By Mark Hansel
NKyTribune contributor
Emilie Fojan has had some special horses at Bona Terra Stud farm near Lexington, but the one that is currently on the Kentucky Derby trail might be the best yet. Dortmund, bred by Fojan at Bona Terra, captured the win in Saturday’s Grade II, 1 1/16 mile San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita and is now five for five in lifetime starts with 70 Derby Points.
After capturing the Grade I Los Alamitos Futurity in December as a 2-year-old, Dortmund followed with a win in the Grade II Robert B. Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita in his 3-year-old debut in February. Both were hard-fought races at 1 1/16 miles against top tier competition, the type horsemen like to see from horses on the Derby trail. He also won a 1-mile allowance race at Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby, last year.
Fojan said it is very rewarding to see persistence and patience pay off with what some are saying could be a very special horse.
“I was waiting on this horse because I liked him so much from the time he was a baby,” Fojan said.
Dortmund has always been a big horse and, at 17.2 hands and nearly 1,300 pounds, looks like a stallion among colts on the racetrack.
While his ability to get the distance in the Triple Crown races are not in question, there are concerns that his size could be a detriment in a crowded Kentucky Derby. Traffic problems are almost inevitable in the 20-horse Derby field and big horses usually run best when they can wind up and keep running.
Fojan said that is not a concern and points to Dortmund’s 7-furlong workout in 1:25.60 in preparation for the San Felipe. After crossing the finish line, Dortmund instinctively let up, but the rider urged him on and he accelerated again to finish with a strong final furlong.
“He hooked (another horse) by total accident and just sat behind and zoomed by him, then galloped out in 1:38 (for the mile),” Fojan said. “It was really impressive the way he started running again when asked.”
Fojan and her fiancé and business partner, George Brunacini, started Bona Terra in 1996. Tragically, Brunacini died, along with 46 other passengers and two crew members, in the crash of Comair Flight 5191 in Lexington in 2006.
“He loved racing,” Fojan said. “If it was up to him he would have raced a horse every day.”
At that time, Fojan had about 160 horses on the farm, including 25 horses in training and 50 mares. Now she has about 25 mares and trains mostly the horses she can’t sell.
Fojan runs many of her horses locally, including at Turfway Park, where she talked about Dortmund while preparing Our Marisol, a 3-year-old filly, for a maiden race.
“I have about six or eight in training,” Fojan said. “I have some clients in different places and they buy them for me just before they run. I’m such a racing enthusiast that it helps that I’m training a little too, because I always want to see the end product.”
While Dortmund is firing Triple Crown passions for owner Kaleem Shah and trainer Bob Baffert, he is not the only horse of note to emerge from Bona Terra.
With just three full-time employees and a part-time night watchman, Fojan and Bona Terra have developed some of the finest horses in recent memory.
Flower Alley, Dullahan and Mine That Bird were all bred at the 200-acre farm in Georgetown.
“It is a lot of luck, but really it’s genetics too,” Fojan said. “And of course they have to have the heart and the determination.”
Dullahan, a Grade I winner that amassed more than $1.7 million in career earnings, was bred by Phil Needham, and raised at Bona Terra before being purchased by Donegal racing as a yearling.
He won the Breeder’s Futurity Stakes at Keeneland as a 2-year-old in 2011 and at 3 won the Bluegrass Stakes there, and finished third in the Kentucky Derby. Later that year, he defeated older horses in the Pacific Classic at Del Mar in a field that included Game On Dude.
“I knew Dullahan was going to be a good one right away, too,” Fojan said. “It’s something you can’t describe and it’s mostly in the eye and the demeanor. From the time they are babies, they are more confident and you can just tell.”
Flower Alley collected more than $2.5 million in a career highlighted by wins in the Grade I Travers Stakes and Grade II Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga in 2005. He also won the Grade II Lanes End (now the Spiral Stakes) at Turfway Park that year and ran ninth in the Kentucky Derby after a poor start.
“Now we didn’t know with Flower Alley because he just seemed so average,” Fojan said. “He was the one that really surprised us.”
Mine That Bird won the Kentucky Derby in 2009 and was also bred at Bona Terra, but Fojan said her connection to him was not as strong.
Mine That Bird earned $2.2 million in his racing career and finished second in the Preakness and third in the Belmont Stakes.
Then there’s Joseph the Catfish, a 5-year-old, one-eyed horse, who gained notoriety for leaving the racetrack.
In March 2013, Joseph bolted from the track at Turfway Park and raced through the streets of Florence before being collared by an outrider just before entering Interstate 75.
Joseph survived the incident largely unscathed and resumed his racing career, even winning a couple of races.
“I have him on the walker now and he’s getting ready to race again,” Fojan said. “I was so proud of him because most horses would have shut down after that, but he has really filled out.”
Joseph the Catfish, a son of Mineshaft, has the same dam as Dortmund, Our Josephina.
Despite their common lineage, Dortmund, whose sire is Big Brown, winner of the 2008 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, might soon be mentioned in the same breath as some of the all-time greats. Joseph the Catfish, on the other hand, will likely be best-remembered for his race to the interstate.
Fojan speaks of both with equal fondness, however, and said the different paths of the horses show just how inexact the science of thoroughbred breeding is.
“We all work really hard, and we all do the same thing and have a lot of sleepless nights,” Fojan said. “We wait almost three years for our babies to run and sooner or later, you are going to get lucky. It’s not that this person knows more than that person, it’s just consistency.”
It’s one of the reasons Fojan continued to breed Our Josephina, who also stands more than 17 hands, to quality stallions such as Medaglia d’Oro, Fusaichi Pegasus and Big Brown.
“She could have been an amazing mare and when we were racing her, she had a lip in her knee, but she could run 1:09 (for 6 furlongs) easily,” Fojan said. “I like to get as close as possible to Northern Dancer, so I kept her inbreeding to Danzig. I really always believed she would have a good horse one day and I didn’t give up.”
The perseverance is paying off.
Fojan sold Dortmund for $90,000 as a yearling and despite his success (he has already banked more than $600,000 with Saturday’s San Felipe win), says she knows she made the best decision for the horse.
“I would have never kept him because he is so big, he wouldn’t have run until his late 3-year-old year,” Fojan said. “They have done great with him. You always want to breed the ultimate horse, but it’s hard because you have to breed to the commercial market and we may have both with him.”
The connections have Dortmund pointed to the $1 million Grade I Santa Anita Derby on April 4.
Fojan was not at Saturday’s race because she has some mares to attend to, but hopes to make the trip to California for the Santa Anita Derby.
The ultimate goal is to be in the winner’s circle at the Kentucky Derby. That’s a tall order, of course, and the strongest competition could come from another Baffert horse, the highly regarded American Pharaoh.
No matter the outcome, if Dortmund makes the starting gate on the first Saturday in May, Fojan said it will fulfill a lifelong dream and she will be there.
“That’s what we all hope for,” Fojan said. “That would be lovely.”