It all happened when friends of the couple bought a farm and came into possession of a thoroughbred racehorse. Once Dorothy and Sean started going to the races to watch their friends’ horse run, they soon found a love for the sport. “It looked like an easy game,” said Sean. (He later jokes that they know better now).
The Fitzhenrys are the breeders of Marketing Mix, one of the finest Canadian-breds of the last decade. The five-year-old mare is a multiple Grade I winner and earner of over $1.9 million. In June, she defeated males in the Grade III Sunset Handicap for her 10th win in 19 races. In August, she was fourth in the Grade I Beverly D. Stakes at Arlington Park. The daughter of Medaglia d’Oro – Instant Thought by Kris S. was second in last year’s Breeders’ Filly & Mare Turf and was expected to compete in that race again this fall at Santa Anita.
Before Dorothy and Sean entered the breeding business, they had no previous ties to horses of any breed, let alone thoroughbreds. Although Dorothy rode horses as a child, and often visited them at her uncle’s farm, neither of them ever saw their career leading this way. They both worked various jobs in fields such as retail and printing, but until they began breeding, never looked for a profession with any type of animals.
When it comes to choosing successful combinations, they often search for studs based on the qualities of their mares. “We look for crosses that work,” says Sean. “If we have a mare that isn’t very big, we’ll try and breed a little bit of size into her.” He also notes that if a mare doesn’t have the greatest conformation, and as Sean says, “everyone has at least one or two of those in their stable,” they’ll look for a stud with particularly good conformation to try and correct that. One final thing he notes, “Generally, as a rule, we don’t breed for speed, we breed for stamina.”
Marketing Mix is certainly the best horse ever to come out of Sean and Dorothy’s stable. The couple bought the mare’s dam, Instant Thought, for $110,000 at the 2007 Keeneland January sale in foal to Maria’s Mon. When Marketing Mix was born, there wasn’t much that stood out about her. “We knew she was a darn good looking horse,” said Fitzhenry. But besides that, he says Marketing Mix was just like the other horses in the stable: not overly smart, or mean, or quiet and nothing that made her stand out from the group.
Even though Sean and Dorothy never set out to be horse breeders, they’ve become comfortable with the size of their business. With around 30 horses, they are content with their breeding operation and hope in the future that it will continue to stay the size it is. In the past, Sean and Dorothy have had a stable of as many as 50 horses, but Sean says it was too much, noting that they’d have trouble identifying individual horses, which bothered them. In the future, instead of growing their stable, they’ll work to improve their broodmare band, and they’ll focus on quality over the quantity of their horses.
Instant Thought is no longer part of the Fitzhenry fold as she was sold in 2011 at the Keenland and November sale for $225,000 and died the following spring after producing an Artie Schiller filly.
To build a business from scratch is difficult, and Sean and Dorothy’s experiences were no different. They’ve developed, however, a “learn as you go” attitude that they would pass on to anyone else looking to get into the racehorse field. “Ask a lot of questions,” recommends Sean, who continued on to say that you should start slow and learn the process step by step. Though, if there is one piece of advice that 15 years in the thoroughbred industry has taught Sean and Dorothy, it’s that the most important characteristic of a good business is the people you work with: if you can surround yourself with people you trust, you’re halfway there.
