Polk Keeping Normandy Heritage Alive

Nancy Polk, who will be represented by a pair of offerings during next week’s Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Selected Yearlings Sale, purchased Normandy Farm in 1997, but the Michigan native sees herself more as caretaker than owner of the historic Lexington property.

“It is a wonderful old farm with a lot of history,” Polk said. “I feel as if I’m a caretaker for the next person who comes along. I’ve done some restorations and tried to make it better than it was when I bought it. It’s been a labor of love.”

Normandy Farm was previously part of Elmendorf Farm. Among the distinguished residents of the Paris Pike property’s equestrian cemetery are Fair Play and Mahubah–sire and dam of the great Man o’ War.

Polk was only a fan of racing who was looking for a new challenge when she first saw the Normandy property nearly two decades ago.

“I ended up falling in love with Normandy Farm in Lexington,” she explained. “I bought it and started out from scratch in the horse business. I had no experience. I knew I wanted to get involved in the industry, but I didn’t know how. I figured there were a lot of perils involved, but the one that seemed the least perilous to me was breeding. So that is the direction I’ve gone in.”

Polk admitted she has learned a lot in her time in the breeding industry and she has had a lot of help along the way.

“I was fortunate enough to have some people who have steered me in the right direction,” she said. “I found some good advisors who got me started. And I’ve gone on and learned as much as I could along the way. You do pick up things here and there. But you have to work at it.”

Normandy Farm, managed by J. R. Sebastian, has a commercial broodmare band of 16.

“Basically we are breeding to sell,” Polk said. “Every once in a while, we’ll keep one. I’m keeping one this year out of a mare that we had to put down due to old age. I wanted to keep one of her daughters and we kept this last one and we’ll be racing it next year.”

Polk admitted it isn’t always easy selling her foals.

“I fall in love with a lot of them,” she chuckled. “I’d love to race them all, but that’s not practical. So we don’t do that.”

Normandy Farm’s first Saratoga offering this year will sell late in Monday’s first session of the two-day auction. Hip 102, a colt by Scat Daddy, will sell through the Gainesway consignment. The youngster is the second foal out of the graded stakes placed Holdontoyourdream, who is a half-sister to graded stakes winner Liam’s Dream (Saint Liam) and from the family of Distorted Humor.

Polk purchased Holdontoyourdream, in foal to More Than Ready, for $105,000 at the 2012 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky November sale.

“She was a good-looking mare and she was from a very good family,” Polk said of Holdontoyourdream’s appeal. “And when I am thinking of breeding, obviously I want to have good families involved. So she fit the bill.”

Polk’s association with her second Saratoga yearling, hip 139, goes back a little further. The chestnut filly, a daughter of Candy Ride (Arg), sells Tuesday evening through the Warrendale Sales consignment. Out of Normandy’s Nell (Mt. Livermore), she is a second generation Normandy homebred.

“She is special because her mare was a homebred,” Polk said. “I bought Prospect Digger and then kept one of her daughters–Normandy’s Nell–and raced her and now she is a broodmare herself. So it’s the second generation with that particular horse. It’s been fun to watch the family develop.”

Normandy’s Nell is the dam of stakes winner Culotte (Sky Mesa) and stakes placed Sustainable (Forestry) and is a half-sister to Grade I winner Famous Digger (Quest for Fame {GB}).

Polk is looking forward to seeing her yearlings go through the sales ring next week.

“I think they’ll do just fine,” she said of the duo. “You always keep your fingers crossed, so we’ll be hoping for the best.”

After starting from scratch in the late 1990s, Polk is clearly enjoying the breeding industry.

“It really has fulfilled my expectations,” she said. “It has been a great experience. Highs and lows, obviously. Some of both, but overall it’s been very good.”

The Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale opens its two-day run at the Humphrey S. Finney Pavilion next Monday with bidding beginning at 7 p.m.