NEWS
Overbrook’s Young watching as one chapter ends, another begins
Posted: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 5:07 PM
by John P. Sparkman
American inventor Alexander Graham Bell said “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”
Chris Young, grandson of Overbrook Farm's late founder W.T. Young, may well feel regret as he watches the dispersal of the bloodstock his grandfather accumulated, but he is too focused on building his own future in the Thoroughbred industry not to see the open door in front of him.
“I have to see it as an opportunity to do my own thing and grow from there,” Young said at Keeneland on Monday. “I enjoy the racing aspect of the business, and I enjoy the breeding aspect, but the scale we were doing at Overbrook is not really what I want to do.”
Young, now 34, grew up at Overbrook, working on the farm and in trainer D. Wayne Lukas's barn during summers. After graduating from Duke University with a degree in electrical and biomedical engineering in 1997, Young started a media business in San Francisco after college before returning to Lexington to manage Overbrook's racing stable after his grandfather died in 2004.
The elder Young's enthusiasm for Thoroughbred racing skipped a generation, which is one of the primary reasons for the dispersal.
“My father just doesn't have the passion for it that my grandfather did,” Young said. Chris Young's father, William T. Young Jr. is listed as Overbrook's owner and serves on the board at Keeneland.
“I don't quite know how to put it in context, the significance of it,” Young said of the dispersal, which begins its final phase on Wednesday at Keeneland. “Dispersals throughout history have been highly significant for both sellers and buyers. They provide foundation stock for other breeders.”
W. T. Young spent more than 30 years cultivating several female families, including those that include champions Flanders and Surfside, and one sign at the Eaton Sales barn details the mares in the dispersal tracing to Overbrook foundation mare Hopespringseternal, by Buckpasser, the dam of Miswaki.
“In some ways the business has gotten away from developing families, but I think the market is correcting that. This market correction, however deep it's going to be, will encourage more people to breed to race. The business is certainly at an inflection point, and we don't know which direction things are going to go.”
Twenty broodmares, one broodmare prospect, six racing or broodmare prospects, and 13 weanlings from Overbrook were to be sold without reserve at Keeneland on Wednesday with more to follow later this week, closing the door on W.T. Young's version of Overbrook.
Chris Young, however, already has stepped through his door of opportunity.
“I'll have a few mares and I kept a few horses out of the racing stable, including three young fillies to have some fun with. Over time, hopefully, those fillies will become broodmares.”
John P. Sparkman is bloodstock editor of Thoroughbred Times
