Ma'am

Horses seem to always be at the center of Brent and Sharilyn Gasaway's life. As the story goes, the day Brent proposed he ran late because, of course, he was at the racetrack. Even though she was none too pleased, Sharilyn confirmed the end result was an affirmative one. By now you have probably heard how their ownership group 4 G Racing--which includes the couple and their twin son and daughter, Brent's cousin Lance Gasaway, and Daniel Hamby III--paired with Valley View Farm to reach one of the apogees in...

When it came time for Ma'am (Colonel John) to retire from the racetrack back in 2018, one of her owners Lance Gasaway began plotting how his star racehorse would live out her days at his home in Arkansas. Then the mare's trainer Kenny McPeek stepped in. Prior to Ma'am, Gasaway had only owned a handful of Arkansas-breds and he knew next to nothing about the breeding business. McPeek explained that with her pedigree, soundness and easygoing nature, Ma'am had all the credentials to become a good broodmare. Six years later,...

Before anything else, first and foremost we need to acknowledge the unfathomable legacy of Darling My Darling (Deputy Minister) as second dam of both colts denied in an agonizing three-way finish to the GI Kentucky Derby. The odds of that coincidence, for all her elite blood and performance, are best be left to an actuary. In the meantime, however, we should salvage the contrasting narratives aptly condensed, in what remains the definitive test of the American Thoroughbred, by her two grandsons. For our collective obsession with first place is such...