It has been almost 42 years since Dom Romeo purchased FLASHY CHESTNUT at the CTHS Ontario yearling sale, one of his Terra Racing Stables’ foundation mares responsible for Queen’s Plate winner Big Red Mike and the Romeo’s most recent champion, Fashionably Fab.
Fashionably Fab, by Silent Name (Jpn) was sold at the 2025 Keeneland November Sale for $300,000 to Australian interests just four years after the Romeo family’s 2021 champion Amalfi Coast was sold for $475,000.
“We had a great run there,” said Frank Romeo this week in a chat with Canadian Thoroughbred. “We know it is lucky to even get one horse like that.”
Actually, they have had quite a few homebreds over the years who have starred on the Woodbine tracks. When Mike was a child, Dom was racing homebred stars such as Bold’n Flashy, a world traveler and top class sprinter who went on to have a successful career at stud. When Mike was in his early 20s, the family’s Big Red Mike (named after him) won the coveted Queen’s Plate in 2010 and Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II presented the trophy.
Dom, coming up to his 96th birthday and still loving the races, has always emphasized that the horses were a family affair. Frank and his brother Mark, along with Frank’s son Mike, run Terra Racing Stable these days. Frank and Mark bought it from their father, Dom, a few years ago, and they are keen on the future for their horses and the Ontario racing industry.
“There are a lot of positive things going on for Ontario breeders,” said Frank. “It has been a long time since that has happened.”
The Romeos have weathered quite a few storms; in March, 2013, the lucrative slots-at-racetracks partnership program was halted by the Ontario government, leaving breeders in the province with many mares and foals and a sketchy future for the industry.
Then there was the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 that nearly crushed the industry again.
Terra Racing and its strong bloodlines (horses and humans) have continued on, however, and while its 2025 racing season was on the lean side, the Terra team are encouraged by news that funding for horse racing in the province is on the way from the province. An announcement is expected in the coming couple of weeks. Frank Romeo also bought a share in the exciting new stallion Sergei Prokofiev, bought by David Anderson to stand at Ballycroy Bloodstock this year. Two Terra mares will visit the son of Scat Daddy this spring.
The 2026 racing stable for Terra will include promising maidens Katherine’s Cub and her younger half-brother Go Go Alexander.
Frank also is hopeful for their two-year-old filly by Mendelssohn from Flashy’s Legacy, the dam of Fashionably Fab and another juvenile filly by Instagrand, a first foal of stakes-placed Afleet Katherine. And there are weanlings, too, including a Tiz the Law filly from Flashy’s Legacy.
The Terra mares and young horses now reside at Regis Farm in King, Ontario, after many years at Dan Mooney’s Huntington Stud Farm, which closed down at the end of 2025. Terra has four mares and they only leave Regis to be bred or to foal at Glenn Sikura’s Hill ‘n’ Dale Farm.
“I went with Dan to take a look at Regis and [owner] Nat Rea has built it up, he does a lot of the farm work himself and it is a first-class facility. The manager Ranine Sitser does a fantastic job. We are in Woodbridge and we love to have our horses nearby. The grandkids love to go see the mares and foals.”
Like Ivan and Colleen Dalos of Tall Oaks and Adena Springs, Terra Racing Stable is one of the last successful racing and breeding operations from the last half-century and it appears it will be here for many more years.
More News
