Keeneland Photo
Foundation Builders Presented By Keeneland: Marion Ravenwood Built On A Good Thing For Ashview Farm
Thoroughbred breeding is filled with axioms that serve as a shorthand for how the business works, and how much of it can come down to fate.
"Breed the best to the best, and hope for the best" is the perhaps the best-known example of those sayings.
For Gray Lyster of Ashview Farm, the mantra that led Marion Ravenwood to success as a member of the operation's broodmare band was "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Before Marion Ravenwood, a stakes-winning A.P. Indy mare, sold to Ashview Farm and Colts Neck Stable for $400,000 as Hip 282 of the 2017 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale, Lyster was at Denali Stud in Paris, Ky., looking over the mare's weanling Curlin colt, and he liked what he saw.
His instinct was right. That colt went on to become Grade 1 winner and Kentucky stallion Idol.
No one knew that at the time, though, and when Lyster was considering adding Marion Ravenwood to the Ashview string, her page didn't have much for upward momentum.
"I worked closely with Joe Miller who's a good friend of Lincoln Collins (advisor for the late Leonard Riggio's My Meadowview, who owned the mare), and they gave me some confidence in the first couple of foals because frankly, the only reason she was in my buying range was because the appearance on paper was as if she hadn't worked out for the previous owner, which wasn't the case whatsoever," Lyster said. "The owner was downsizing his broodmare band, so having that confidence gave me the opportunity and put her in my price range.
"If you look at the mare, she was just beautiful and quality," Lyster continued. "Not like beautiful commercial, just beautiful. A quality A.P. Indy, just one of those classic-looking mares."
Idol was Marion Ravenwood's third foal, and the first two hadn't done much to further her cause. The first, a Tiznow colt named Total Cooperation, was unplaced at the time the catalog was printed, while Ark in the Dark, a colt by Midnight Lute, was unraced (he'd go on to win five races and make over $230,000 by the end of his career.). Furthermore, she was not mated the year before she produced Idol, giving her an early hole in her produce record.
Even with all of that on the table, Conrad Bandoroff of Denali Stud expressed some reservations with letting her go through the sale. Denali Stud ended up consigning the mare for My Meadowview.
"We said we really liked the foals she's been throwing, and I think it would be a mistake to sell her," Bandoroff said. "In hindsight, I wish we'd have bought her ourselves, but she sold really well. Colts Neck and the Lysters bought her, and the rest is history."
Marion Ravenwood sold pregnant to Pioneerof the Nile, which produced the colt Dr Jack. The colt sold for $250,000, and he became a multiple stakes-placed runner.
When it came time to plan Marion Ravenwood's first mating under the Ashview/Colts Neck banner, Lyster remembered how he felt when he saw a young Idol, and the conversation he had with Miller at the time.
"He's like, 'Buddy, I'm telling you, the foal back of the farm is a really nice foal. If you could replicate that, you'd be excited,'" Lyster said. "And so I said, 'Well, I don't need to overthink this. My friend and bloodstock agent is telling me that the mare has a beautiful Curlin colt.
Why don't I breed her back to Curlin?'
Recommended for You
"I'd love to tell you that I slaved over pedigrees, and did that all night long for weeks, but frankly, it was that easy," he continued.
Once again, Lyster's instinct was dead-on. He sent Marion Ravenwood back to Curlin, and he got the champion Nest.
After selling for $375,000 at the 2020 Keeneland September Yearling Sale, Nest would earn $2.1 million on the racetrack for Repole Stable, Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, and Michael House, including a trio of Grade 1 victories. She earned the Eclipse Award as champion 3-year-old filly of 2022, and she later sold for $6 million.
While Nest was grabbing headlines, her full-brother Idol, two years her senior, was wrapping up his own on-track career, which was highlighted by a victory in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap. He also set the track record for 1 3/16 miles at Churchill Downs in a 2020 allowance victory, going in 1:55.97. The record stood until 2024.
The hits kept coming for Ashview and Colts Neck with Marion Ravenwood's next foal, the Violence colt Lost Ark, who sold for $275,000 as a yearling, and went on to a multiple stakes-winning career that included a victory in the 2023 Jockey Club Derby Invitational.
Lost Ark was the final foal out of Marion Ravenwood that was bred by Ashview and Colts Neck. By the time he was born and racing, Idol and Nest were beginning to put the mare's name on the map, and the commercial market came knocking.
"Purchasing her was at the top of our range of where we purchased broodmares," Lyster said. "I think she's the most expensive broodmare we purchased in a long time.
"I like to tell people if they become worth seven figures, it's our business model to sell them, usually move them along," he continued. "Do I wish I had her forever?
Yes.
Do I wish I had three daughters forever?
Yes.
But frankly I'm a commercial breeder, and she put herself at a value that I wanted somebody else to own her and I wanted to work on tuition for my kids to school."
Ashview Farm consigned Marion Ravenwood at the 2022 Keeneland November sale, pregnant again to Curlin, and she sold to the Coolmore partnership for $2.6 million.
The ensuing colt, a full-brother to Nest and Idol, is a yearling of 2024. She was unsuccessfully bred to Into Mischief for the 2024 foaling season, and she was bred to Gun Runner for 2025.
