Holden, On!

Indiana Racing’s New Kids on the Block

 

By Susanne Reardon

The Holden family recently took up residence in Greenfield, Ind. with every intention of holding their own. While new to the area, Arven Holden and his son, Jay, are no strangers to the horse industry. The family still owns a farm in Eckleson, N.D. and until recently was located on the outskirts of Denver. In November 2008 they purchased a 105-acre Indiana farm that was previously a standardbred operation.

Perfectly placed within 30 miles of both Indiana Downs and Hoosier Park, Holden Farm boasts two barns, several paddocks, and a half mile training track.

Arven Holden, the family patriarch, started in the horse business in the late 1950s. With a focus on quarter horses, his success included the 1967 North Dakota State Halter Futurity winner Firey Dunnet, two time stakes placed Books Alive, and Chicle Book, multiple stakes winner and Top Running Horse in Canada in 1973. Decedents of the line will be racing this fall at Hoosier Park. Arven also found time to be a postal employee for 40 years, and wife Sharon is a retired school librarian. Sister Jill, is involved in the family business as well.

Jay Holden has had the “bug” from childhood, and bred and raised his first winner, Pop N Go Jet, at age nine, selecting the stallion to breed to his mare. After graduating high school, he worked for the Adams County Fair Racetrack in Colorado.

“I was the catch all” at Adams, said the younger Holden , “from hanging up posters, selling tickets and programs, picking up trash and the worst, cleaning up the jocks’ room.” The County Fair experience led to two-and-a-half-years working under distinguished quarter horse trainer Russell Harris at Los Alamitos and Bay Meadows. “That experience was invaluable,” said Holden. “Russell did everything — he was the leading trainer, stood stallions, breeding, breaking horses and sales consigner.”

From Quarter Horses to Thoroughbreds

In 1990, Jay got his training license and assumed the duties for the family stable. In 1994, father and son began to switch their focus from quarter horses to thoroughbreds for, as Jay put it, “more racing opportunity” and “more money to race at.”

The changeover was a complete success. Out of three mares put in foal to graded Stakes winner Fuzzy, all were winners. In 2006, Jay Holden crossed the Rockies with their racing stock to run at Midwest tracks, including Hawthorne, Fairmount Park, Hoosier Park, Churchill Downs, Keeneland, Arlington Park and Turfway Park. When a homebred filly named The Sweetest Rose won at Fairmount Park, and went on to win three races at Hoosier Park, the die was cast. “We knew then our horses could compete here,” he said.

Last year, after serving 10 years on the board of the Colorado Thoroughbred Breeders Association, the family decided to make their new home Indiana. Its central location to Midwest tracks, as well as tough stances against steroids and other illegal substances; lower priced hay and grain; and beautiful green grass - not tumbleweeds, sold them on the heartland. This past summer, Jay became a member of the Indiana Thoroughbred Owners & Breeders Association board of directors.

The line-up of talented stock in the Greenfield operation is apparent. Arven Holden is described as “a true student of foreign bloodlines, both European and Japanese.” Holden’s thirty broodmares include daughters of Nijinsky II, Thunder Gulch, End Sweep, Devil His Due, Explodent, Swiss Yodler, Dayjur and Valid Expectations. Their stakes winning progeny includes Moonlight Maverick, Ladysgotthelooks, Bar Bailey and Make the Deposit.

In the stallion barn, the Holden’s are the first Americans to have owned and stood a son of Sunday Silence in Eishin Masamune (JPN). The horse was purchased in 2002, and his first homebred son, Sunday Romeo, won the Inaugural Stakes at Arapahoe Park in open company. Tragically, the stallion had to be euthanized on arrival in Indiana after breaking his leg in transport.

The star of their current stallion roster is Colonial Colony, the Grade I Stakes winning son of Kentucky Derby winner Pleasant Colony out of the Northern Fashion mare Jen’s Fashion. He won the Steven Foster Handicap at Churchill Downs besting Peace Rules, Southern Image and Perfect Drift. Cats and Dogs, by Storm Cat out of the Alydar mare Alpargarta, was an unraced $1.4 million purchase of Coolmore Stud acquired by Holden at Barretts in 2002. Eckelson, named for the town in North Dakota where the family hails from, is a son of Bahri (sire of Shakee, Arc de Triomphe winner) out of a Spectacular Bid mare, The Very Best Bid, who is also the second dam of champion Ill. bred Wiggins.

 Prospects in Training

As they settle into their new surroundings, the Holden’s have 25 weanlings on the grounds, several yearlings and a dozen horses currently being conditioned and positioned to race in Indiana and Kentucky this fall. Excited about their racing-prospects in-training, the Holden’s made the move to Indiana on the strength of the ITOBA program, purses bolstered by gaming, access to competitive jockeys and a wide variety of race conditions.

“When you start out with great horses, and you’re able to oversee your operation every day, and have grain and hay at a quality prices, you couldn’t ask for much more,” claims the elder Holden.

Sounds like the Holden’s might not be the “new kids on the block” for very long. Contact Holden Farms at 720-218-1581.  

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