Groupie Doll carries banner for small-time breeders
- Groupie Doll is a four-year-old filly who has earned $1,047,850 with an 8-for-15 record.
- Fred Bradley bought the horse and cattle farm in 1967 and added horses
- Buff Bradley's wife, Kim, runs the farm, with daughters Kory and Jett and son Drew.
The Sport of Kings will be on grand display Friday and Saturday at Santa Anita with the $25.5 million, 15-race Breeders' Cup World Championships.
There will be horses owned by royalty, titans of industry, oil and financial barons. And there will be Groupie Doll, the favorite in Saturday's $1 million Filly & Mare Sprint, carrying the banner of the middle class that is so important to American racing.
The Breeders' Cup is the ultimate adventure in an incredible ride for trainer Buff Bradley and his father, Fred, the co-breeders and majority owners of the 4-year-old filly.
The Bradleys go back five years in the development of Groupie Doll, from the time Buff planned the mating of Deputy Doll (who never had another foal) to the stallion Bowman's Band (who died months later).
Buff pulled Groupie Doll out of her mama, thinking the little chestnut was just the kind of baby he'd been waiting for from Deputy Doll. Except when sent to Ackel Hebert to be broken as yearling, Groupie Doll has been in his daily care at his barn on the Bradleys' Indian Ridge Farm near Frankfort, Ky.
"I wouldn't mind if somebody handed me Bodemeister or a horse like that," Buff Bradley said of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness runner-up. "But I do think it means more for you to see one develop all the way from Day One."
The Bradleys' modest broodmare band produces about 10 foals a year. Buying only the occasional horse, the Bradleys thought they'd never have another horse like their $2.17 million-earner Brass Hat.
But Groupie Doll actually has topped that special gelding with two Grade I victories — Keeneland's Vinery Madison and Churchill's Humana Distaff in track-record time — while going 4 for 4 since adding blinkers.
Buff views the filly and their first Breeders' Cup trip as a lifetime achievement award for his 81-year-old dad, a former lawyer and state senator.
Fred Bradley grew up in Providence, Ky., 35 miles from Ellis Park (then known as Dade Park). When he was 10, he bought a coal-cart mule for $3 and broke it for riding. He sold it for $5 and figured that buying and selling horses must be an easy way to make a living.
Fred bought a corn and cattle farm in 1967. He and his sons built or refurbished the barns, plowing the fields, raising hay and digging all the holes for fence posts while adding horses. Brass Hat paid for many farm improvements; Groupie Doll now carries the load.
But if Groupie Doll is a home-run horse, she also must make up for all the inevitable pop flies and called third strikes.
"Nobody thinks about the rest of these that it has to cover," Buff said. "To have her kind, you've got to keep going. You can't just stop and halfway play the game. You've got to play the whole time. We're breeding and raising more."
Fred keeps saying, 'You know any other Grade I winners out there in that field?' I said, 'Not yet. But I need to get them in there if they are.' But you never know. That's what keeps you going."
Groupie Doll has earned $1,047,850 with her 8-for-15 record. She earned $240,000 for winning the Presque Isle Masters and $120,000 in the TCA. That money already is accounted for. If she wins the Breeders' Cup, Buff's sexy idea of how to spend the money is on a new barn.
His track and farm staff also feel a proprietary interest — as do blacksmith Dale Eagleson, veterinarian Eric French and van driver Jim Doss. Jockey John McKee came out to work her the day after he was in a spill and two days after his wife had a baby.
Groupie Doll's "peeps" in the Bradley barn include long-time assistant Maria Kabel, exercise rider Jada Schlenk and Matt Hebert (an exercise rider and assistant who has become the filly's groom).
"It means everything," said Kabel, who was Deputy Doll's exercise rider. "It's so hard to make it, anyways. If you get that big horse, people start recognizing you, give Buff some props for how good of a trainer he is.
"If you don't have the stock, no one ever knows. Every race makes you more nervous. Because you want her to be so good, and you don't want her to get beat."
"You hope you get 10 more chances like this, but you just don't know," said Matt Hebert, who is Ackel's son.
Buff's wife, Kim, runs the farm, with daughters Kory (17) and Jett (9) and son Drew (13) pitching in. Buff's sister, Margaret Coffey, handles the farm's books, with her husband and kids also involved.
"Sometimes when they're on the track, I feel 'Oh, my gosh, I raised him,' " Kim said. "Then you think you have potential Groupie Dolls and Brass Hats out here. You want to cover them with Saran Wrap. But here, we treat them like horses. They don't get coddled."
Schlenk said Groupie Doll's story could be a book. Or at least a country-western song.
"Her dad died and her mama got struck by lightning and died last year," she said.
We then learn that Deputy Doll's first foal had legs too crooked to put in training. The second broke his shoulder, the third died of colic.
"She's got one family member: a blind sister," Kabel said. "Another baby got salmonella.
"Fred resisted big purchase offers, saying, "If she's worth that to them, she's worth that to me."
But they did sell 10% apiece to longtime clients Carl Hurst and Brent Jones earlier this year.
"My wife (Janice) has actually forgiven me for the first 30 years I've been in the horse business," joked Hurst, of Madisonville. "She said, 'All the money you spent on horses all these years, maybe it really was worth it.' She's been more excited than me.
"She's reading all of the sports page, even looking at Kentucky football stories. She's never done that before."
Rees writes for The Louisville Courier-Journal