Jim Bullock said he’s not only proud his Glengate Farms of Erin, Ont. topped the list of Ontario Bred Rewards for 2025, he’s doubly pleased with how the farm ended up collecting $217,211 in solo bonus money.
“We're particularly proud that a number of horses contributed to it,” Bullock said of the program administered by Ontario Racing. “We don't sell a lot of yearlings. We sell somewhere between 15 and 20 yearlings a year, which is significantly less than Winbak or Seelster.”
Even more impressive – and also a point of pride for Bullock – is the fact the 11 horses that contributed to Glengate’s Ontario Bred Rewards are all trotters.
Leading Ontario Sires Stakes (OSS) two-year-old trotting colt – and O’Brien Awards finalist – Strobe Lite topped the list of Glengate’s reward winners in 2025. The Ben Baillargeon-trained son of Alarm Detector out of Shine Bright earned Glengate $102,247 in bonus money – $6,885 from his results in open stakes, $25,000 for being his OSS division leader in earnings ($269,130 of total seasonal earnings of $379,921), $5,171 from leading his division at the mid-way point in August and $65,190 for topping his division at the end of the season.
Ontario Bred Rewards are paid to the owners (or lessees) of mares that are enrolled in the Ontario Resident Mare Program prior to Sept. 1 of the foaling year. Foals from enrolled mares are considered Ontario Bred. To be eligible a mare must be physically in the province of Ontario at the time of enrolment and remain in the province for a minimum of 180 consecutive days surrounding foaling in Ontario.
Foals racing in the OSS and finals of select Open Stakes races in Ontario earn Ontario Bred Rewards, which in 2025 were approximately $2.5 million in total.
Bullock said the rewards are “significant,” particularly in Strobe Lite’s case.
“If you just focus for a moment on Strobe Lite and setting aside the fact that I retained a small piece of him, here's a horse that sold for $16,000 [as a yearling],” Bullock said. “I was probably out of pocket by $14,000, because it costs around $30,000 with stud fees [and other expenses] these days to raise a yearling. If I didn't get the breeders awards, he would have been a very successful horse that I would have lost money on. So, the breeders awards give you a chance. The horse has to perform, but at least you get a chance to participate.”
The other horses that contributed to Glengate’s total rewards were: Bright Green ($34,400 in rewards), Very Sassy ($32,427), Timeless ($21,969), First Class Rule ($12,118), Great Trickster ($6,016), My Ghost ($2,663), Debra ($2,004), The Conqueror ($1,822), Not Passable ($814) and Eye See You ($729).
All that is just the rewards Glengate earned as a solo breeder. The farm earned a major share of $246,374, total, when you factor in Glengate’s portion of the $29,163 it shared with Ariel Stables for breeding trotting filly Exquisite Taste together.
“The breeders awards are very important to the industry,” Bullock said. “We had our best year ever this past year, but they've always been important to us.”
He said he uses the money to reinvest in the farm, particularly in terms of upgrading his broodmare band.
“The money that we take in, both at yearling sales and from breeders awards, gets folded back in,” Bullock said. “I'm not taking money out of the breeding operation to live on.
“The whole purpose of breeders awards is to focus on investment, both in terms of employment and products, buying everything in Ontario.”
In 2025, the top 10 rewards recipients earned over $1.36 million combined and six parties earned more than six figures each.
Tara Hills Stud in Port Perry, Ont. also had a terrific season and finished second in total Ontario Bred Rewards with $209,627 in solo money. That total was driven, primarily, by undefeated superstar two-year-old pacing colt Beau Jangles. The Tara Hills-bred son of Cattlewash out of Mrs Major Hill led all horses in Ontario Bred Rewards in 2025 with $179,711 thanks to a season in which he earned $1,688,750.
“We’re very happy,” said Tara Hills owner David Heffering. “Any extra is a big bonus… That’s what we like about the [Ontario Bred] program, and that's why we try to spread the wealth around a little bit, as far as breeding.”
Tara Hills also earned solo rewards from breeding TH Check Me Out ($28,271) and TH Monica ($1,644) and additional money from four horses it bred in various partnerships: Barbuda ($1,578 in total rewards), Hot Country ($19,413), Mass Deployment ($6,534) and Mary J ($7,263). In all, Tara Hills had at least partial credits in $237,881 in total rewards.
The farm, which is primarily a stallion station, also is credited with $75,000 in stallion bonuses for standing Green Manalishi S ($50,000) and Cattlewash ($25,000) – though Heffering points out those rewards go to the owners of the stallions or their syndicates, not Tara Hills.
The stallion awards reward $25,000 to the Ontario stallion that has the highest OSS progeny earnings in each of four groups: the two-year-old pacing ranks, three-year-old pacing division, two-year-old trotting group and three-year-old trotting class.
Green Manalishi S led both the two- and three-year-old trotters’ OSS progeny earnings. Cattlewash’s progeny collectively topped the two-year-old pacing earnings rankings. Big Jim, who stands at Seelster Farms in Lucan, Ont., earned a $25,000 bonus for the three-year-old pacing group (Bettors Delight actually led in three-year-old progeny earnings, but was ineligible for a bonus because eligible stallions must be registered with program and in residence in Ontario for the current year).
As for Tara Hills, Heffering said the money is essential for the farm’s operation.
“It goes into the big pot,” Heffering said. “As everybody knows that has a farm and tries to raise horses… it's not an easy business. Some years you have to go without, or you try to make do. There are some maintenance things that we wanted to do, or we needed to do, and this is going to allow us to be able to kind of catch up on some of the maintenance that we need to do. We did some fence painting last year when we saw that things might go our way… We were behind on doing that job, and we got to replace a few pieces of fence and we had other painting to do. We also needed to do some work in the stallion barn.
“Every dollar we have gets plowed right back into the farm.”
In 2025, that meant making a major acquisition to upgrade Tara Hills’ broodmare band.
“We’re value shoppers when it comes to broodmares, and this year we stepped it up. There was a daughter in the Fade family [Fade Out], which is a maternal sister to Storm Shadow, and a couple other ones that we really wanted to buy. We knew she was going to go to Harrisburg and that was our big goal to buy her this year, and we did [for $105,000]. We're looking at going back through and buying into families that we've had over the years. So that's kind of our goal.”
Heffering said he deeply appreciates having a terrific year, but he hopes it’s not an aberration.
“When you have an exceptional year, like we did this year, hopefully we didn't use up all our luck in in one year, and then that'll be it for a while, because you go through dry periods, too,” he said.
It’s not just major commercial breeding operations like Tara Hills, Seelster and Glengate that benefit from the Ontario Bred Rewards. Trainer and owner Jack Darling even cracked the top 10 list this year simply for breeding two-year-old pacing filly Daya, a daughter of superstar Darling trainee Bulldog Hanover.
Daya earned Darling $73,639 in rewards: $17,745 from her success in open stakes, $25,000 from being a divisional leader, $11,204 from her results at the mid-way point of the OSS season and $19,691 for her earnings over the complete OSS season.
Darling said he appreciates the bonus money.
“It just goes into my general operation, but when you get those cheques, you don’t realize how they’ve added up,” Darling said.
This from a man that isn’t really a breeder and said he doesn’t have much interest in becoming one.
“I don't want to get into the into the breeding business too much,” Darling said. “I'd rather go and just pick the yearlings I want at the sales, but anybody that has an interest in breeding in Ontario, [the rewards are] a good deal.”
Heffering said, “every little bit helps to get a little piece here and there, whether it's a bigger farm like ourselves, or the [smaller breeder]. I think it works out well for everyone.”
Top 10 Ontario Bred Reward recipients in 2025
- Glengate Farms* – $246,374
- Tara Hills Stud* – $237,881
- Seelster Farms – $181,002
- Millar Farms – $157,305
- Prince Lee Acres* – $147,480
- Dustin Jones Stables, Inc. with and without Hebert Horses, Inc*. – $146,745
- Shmuel Farhi – $92,237
- Blair and Erna Corbeil – $81,048
- Darryl Kaplan, Roy Sproxton, Harbhajan Singh Dhillon – $73,688
- Jack Darling Stables Ltd. – $73,639
(*Both solo and in partnership combined.)
(Ontario Racing)