“I love the bone on him and the structure to him, he’s just a good-bodied, good-boned horse,” said Sherry Mclean, about her new stallion Reload.
The seven-year-old son of Hard Spun and recent retiree will stand at Northern Dawn Stables in Hillsburgh, Ontario for the 2017 season. The chestnut horse is a half brother to Grade 3 winner Philanthropist and ¾ brother to Grade 3 winner Defer.
Mclean who owns and operates Northern Dawns Stables stumbled across the horse earlier this year while he was still in race training.
“His name came up and a friend of mine gave me a call to say he’s available. Of course we had Philanthropist and for us he’s been a success story, a success story for Ontario. Him being a half brother to Philanthropist and because it’s such a strong female family of course I had to go look.”
Reload is out of Hidden Reserve, a Grade 2 placed Mr.Prospector mare. His dam is full sister to Grade I winner Educated Risk and also a half-sister to Grade I champion Inside Information.
“Once I looked at him I was like okay I like this horse. I like his pedigree lines, I love the female family, the fact that he is out of Hard Spun – a son of Danzig I think is wonderful.”
A homebred of Phipps stable Reload won several Grade 3 races including the 2014 Canadian Turf Stakes and the 2016 Tampa Bay Stakes. Reload retired from racing with a record of 8-4-3 from 24 starts and earnings of $567,504.
“He’s had a pretty good race career. He’s a graded stakes winner, he’s had some longevity to his career and he’s run all distances on all three surfaces including one on the synthetic which makes him a horse that you want to look at for here in Ontario because Woodbine is synthetic. I wanted a horse that is competitive on a synthetic surface as well as being able to run on other surfaces,” said Mclean.
The impressive winner and seasoned racehorse ran his last race in April finishing fourth in the Grade 1 Maker’s 46 Mile Stakes at Keeneland.
Trained by Claude R. “Shug” McGaughey III, Reload was recently shipped to Woodbine racetrack in Toronto and will remain there until the CTHS mixed sale on November 26 where potential clients can view him. “A lot of clients and people are down at the racetrack and he was shipping up anyways so it was a simple process – let him down at the track, and people could see him and then head for home.”
Reload will be the first stallion to stand stud at Northern Dawn Stables. His first season fee is set at $3,000.
