Hall Of Fame - Western Ideal
p,2,1:54.3f; 1:48 Earnings: $1,455,422
H, 1995 By Western Hanover-Leah Almahurst, by Abercrombie
Background & Current Status
Bred by: Brittany Farms
Sale history: Retained for racing
Owned (during his racing career) by: Brittany Farms
Trained by: Alan Riegle, Blair Burgess, Brett Pelling
Current status: Hanover Shoe Farms stallion
Racing Credentials: World Champion. In 2000: "Older Pacing Horse of the Year," Canadian record-holder and leading money-winning older pacer.
Major Stakes Victories: Breeders Crown, William Haughton Memorial, Canadian Pacing Derby (track and stakes record) and Graduate Series.
Western Ideal, the handsome and royally-bred son of Western Hanover from millionaire, blue-hen mare Leah Almahurst p,3,1:52.3, was a World Champion and classics winner on the racetrack, and is yet another example of the Brittany-bred horses who have gone on to even greater acclaim as harness racing's leading commercial sires.
The highly regarded colt was a stakes winner at 2, but severely injured a tendon late in his freshman season. After missing his 3-year-old campaign, he was brought back slowly, with an appreciation of his potential for greatness. He well fulfilled that potential, becoming a World Champion and the sport's fastest older pacer and leading money-winner in 2000.
He enjoyed immediate commercial success as a stallion at Hanover Shoe Farms. From his first crop of foals, he sired the sport's highest-priced pacing yearling of 2003 (Cabrini Hanover at $350,000) and nine others that brought prices of $100,000 and higher that year. That crop went on to make him the leading money-winning first crop pacing sire ($1.8-million) and among all sires, second only to his own sire, Western Hanover.
That first crop included the now-leading pacing sire Rocknroll Hanover and 2010's leading first-crop pacing sire American Ideal, quickly proving Western Ideal as a "sire of sires." With seven crops racing through 2010, he has sired the winners of over $58-million and six millionaires, plus 2010's "2-Year-Old Colt Pacer of the Year" Big Jim.
Videos
| Western Ideal 2000 Breeders Crown  |