Where Are They Now? Grindstone

by Bill Finley, Special to espn.com

The day was May 4, 1996, and at that moment, Grindstone was the most famous racehorse on the planet. With Jerry Bailey somehow getting the horse into a gear no one knew he had, he flew through the stretch to nail Cavonnier on the wire and win the Kentucky Derby by a nose.

Then he all but disappeared. Grindstone never raced again.

He went off to Overbrook Farm in Kentucky to stand at stud and produced one outstanding horse, Birdstone. He won the Belmont, Travers and Champagne. But Grindstone was more or less a one-hit wonder as a sire.

When Overbrook owner William T. Young died, his heirs closed the farm and dispersed the stallions. But who would want Grindstone, an older stallion without much of a record of success? There was some speculation that they would simply retire him and let him live out the rest of his life in Kentucky.

Then a guy from Oregon called.

Jack Root owns Oakhurst Thoroughbreds, one of a handful of breeding operations in Oregon, which is about as small as it gets when it comes to the racing and breeding industries. He figured Grindstone could be a productive sire in Oregon, plus he admits to being a little starstruck. So he worked out a deal to bring the 1996 Kentucky Derby winner to Oregon.

“To have Grindstone, a Kentucky Derby winner, is a dream come true, ” he said. “I just never thought it would happen to me. It’s a thrill of a lifetime.”

Grindstone arrived in Oregon in 2009, was first bred there in 2010 and his oldest Oregon-breds are now three. Granted, he’s playing in the minor leagues, but just as Root expected, he’s emerged as a star sire in his new home state.

On Sunday, Portland Meadows will hold its annual Oregon Champions Day and sons and daughters of Grindstone are all over the card. There are four Oregon-bred stakes on the card for two and three-year-olds and the combined fields include 16 Grindstones. With 28 starters in those four races, he represents 57 percent of the fields.

“His first crop here was just okay,” Root said. “But his current 2-year-olds are very good and I’m really excited about them.”

Nonetheless, breeding horses in Oregon is a tough business. The biggest purse on Sunday’s champion’s day card is $13,000.

“In general, the small regional breeding markets have been torturous and the breeding industry all around is declining,” Root said. “Around 2005, they were breeding 35,000 babies in the U.S. every year and now it’s down to around 21,000. The regional markets have been horrible. The number of Oregon-breds is now down to about 100 a year and only a few years ago it was 200, 250. And only a few years before that it was around 400.” 

Root himself breeds about 15 mares a year to Grindstone, which is a help. He says the hope is that one of them can emerge out of Oregon and make decent money on another circuit.

“I figure these horses are like lottery tickets,” he said. “Like lottery tickets, most of them are not going to make any money at all. Once in a while, you’ll get one that will make you a little money, but what we’re all hoping for is the jackpot.” 

Root has a Grindstone based in Kentucky with Wayne Lukas who won a $16,000 maiden claimer before getting drubbed in an allowance race. The best Grindstone right now is Koffee Grinder, who has made $139,055 racing in British Columbia and may be named 3-year-old champion in the province. 

Root is a practicing equine veterinarian and he says that is where his income comes from. He’d like to make money breeding Grindstone, whose stud fee is $2,500, but says a more realistic goal is to break even.

But that’s fine with him. He’s a small-time breeder in a small-time racing state and he gets to rub elbows with an equine icon, a Kentucky Derby winner.

“Absolutely, he’s a celebrity around here,” he said. “We get total strangers who call up and want to see him. That includes people with no connection to horse racing at all. The local media has been very nice to us. The last two years around Derby time, the local TV stations came out and aired a five-minute piece about Grindstone. So we get random people who call up and say ‘can we see Grindstone?’ and our answer is always yes. Every night before I go to bed, I go through the barn and make sure everyone is okay and look at him and say ‘Goodnight, Kentucky Derby winner.’”

Reprinted with the permission of espn.com.