After Late Start, Slack has Stoneriggs Hitting Its Stride on all Fronts

Robert Slack, celebrating his 78th birthday last Tuesday, had a ready answer when asked about his goals for his Kentucky-based Stoneriggs Farm. “Live long enough to watch it prosper,” he said with a chuckle. “I wish I had gotten into it 10 years earlier, but I wasn't able to at that stage.”

Stoneriggs Farm has been in operation in Paris, Kentucky for just four years, but Slack is already well on his way to realizing that goal, not just in the sales ring, but also on the racetrack where the farm's first crop of 23 juveniles included a Breeders' Cup runner in 2024. Yet the 600-acre operation came about almost by accident in the spring of 2021.

“My family has a long history in the horse business,” Slack said. “I have an autobiography that my maternal grandfather wrote and he goes back into the 1800s and he was racing horses then. In England, my niece and nephew are both registered horse trainers.”

Slack emigrated to the U.S. in 1979 and formed his own scion of the family's English racing heritage with the purchase of a farm in Florida in 1996.

“We had breeding, breaking and training and quarantining, a full range of equine services,” Slack said of the first version of the American Stoneriggs Farm.

Business interests in the Sunshine State briefly overtook Slack's passion for racing.

“I sold the farm in 2006,” he said. “I got out and formed a real estate company. I was absolutely blessed that the business took off. I sold it about four years ago, which enabled me to buy a fairly substantial farm just outside Paris.”

But the purchase of the former Kilflynn Farm on Winchester Road hadn't really been in Slack's long-term plan.

“When I was in real estate, I was claiming and racing one or two fillies with an idea that I would breed from them when they were done,” Slack said. “But I never thought I was going to buy a farm. I thought I was just going to board them in Kentucky. But they are kind of like rabbits. You start with a half a dozen and the next thing you know, you've got 100.

“I saw this farm advertised and I just loved the look of it,” he continued. “I had never been there. I called my son and said, 'Hey, should we take a ride to Kentucky tomorrow afternoon?' We flew up to Kentucky, had the realtor meet us at the airport and we drove out to the farm. I was even more enamored with it when I saw it then I was in print. So, I made an offer and bought it. At that time, I had about eight mares that I was boarding at that time. So it was kind of a big step for eight mares.”

The property grew to its 600 acres with the eventual purchase of the adjoining farm.

“We put a bridge over the stream and joined the two [properties] together,” Slack said. “It has very good soil and we are able to raise very good yearlings. It does really well.”

Coming up with a name for the farm was an easy choice and the property became Stoneriggs Farm as an homage to his parents' farm back in Cumbria.

“I called it Stoneriggs because I grew up on a farm in Northern England, my father owned it and its name is Stoneriggs,” Slack explained. “My brother lives there now. He was born on the farm and he's now 83 and he is still there. And so, he has Stoneriggs over there and I've got Stoneriggs over here. It was a natural naming.”

So in April 2021, Slack had a large Kentucky farm and just eight mares. He soon rectified the situation with a buying spree at the breeding stock sales that fall. He purchased 17 horses at that year's Keeneland November sale and a pair at Fasig-Tipton in November and the following February.

Governor Sam | Coady Media

Among his Keeneland acquisitions was I'm Betty G (Into Mischief), who sold for $275,000 while in foal to Improbable. That in utero foal went on to become stakes-winner Governor Sam, who finished third in last year's GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint.

Stoneriggs has had success in the sales ring, as well, with a colt by Quality Road (hip 144) bred in a foal-share with Lane's End bringing $725,000–a highwater mark for the fledgling operation–at the 2023 Keeneland September sale. The farm sold 22 yearlings for $3,204,000, including a $550,000 daughter of Curlin (hip 709), at the 2024 Keeneland September sale and the strong results continued at the Keeneland January sale earlier this month when Stoneriggs sold the co-session topping short yearling–a $300,000 daughter of Justify (hip 578)–during the auction's second day.

“We like to keep between 60 and 70 mares,” Slack said of the Stoneriggs broodmare band. “And we don't have any boarders. We are totally private. We have 600 acres, so all of the horses have plenty of space. It's not what they call over-horsed at all. And we like it like that.”

A large number of the broodmares in the Stoneriggs band have been acquired at auction, but some of those original eight former claimers are still around and have a special spot in Slack's heart.

“We have a mare, Lucky Long (Lookin at Lucky), that I claimed for $25,000 at Saratoga,” Slack said. “We shipped her down to Florida and she won $250,000 for us at Gulfstream. We retired her and the first year, we bred her to Malibu Moon.”

The mare's first foal is stakes-placed Autumn Evening, who sold for $135,000 at the 2023 OBS April sale and has now earned $234,670 on the track. Lucky Long's 3-year-old, A. Z. Wildcat (Munnings) sold for $200,000 at the 2023 Keeneland September sale.

“Her 3-year-old is with John Sadler at Santa Anita and there are high expectations for her,” Slack said. “Lucky Long is definitely going to be a Stoneriggs resident forever. And talking about tugging at the heart strings, when I sell one of hers, it tugs a little bit because we have such a long association with her. She was a very good mare and she won a lot of money for us. She used to try 110% every time she was out there.”

Lucky Long | Ryan Thompson

While the main focus of the operation is to sell its foals as yearlings, Slack admitted selling isn't limited to the summer and early fall.

“I am a bit of a horse trader at heart, I've discovered,” he said. “So we sell horses year round. We sell a few weanlings and a few mares off the bottom. And we will sell a few short yearlings in January, two or three in February. But realistically, a large part of our business plan is that we will sell our yearlings in September.”

Slack began consigning his homebreds under the Stoneriggs banner at the 2022 Fasig-Tipton July Sale.

“We take our staff from the farm to work the consignment,” Slack said. “They know every intricacy of each horse. If people ask Martin Keogh, who is our manager, questions, we know everything about those horses because we have been around them since they were born. So we feel we are better equipped to sell them then most professional consignors.”

Stoneriggs does not currently have any horses in training, but farm's colors might appear on the track sometime soon.

“I do have some in pre-training,” Slack said. “Inevitably when you raise quite a few horses, there are some that you don't get sold at the yearling sales and so generally, we send them to Ocala to get broke and get them ready for the track. Some of them go to 2-year-old sales and we will be racing two or three of them in the future.”

The family's passion for racing, which began in the 1800s, looks set to carry on to the next generation.

“My son Elliot lives on the farm,” Slack said. “He is ex-military and needed a little time to decompress when he got out of the military and was looking for something to do. He really liked the farm life in Kentucky and so he moved up there. And he enjoys it tremendously.”

With frigid temperatures in Kentucky, Slack was ensconced in his Florida home for the season, but still was busy at work on the farm's mating plans for the spring.

“I do most of the matings myself, just to keep my mind active,” he said. “And then when it's breeding season, I make the appointments at the breeding sheds, just to keep me busy and keep me active in the business.”

Slack commended the staff at the farm for keeping things moving smoothly all through the year.

“We have a very good staff, starting with Martin Keogh,” Slack said. “Being that I don't go to Kentucky in the winter, I have implicit faith in him to do everything. And all the other staff do a very good job.”

Just four years into his unexpected entry into the Kentucky breeding scene, Slack is enjoying the ride.

“I enjoy the farm and I like to see it do well and get a good name in the business,” he said. “I like to see how good the babies are that we raise on the farm and how everyone really is very complimentary about the way our horses are presented at auction. It's very exciting.”