Grade 1 winner and Texas sire Mr Speaker died suddenly March 21 due to an aortic aneurysm only a week after he had been purchased by owner/breeder and veterinarian Dr. Alfred Vardeman.
The 15-year-old son of Pulpit has been standing in Texas since 2022 at Forks of the Paluxy, a breeding operation started by Mark and Lori Collinsworth near Bluff Dale, Texas, which is southwest of Fort Worth. Mr Speaker has been the farm's only stallion.
"I was really, really excited to keep Mr Speaker here," said Vardeman, who lives in Colorado City, Texas. "We are all small breeders here, and he was giving us the opportunity to chase the dream. I was so fired up. The expectations were huge."
Vardeman conducted a necropsy on Mr Speaker after he had watched the horse collapse in his stall and realized he'd had no opportunity to save him.
"I got into a wreck in May on the interstate near Odessa. It was a four-car deal that knocked the vet box off my pick-up, turned my truck over, and I was sliding down I-20. I crawled out of that and God allowed me to walk," Vardeman said. "I reflected on that yesterday because that wreck did not set me back like losing this horse did. That horse just had a presence about him and the look he had in his eye was just so cool to me. Apparently, it just wasn't meant to be."
The Collinsworths sold Mr Speaker because they decided in December to shut down the breeding farm and focus on racing.
"The economics are not sufficient here for us to run a staff and properly take care of the mares and the offspring," Mark Collinsworth said. "We have had excellent help and excellent advisers all the way through our experiment of operating this breeding farm, but it's been at a loss. In December, we decided not to buy any more mares and shut the whole program down."
Collinsworth said they were thrilled when Vardeman agreed to buy the stallion.
"We were happy that Mr Speaker was going to a Texas breeder and a veterinarian and a very fine man. It could not have been a better situation and just felt like it worked out the way it was supposed to," he said.
"He was so overjoyed when he picked up the horse. It was contagious," Collinsworth continued. "A week later he called and the heaviness, you could just feel it over the phone. A man's dream has turned into pure sadness."
Mr Speaker suffered a tragic end to a tumultuous stallion career.
The Phipps Stable homebred entered stud at Lane's End as a promising stallion prospect. He earned grade 1 credentials in the 2014 Belmont Derby Invitational Stakes (G1T) and had other graded wins in the 2015 Commonwealth Cup Stakes (G2T), 2014 Lexington Stakes (G3), and 2013 Dania Beach Stakes (G3T). Mr Speaker was one of three graded stakes winners produced by the graded-placed winner Salute (Unbridled). He retired with a 6-1-2 record from 18 starts and earned $1,247,544.
Mr Speaker was shuttled to Haras Cordillera in Chile after his first Northern Hemisphere breeding season, and after he arrived back at the quarantine station in Miami in December 2016, he tested positive for piroplasmosis, a tick-borne protozoa that causes a variety of symptoms including anemia, weight loss, swelling in the limbs, colic, or even central nervous system disturbances, according to the American Association of Equine Practitioners. The stallion was sent back to Chile where he was treated successfully but lost a crucial North American breeding season. Basically, Lane's End had to reintroduce Mr Speaker to American breeders in 2018.
His first year at stud in 2016, Mr Speaker bred 117 mares and that first crop included 2020 Ashland Stakes (G1) winner Speech, who also ran third in the Kentucky Oaks (G1) and second in the Santa Anita Oaks (G2). The first crop also included grade 2 winner Three Technique.
Mr Speaker's first three crops were highlighted by 12 black-type winners that included four graded stakes winners. By 2020, however, his book had fallen to 28 mares. The Collinsworths then acquired him, seeing an opportunity to raise the quality of the stallion pool in Texas.
Worldwide, Mr Speaker has sired 15 stakes winner and six graded/group winners so far that include Chilean group 1-placed, group 2 winner Medio Mundo and group 3 winner Don Picho. His progeny has earned more than $14.6 million.
Vardeman said he thought he had at least five years to build on Mr Speaker's record as a sire. He has owned several of Mr Speaker's progeny, had bred a couple of mares to the stallion, and recently bought a stakes winner in foal to Mr Speaker from the Collinsworths named Celtic Chant. The mare has already produced four winners, including graded stakes-placed winner Irish Mischief.
"Life can change quick," he said. "It is the highs and lows. This is the definition of low, and I have yet to hit the definition of high. But one thing I have learned in this business, you can't quit."
