “Plus, I was getting married and having kids.”
Racing started to become more of a focus some six years ago when Paramount Sales' Gabriel Duignan introduced Dodson to bloodstock agent Ben McElroy.
“Ben is an excellent horseman and a really good guy and we hit it off really well,” Dodson recalled. “And I started thinking maybe the better approach would be buying yearlings and trying to create some value that way at the racetrack. So that's kind of how we've gone about it. We're buying pretty much only fillies and we are looking for reasonable pedigrees. We have a budget of $75,000-150,000 per horse, so you have to be realistic. You can't shoot for the stars because the budget is what it is. We're looking to buy two or three a year. Being involved in breeding is wonderful and it's a great experience, but when you are a breeder you hope for the best, you hope you get a good foal. But you get what you get. When you are buying yearlings, you can be picky.”
Among the first crops of yearlings Dodson and McElroy purchased was Banree, who was an $80,000 Keeneland September yearling purchase in 2014. The gray mare, who is a half-sister to graded stakes winner Gloryzapper (Ghostzapper), was second in the 2015 GIII Schuylerville S. and third in the GIII Tempted S. for trainer Wesley Ward. She sells Tuesday as a broodmare prospect (Thorostride video).
Purchased for $85,000 at the 2015 Keeneland September sale, Sister Nation (Thorostride video) won the Ruling Angel S. at Woodbine in October and was third in both the GII Bessarabian S. and GIII Selene S. last year for trainer Michael DePaulo. Her dam, Evita's Sister, is a full-sister to GI La Brea S. winner Evita Argentina.
No matter what happens in the Keeneland sales ring Tuesday, Dodson will still have a member of Sister Nation's family. Through McElroy, Dodson purchased the filly's half-sister by Verrazano for $130,000 at the 2017 Keeneland September sale.
“We obviously like Sister Nation a lot, so we bought her half-sister,” Dodson said. “We think Verrazano has the potential to be a good stallion and hope this filly is going to be a good one, too. We'll keep our fingers crossed. Sister Nation is a very attractive horse and this one is too.”
Dodson, who maintains a small broodmare band of between four and six head, admitted it was a tough decision to offer the two fillies at auction.
“They are all for sale,” he said. “They have to be, right? That's the way that you have to operate. We've got a small operation. We are business people and you have to operate your horse business like a business. They all have to be for sale at any point in time.”
The Keeneland January sale runs Monday through Thursday with sessions beginning daily at 10 a.m.
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