NEWS
Montessori Farm loses top mares A Kiss for Luck, Silver Valley
Posted: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 4:57 PM
A KISS FOR LUCK
Courtesy of Christine Hansen
by Ed DeRosa
Grade 1 winner and multiple stakes producer A Kiss for Luck and stakes winner and multiple stakes producer Silver Valley died within three months of each other at Christine Hansen’s Montessori Farm in Versailles, Kentucky.
Hansen said both mares were euthanized because of infirmities of old age. Silver Valley, by Mr. Prospector, died in October at age 30, and A Kiss for Luck, by Reflected Glory, died this month at age 31. The two mares were constant companions until Silver Valley’s death, even spending the 2008 summer together at Curtiswood Farm in nearby Georgetown, Kentucky, to represent the Thoroughbred breed during advertised events and open houses.
“Both were euthanized when it became obvious that arthritis, inability to maintain weight, and other age-related infirmities diminished their quality of life to a point where I strongly felt that kindness and compassion required [me] to allow them to leave this world before they would suffer,” Hansen said.
A Kiss for Luck ran at two, three, and four with stakes wins each season, including the 1983 Vanity Handicap (G1) and ’81 Anoakia Stakes (G3). She won four other stakes and finished second in two other Grade 1 races during a career in which she won eight of 37 starts and earned $588,896.
Wichita Equine acquired A Kiss for Luck for $1,450,000 at the 1985 Keeneland November breeding stock sale. She produced 12 foals, and all 11 to race are winners, including stakes winners Golden Cherry and Kissin My Friends. Her third foal, the Saratoga Six mare Kiss for Six, produced Grade 1 winner Alphabet Kisses.
Rancho Jonata bred A Kiss for Luck in California out of the stakes-winning Dusty Canyon mare Painted Flag. She was from the family of champion Late Bloomer, dam of the graded stakes-winning sires Ends Well and Fred Astaire.
Silver Valley won eight of 20 starts, including a pair of stakes at the Meadowlands, and earned $105,731 during two seasons. Her first foal, Silver Deputy, by Deputy Minister, was a stakes winner and influential sire whose progeny includes two-time champion Silverbulletday. Silver Valley also produced stakes winner and sire Buzzy’s Gold and the unraced Deputy Minister mare Life Out there, dam of multiple Group 1 winner Kane Hekili.
A. F. Tornetta bred Silver Valley in Florida out of Grade 3-placed winner Seven Valleys, by Road At Sea.
Ed DeRosa is news editor of Thoroughbred Times
