Longtime Ontario owner/breeder Howard Walton did not intend to stand his hard-knocking racehorse Danger Bay as a stallion. The 14-year-old homebred son of Stormy Atlantic was in the money for 18 of his 38 starts made from 2 to 8 but he never won a stakes.
Before he gelded Danger Bay in 2019, however, Walton on a whim bred him to one of his best mares, a stakes-producer named Miss Hemingway. One Bay Hemingway , the ridgling foal from that mating, is vastly outperforming all expectations. He won his first stakes Sept. 12 in the Lake Erie Stakes at Fort Erie and prior to that win was runner-up in three other stakes including the Grey Stakes (G3) at Woodbine.
“Now I don’t know if it was the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do,” Walton said about gelding Danger Bay. “This One Bay Hemingway is pretty special. He is fast and runs on the lead, just like his father. I keep joking that maybe we’ll have to make (One Bay Hemingway) the stallion.”
Walton bred Danger Bay out of the winning Yes It’s True mare If Moma Aint Happy, who he bought for $27,000 at the 2004 Ocala Breeders’ Sale June 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale from consignor Terry Oliver. With trainer Sid Attard and racing in the name of Walton’s Norseman Racing Stable, If Moma Aint Happy won five of 19 starts and earned US$205,915.
Danger Bay, by Stormy Atlantic, is the mare’s first foal and first winner. As a racehorse, he won in all but one of the seven seasons he ran from 2011-17. He only made one unplaced start in 2014 but came back the following year to have his best season with five wins—four consecutively—from eight starts. Danger Bay would retire with US$356,389.
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“He didn’t win a stakes but he was no slouch, he was actually a good racehorse,” recalled Walton. “He won at 1 1/6 miles and 1 1/8 miles. He was very durable and liked to run on the lead, like One Bay Hemingway.”
During the 2019 breeding season, Walton said he was passing Danger Bay’s stall in the Adena Springs North stallion barn, where he also stands his top 20 Canadian sire Signature Red , when it occurred to him to breed Danger Bay at least once before he had the horse gelded.
“(Danger Bay) was a versatile horse but he was also a bit of a maverick. I wanted him to have a good home, so we gelded him so he could become a riding horse for someone,” he said, noting he had given Danger Bay a pretty good chance at being a successful sire by mating him to Miss Hemingway.
Walton bought Miss Hemingway, a daughter of Circular Quay , for $40,000 as a yearling at the 2011 Ocala Breeders’ Sales August Yearling Sale. Trainer John Mattine signed the ticket for the filly and raced her for Walton. She did not excel at the track, getting one win and a couple of placings out of nine starts. She earned US$21,300.
As broodmare, however, Miss Hemingway has been a star. She has produced four winners from as many to race and has two stakes horses. Besides 3-year-old One Bay Hemingway, she has produced stakes-placed winner Red Fiction , a gelded son of Signature Red. The mare was bred to Signature Red this year. Her progeny, all raced initially as Walton homebreds, to date have earned CA$648,690 (US$490,905).
Walton, who has raced horses for about 40 years and bred them around 10 of those years, has been thrilled with the ability and composure One Bay Hemingway has shown.
“He has great nerves. Sid said he is the most relaxed horse he’s ever worked with,” he said. “But when he comes out, he does not want to be challenged, he just fights all the way. (Jockey Luis) Contreras told me, ‘Howie, I’ve never seen a horse that fights back like this one.’ He just doesn’t want to be headed or beaten.”
“We expect to do some pretty good things with him,” he continued. “Yesterday was just the start. I think he’ll be able to handle really good horses when the time comes. He’s an anomaly. Ones like him don’t come around too often.”
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