Crane Makes Barretts Debut

by Jessica Martini 
Joanna and Clovis Crane’s Crane Thoroughbreds will offer its first consignment at Barretts when two juveniles go through the sales ring during Monday’s March Sale of Selected 2-Year-Olds in Training in Pomona, California. 
The operation, based in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, offers a myriad of services, from breaking and training to foaling and sales preparation, but the couple is looking to streamline the business and focus more squarely on pinhooking. 
“My wife and I, we’ve dabbled in everything,” Clovis Crane admitted through the raindrops at the Barretts sales grounds Friday. “But now we’re just going to pinhook and sell horses. That’s what we enjoy and that is our passion. So we’re going to focus more solely on that. We’re going to cut back on everything and refocus strictly on the pinhooking and breaking horses. That’s always been our main focus, but we’ve always had to do so many other things to make ends meet. But now we think we are established enough and we want to be known as some of the best pinhookers in the country.” 
Crone Thoroughbreds has 44 juveniles scheduled to be offered at the 2-year-old sales this spring, but its first Barretts consignment was intentionally small. 
“We’re excited to be here,” Crane said. “The reason we came out here was to expose ourselves to different people to see what happens here, to see if it’s a market we want to keep coming back to. We need to establish relationships and that is why we brought a small group of horses here. We had nine horses that we thought about bringing, but being the first time, we just wanted to bring a small group and feel our way around and bring horses that we thought would be good for the market and see how we do. Hopefully next year, we’ll bring six or nine.” 
First up for the operation Monday will be hip 78, a colt from the first crop of multiple graded stakes winner Munnings (Speightstown). The chestnut, out of stakes winner Afare (Meadowlake), worked a furlong during Thursday’s preview in :10 flat. The second offering, hip 107, is a colt by Scat Daddy out of Dream Date Diva (Gulch). The chestnut worked in :10 1/5. Both were purchased as yearlings at Keeneland last September. 
“My main partner is Dr. [Harry] Weisleder and he’s partners on both of those horses,” Clone said. “The Scat Daddy is in a partnership with my best friend, my wife’s sister, Dr. Weisleder and my wife and I. It’s exciting–it’s a family affair.” 
As for what he looks for in a pinhooking prospect, Crone laughed, “Most of the time I don’t get to buy what I want. I see Ciaran Dunne and these other guys get to buy what I want.” 
Still Crone takes advantage of what others might perceive as a negative. 
“A lot of times I’ll buy a May foal because I can afford them,” he explained. “A lot of people can’t see what they are going to develop into. Like the Munnings colt–he’s a May foal and I got to buy him because he wasn’t real big when I bought him, but I could see the silhouette was there that I needed. He looked precocious as could be, it was just that he was a May foal and he wasn’t developed yet. I brought him home and he grew and he developed into what I thought. It’s an early sale and I hate to bring a May foal to an early sale, but he developed correctly, he was forward going. He was a very, very nice horse and he hasn’t done anything wrong. He hasn’t missed any training all winter. It allowed me to bring him here even though he is a May foal, but I was very cognizant of it. I was in heavy debate because I don’t want to hurt him.” 
Crone, who rode races for two years in his mid-teens, is a third generation horseman. His father and uncle and his wife’s father are all trainers. Despite the strong local family ties, he admitted the couple is currently weighing a possible move to Ocala, particularly in the wake of a harsh winter in western Pennsylvania. 
“There are so many positives to staying in Pennsylvania,” Crone commented. “Everything is cheaper in Pennsylvania. Your feed is a lot cheaper, your hay is a lot cheaper, your help is a lot cheaper. But the problem with that is–this winter has been a brutal winter. We’ve been blessed the last three or four winters have been very good to us and we’ve been able to not miss much training. But that’s not typical. This year we had a typical winter and we have more horses than we ever had. It’s amazing that I got these horses ready. It was a lot of stress. I want to focus on training horses and doing a good job. And Pennsylvania right now is hindering me and that’s why there is a debate going on. There is a lot of security in Pennsylvania. I have a lot of business there that is local. I’ve spent 10 years establishing that, so it’s hard to give that up. It’s scary when you have an established, growing business to leave that behind. But then, too, nothing ventured nothing gained. We think we can do a better job with the pinhooking and breaking horses in Florida and it’s just a matter of if we can gather the clientele. That’s the definitive factor; if we can have enough of a following or new people come to us if we moved to Ocala, then we’d probably move.” 
Temperatures in Lebanon when Clone left for sunny California were well below zero and the native Pennsylvanian admitted it might be his wife who deserves much of the credit for the operation’s success. 
“Joanna probably does more work than I do,” Crane laughed. “We have three kids and she runs the books and takes care of the kids. I’m gone right now and there’s no boss. She’s the boss and there are 80 horses at the farm right now, either broodmares or horses in training. She foals the broodmares. She’s amazing.” 
Whether Crone Thoroughbreds stays in Pennsylvania or heads south to Florida, Crone has a clear vision of how he wants his operation to be perceived. 
“We want to be known as honest and that we do a good job,” he said. “That when horses come from us, they are good broke and ready to go. These [Barretts] horses are gate broke. They don’t have a card, but all that is is a matter of break them and get a card. Typically when we sell at Timonium, we have a gate card and we have them tatooed. It’s just a little something extra that we do. The last couple of years, people said, ‘Clovis, you’re making us look bad coming here with gate cards and tattoos. That’s something none of us do.’ But that’s what I want to be known as. I’m willing to work.”