Longevity in the thoroughbred racing and breeding business takes plenty of perseverance, passion and just the right amount of luck. Bill Graham does not talk much about his nearly 50-years of pairing up mares and stallions to produce some of Canada’s best horses, he doesn’t need to. Just check the sales sheets at the top yearling auctions each fall or tab the list of the year’s best Canadian-bred runners and you will see Graham’s Windhaven Farms keeping the best company.

Year after year, Graham’s two smooth-running farms, 150-acre spreads in Brampton, ON and Lexington, KY produce and develop dozens of classically-bred foals from some of the best bloodlines in the sport. Most will be sold but a few will race in Graham’s well-known fuchsia and blue-diamond silks.

In some years, the Windhaven-bred sales horses bring big money at the same time as his racing stable surges.

For instance, this year his 2-year-old filly Tiz Breathtaking, winner of the Grade 3 Mazarine Stakes at Woodbine in October, is a leading candidate for Champion Two-Year-Old Filly in Canada while her yearling half-brother sold at the Keeneland September Sale for $400,000.

“(Graham) is always looking to make his horses better, always looking to better his broodmare band,” said Tim Beeson, who has managed Windhaven in Kentucky since 1997. “He is very good at not spending more than he wants.”

Bob Hancock, who has managed the Ontario farm for 40 years and has raised a family on the same property where Graham lives, said Graham’s tenaciousness and love for the sport of horse racing has never wavered.

“He loves to watch his own horses race,” said Hancock. “And he loves to gamble on pedigree nicks. It’s exciting to him.”

Graham’s rise into the top echelon of all-time leading Canadian thoroughbred breeders has been well documented. A high school sports star, professional football player in the CFL and the founder of a thriving heavy construction businesss, it was that fateful honeymoon visit to Gulfstream Park that started everything.

His late wife, Valerie, a horse racing fanatic, talked Graham into checking out the races. “I remember Bill telling me Valerie’s family had racehorses and she used to hide in the trunk of the family car to go to the barns since kids weren’t allowed on the backstretch back then.”

The hook was firmly in place in Graham and he became intrigued by the pedigrees and nicks of top racehorses.

“It’s always been about the broodmares,” said Graham. “You try to keep yourself in the best company with what you can afford.”

Fillies were front and centre on his shopping list and in the 1970s, he bought and raced graded stakes winners Proud Lou and Majestic Kahala, the latter he later sold as a mare for a whopping $2.5 million. He also got $650,000 for the mare’s yearling.

He began to breed to sell, but on occasion kept fillies that did not receive the bids he wanted at auction. Blondeinamotel, a filly Hancock says was “really hard to break” but is one of the farm’s all-time favourites, won the Woodbine Oaks; Wavering Girl was a Two-Year-Old Champion in Canada (1989) as was Fantasy Lake (1997). Cotton Carnival won the Sovereign Award for Champion Three-Year-Old Filly (1998).

Occasionally one slips through the cracks. Joyful Victory, a foal of 2008, sold for $60,000 and later went on to earn $1.2 million. Graham is quick to say, “you can’t keep them all.”

In the last decade, colts bred by Graham have become hot items at yearling sales. In 2011, Uncaptured, a son of Lion Heart out of the mare Captivating (bought as the CTHS Ontario yearling sale in 2003 for $50,000) sold for $290,000 at the Keeneland September Sale. Racing for John Oxley and trainer Mark Casse, Uncaptured was one of 2012’s top juveniles in North America, winning the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes at Churchill Downs. He was named Canadian Horse of the Year, a rarity for a 2-year-old, and helped Graham win his first Sovereign Award for Outstanding Breeder.

In 2014, Graham was inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame.

Between Hancock and Beeson, the Windhaven program has rarely changed over the years. Hancock foals the mares in Ontario and within a couple of weeks, the mare and foal are sent to Beeson. The mare will be bred back and if she gets in foal, she heads back to Hancock once her foal by her side has been weaned.

The weanlings then romp around the paddocks at the Kentucky farm before they get prepped for the sale. Yearlings not sold make their way to Woodbine to race with trainers Mike Doyle or Roger Attfield.

In the fall, Graham is on the phone constantly with Beeson, sifting through pages of stallion pedigrees.

“We go over it a lot. We will go through stallions, pick three of four for each mare and talk about who we like the best. That takes a long time now as he has more than 30 mares.”

Beeson is a fourth-generation dairy farmer who discovered he loved the thoroughbred business a lot more after going to a horsemanship school at the Kentucky Horse Park. He attends all sales and watches every Windhaven owned or bred horse race.

“That’s what I love about his operation is that we do a little bit of every aspect of the industry,” said Beeson.

“We breed and raise horses, we buy horses and we sell and race.”

During the recently completed Keeneland November Breeding Stock sale, Graham was on the phone with Beeson while they bid on a mare that Graham really wanted.

“It was a mare in foal to (Triple Crown winner) American Pharoah,” said Hancock. “Last year, we lost a foal by him out of Leaveminthedust, so he really wanted one.”

This recent purchase, Pavini, is a French-bred 4-year-old by Dubawi that wound up costing Graham $200,000.

Hancock, who arrived to work at Windhaven at the same time Proud Lou was winning major races in New York, said one of Graham’s strengths for breeding top horses is the patience to find a good mare and a suitable stallion. He might be into his 80s, but Graham continues to look for ways to bolster his broodmare band.

“He is still very involved,” said Hancock. “He doesn’t listen to too many other people, he’s hands-on.”

Graham has been a vice president of the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association, a director of the CTHS, steward of the Jockey Club and a director at Woodbine. His interest in the current events in the sport has not waned said Hancock and Beeson.

Beeson boasts that this year’s sales yearling crop resulted in some nifty profits. “We had an Honor Code colt out of Tiz Breathtaking’s dam I’m Breathtaking sell for $400,000 at the Keeneland September sale. The stallion fee was $40,000. If you could do that every year you’d be set.”

Tiz Breathtaking, who was bought back for $210,000, was a shrewd buy back. the daughter of two-time Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Tiznow won or placed in four stakes races in total before an injury when third in the Princess Elizabeth Stakes put her on the shelf. I’m Breathtaking is in foal once again to Tiznow.

With all the stakes success of his homebreds there is still one glaring omission from Graham’s resume; breeding a Queen’s Plate winner.

He’s come close and this spring the colt Telekinesis, a Ghostzapper colt from the mare Intentional Cry by Street Cry (Ire), was installed the favourite for this year’s Plate. Sold by Graham as a weanling for a stunning $470,000 (the mare was bought as a broodmare prospect for $125,000), Telekinesis was second in the Grade 3 Lexington Stakes at Keeneland, won the Plate Trial but finished fifth in the Plate.

“Yes, that would be the cherry on top for him,” said Hancock. “Hopefully that can be the next thing that happens for him.”