Much is written about the trainers, drivers and owners of a world champion, but there is often less focus on the crucial role of the breeder -- especially if that champion is well-bred. But it’s the breeder, after all, who selects the bloodlines of the horse -- a decision which cannot be undone. An owner can change the trainer, driver, diet, shoeing, stable and equipment, but he or she can never change the genetic makeup of the horse. It may seem obvious. But it’s almost so obvious we tend to forget. The horse with poor breeding may be a mediocre performer, but will rarely, if ever, show up for work like last year’s two-year-old champion Sportswriter. As leading pedigree expert Margaret Neal is known to preach: “you [the breeder] better do your homework.”

68-year-old Kentucky native James Avritt knows a thing or two about breeding quality standardbreds. “Surely after 50 years in the business,” he smiles. “I have learned something of value.”

He’s done his homework, then. And Avritt learned well enough, it seems. He did, after all, breed world champion two-year-old pacing colt Sportswriter, p,2,1:49.2 ($875,411).

The colt who dominated racing headlines last season was born on April 24, 2007, and spent his early days eating lush, green grass on the rolling hills of the Avritt Meadow Creek Farm in Lebanon, Kentucky. Precious Beauty, his dam, is a good-sized Jate Lobell mare out of the queen of Jim’s broodmare band -- Dominique Semalu.

Precious Beauty was bred, retained, trained and raced by Avritt, who likes to train as well as breed. “She earned over $110,000 and won a leg of the Kentucky Standardbred Stakes,” says the breeder, who’s also a lawyer by trade. Sportswriter is her second foal and first colt. That first foal was an Art Major filly named Incredible Beauty, p,3,1:54f, who pocketed earnings of $119,000 and recently won the final of the Western Filly Pace at Northlands Park in Edmonton.

The grand dam of Sportswriter, Dominique Semalu [Big Towner – Midi A Semalu], was bred by Semalu Inc. in Quebec, and she’s one of the two cornerstone mares in Jim’s broodmare band (the other is Bountiful Bid). “I bought her as a three-year-old at the Harrisburg Sale. She was a nice, big filly who was raced hard but she had earned nearly $120,000 and had a good pedigree. I sold her first foal for $65,000. But wait... it gets better! The next four foals were sold for $65,000, $70,000, $95,000, and $105,000, and I trained a two-year-old that I sold to Joe Stutzman for $130,000.”

Sadly, Dominique Semalu was euthanized this past summer. Her last two foals were embryo transfers -- a Western Hanover colt, Western Front, wh­­o sold at Harrisburg in November for $32,000 and a colt by Ponder, who is currently just a weanling.

Although Avritt is known as a breeder of pacers, he has occasionally added trotting broodmares to his band. He once purchased a Sir Taurus mare at Harrisburg for $155,000, and she has an Angus Hall filly that he is retaining, training and racing so he can add her to his band as well. He also has a trotting mare named Perfect Aim [Balanced Image – Armbro Aimee] that is another recent addition to his band.

In 2009, Avritt sold nine yearlings (at Lexington and Harrisburg), and he retained and plans to train two yearling fillies as perspective broodmares -- an Angus Hall trotter and a Western Hanover pacer.

Jim Avritt On....

Broodmares

“I like Big Towner mares because they cross well with many leading North American stallions such as Camluck, and sons of Artsplace and Western Hanover,” says Avritt. “I like big mares and try to buy mares with earnings over $100,000 and a mark around 1:51. I am not as fussy about the record of the mare as I am about pedigree, conformation and money earned. I like to cull about 25 to 30% of my mares every year and am selling four mares at Delaware this year.” Precious Beauty is a big mare with impressive earnings, good pedigree and solid conformation. She is certainly a sliver of proof that Avritt’s thinking about broodmares works.

This idea of Big Towner mares crossing well with many leading North American stallions brings to mind the success of leading Maritime sire Drop Off [Big Towner – Loose News], who produced five of the ten fastest horses ever bred in the Maritimes. Perhaps what is true for Big Towner mares is also true for the sire line.

Sires

“I like to breed to sires who are are successful and proven. I have bred to Camluck on numerous occasions because the Ontario Sires Stake Program is second to none. You have the Gold and Grassroots Divisions and both go for good money. I am more successful with horses who are out-cross sires and stay away from line breeding but it is almost impossible to find a sire without one common ancestor in the second or third generation.

“I love Camluck and the Ontario Sires Stakes Program so much,” he jokes, “that I even learned to talk like a Canadian, eh!” His love, it seems, is fairly placed. His Camluck half-brother to Sportswriter sold at Lexington this fall for $120,000 to trainer Josh Green of Delaware.

Raising Foals

“I try to foal mares outside and after May 1. My foals are never in the barn, except for three days when they are weaned. I have large fields and paddocks and if the temperature is 55 or better, I leave my foals out at night.

“It’s important to feed foals properly, trim feet regularly, and do any corrective shoeing. I am very particular about how my foals are prepared for the sales. They are brought in eight to ten weeks before, and are kept in the barn during the day and turned out at night until temperatures reach that low of 55 degrees. “Yearlings are fed a 14% commercial feed according to body weight with two ounces of rice bran oil added to each feeding. Before the sale, they are groomed twice a day and given a bath twice a week.”

Jim Avritt has been in the breeding business since the early sixties and the Kentucky native, though approaching 70, has no plans to retire. He does admit that he is cutting back on his law practice, though, to devote more time to his lifelong passion of breeding quality standardbreds.