“We didn’t have big races that ballooned our earnings this year, we did it very honestly. We won a fair number of allowance and small stakes wins. The stable just performed consistently very well,” Dave Whitford said.

Sam-Son Farm, winner of the Outstanding Owner Sovereign Award for 2015, is a family-owned and operated farm founded over 40 years ago. Originally a hunter/jumper farm, successful in its own right on the International stage, founder Ernie Samuel shifted to thoroughbreds with the claiming of Takering from Fort Erie in 1972.

He went on to create one of the top thoroughbred breeding farms in Canadian history. There have been 10 Sovereign awards for Outstanding Owner, nine as Outstanding Breeder, an Eclipse award, and nine Horses of the Year — among many other Sovereigns.

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