The Standardbred Breeders & Owners Association of New Jersey has said “well done” to Fair Winds Farm thanks in large part to a pacing colt named Well Said.

Ed and Mark Mullen’s Fair Winds Farm has been selected the 2008 New Jersey Breeder of the Year and will be honoured at the 52nd New Jersey Equine Breeders Awards Dinner, sponsored by the New Jersey Equine Advisory Board, on January 25, 2009 at the Radisson Hotel in Freehold, New Jersey.

Well Said captured the $700,000 Breeders Crown Two-Year-Old Colt Pace in November, adding another stakes credit to his dam, Must See, who is owned in partnership by Fair Winds and Steve Jones of Montgomery, New York.

“Everyone at Fair Winds appreciates the recognition in being named SBOA Breeder of the Year,” said Mark Mullen. “We have been in the standardbred business for some 40 years and have bred some nice horses along the way. Well Said is our first two-year-old Breeders Crown champ. It is really a milestone for us.”

Fair Winds Farm is located in Cream Ridge, a horsey community in Upper Freehold Township, New Jersey. The main farm is 150 acres with another 500 acres which sit adjacent to the nearby Cream Ridge Golf Club.

Must See, a daughter of Artsplace, was bred by Fair Winds and returned to her breeder after a stellar racing career during which she earned $487,122 and finished in-the-money in 11 of 24 starts. Her six victories included the $460,000 Sweetheart Pace at the Meadowlands.

Her first two foals, both by Western Hanover, have already established her broodmare credentials, earning a combined total in excess of $800,000.

Her first foal, a filly named See And Be Seen, sold for $127,000 at the Lexington Selected Yearling Sale of 2006. She has banked nearly $220,000, finishing on-the-board in 12 of 34 starts at two and three.

Well Said, a $240,000 Harrisburg Sale purchase, has made back double his cost as a two-year-old of 2008 with four wins, four seconds and one third from 12 starts, banking $586,688.

Three weeks before Well Said won the Breeders Crown on November 29 with a 1:51 mile, Must See’s third foal, a son of Rocknroll Hanover named Rock N Awe, passed through the Harrisburg sales ring for $140,000.

Entering the final two weeks of the year, horses bred at Fair Winds Farm are closing in on $2 million in earnings for 2008 with 77 starters accounting for 163 victories.

It was Edward Mullen who purchased the former dairy and soybean farm in 1965 but it was the second youngest of his five children, Mark, who has made breeding and raising horses his career.

Mullen, 52 and a resident of Cranbury, New Jersey, graduated Upper Freehold High School and took a year off before heading to the University of New Hampshire where he earned his BS in the pre-veterinary program. He trained horses from 1991 until 1999 when he returned to the farm to oversee its operations as president.

Fair Winds focuses its breeding operations on broodmares and yearlings.

“We raise good yearlings, they sell well and they’re accepted by the buyers,” said Mullen, whose wife, Laura, is a research librarian at Rutgers while daughter Erin graduated Boston College and is working at WGBH in Boston and son Ryan is in his third year at Boston University in the computer engineering.

“Why not focus on what we were doing well and we’re successful at?"

Fair Winds owns about 35 mares and the equine population grows by another 100 mares during the breeding season.

“So we spent money on broodmares and try to do the best for our horses as well as our customers’ horses,” added Mullen, who is a member of the SBOANJ board of directors. “So that’s what we’ve been doing, and it has worked out well for us.”

Previous winners of New Jersey Breeder of the Year honours include Kentuckiana Farms, Southwind Farms, Valley High Stables, White Birch Farm and Perretti Farms.

(SBOANJ)