Though trainer Kevin Benn keeps his head count modest, his stable produced a plethora of memorable moments on the big stage in 2025.
Led by O’Brien Award winner Stormont Beautiful, the Benn stable amassed $770,298 in earnings, a career-high for the trainer. That filly starred in the Ontario Sires Stakes (OSS) Gold Series and hit the board in five starts against Grand Circuit foes, earning more than a half-million dollars. She was backed up by sophomore pacing filly Always Dawn, who earned a mark of 1:49.4 and won five times in 17 starts while earning $144,753, and two-year-old Sangria Summer, who cashed cheques in four graded stakes events, including the Breeders Crown final on Oct. 24 at Woodbine Mohawk Park.
“It’s pretty amazing when I walk in the barn in the morning and in the first four stalls, I’ve got three fillies that are that good,” said Benn, who manages a stable of 18 horses in his hometown of Napanee, Ont. “Always Dawn made $144,000 and she had the same mark as Chantilly, 1:49.4 — for a three-year-old, that’s pretty exceptional. And at the end of the year, she was racing against So Much More and some of the Open fillies, and she was only three, so that’s encouraging for this year. I’m going to race her this year and then breed her, probably, as a five-year-old.
“Every race [Sangria Summer] got better. Trevor Henry drove her at the start, he did a great job, and he said, ‘She’s gonna be a good one someday,’ and he was right. She was fifth in the [Breeders Crown] final and she was still coming at the wire; she paced in 1:50.2, which is pretty exceptional for a two-year-old. I’m looking forward to her this year.”
Stormont Beautiful elevated what would have been a good season to an outstanding one. Initially a headstrong horse who “wanted to follow the gate right out of there,” Benn trained her to relax behind the wings and debuted her as a two-year-old in late August 2024. The daughter of Resolve-Stormont Fried had a quietly strong rookie campaign with three wins and three seconds in seven starts, including a place finish in the Harvest Series final.
“I thought I had one that could race in the Golds,” said Benn of his evaluation of the horse after her 2024 season. “She did a 1:55.1 mile in the Harvest Series in almost November, so she showed she was good then.”
She made good on those expectations, and then some. Benn made some adjustments — such as switching to a jawbreaker bit — with the filly after she experienced difficulties at the start of the 2025 season, and the Stormont Meadows homebred got her first tally of the campaign with a 1:53.3 victory in an overnight event at Mohawk on June 5. She was competitive in stakes events in the summer months — she finished third and fourth in two Gold legs, including a flying third-place effort at Grand River Raceway, and registered a show finish in the Casual Breeze. But the filly moved into the elite level in the fall. She shocked at 52-1 in a prep for the Elegantimage, then finished in a dead heat for second — placed up from third — in that Grade 1 event. Ten days later came the prime showcase of Stormont Beautiful’s closing speed as she shifted out from third-over coming off the final turn at Mohawk and rocketed home with a :26.2 last quarter to in win the final Gold preliminary by 7-1/2 lengths in a lifetime-best 1:52.2. She made another impressive move in her next start, the OSS Super Final, as she stormed home behind Monalishi with :27 speed home and finished second, three-quarters of a length back of that swift rival.
Not staked to the Breeders Crown, her connections had a decision to make, and Stormont Meadows owner Eric Baker was firmly in the corner of “go.” They supplemented her to the race.
“I wasn’t as confident, because I know what can go wrong in a horse race, but Eric is 92, and since I’ve trained for him he’s always talked Breeders Crown,” said Benn. “But we’ve never had anything we thought was close to that in a long time. We looked at [supplementing] in the spring, and it was costing like $10,000 or $15,000 then, and I thought ‘she’s nice, but that’s a fair chunk of change.’ But then when she started racing that good, and then the finals and Super Finals, we thought ‘these other horses can compete, so why can’t we?’ Eric’s a gung-ho guy and he said, ‘Let’s go for it.’”
The move worked out. After a sharp place finish in the elimination, Stormont Beautiful blitzed a :26.1 final panel to move from ninth at the eighth pole to second, finishing a length behind eventual Dan Patch Award winner Yo Tillie. She finished the year with four wins and $500,154 in earnings in 23 starts.
The impressive conclusion to her season brought Benn some unexpected and welcome recognition.
“When I’m walking through the paddock afterwards, I think I was getting more congratulations from people than [Yo Tillie trainer] Andrew Harris was, and they won it,” said Benn. “And Andrew looked for me and said, ‘Your horse raced amazing.’ I couldn’t feel down at all. That was pretty cool.”
He was also acknowledged for his success with candidacy for the O’Brien Award of Horsemanship, finishing behind Dr. Ian Moore, Carl Jamieson and Jamie Gray. Benn finished the season with 12 wins in 78 starts and picked up the O’Brien Award for Three-Year-Old Trotting Filly for Stormont Beautiful, who beat out Monalishi and Lasting Dream for the honour.
The Horsemanship nominee responded to his star’s divisional award with sportsmanship.
“I was pretty proud,” he said. “[Monalishi co-owner] Tim Klemencic and I have history — he’s from Trenton, I’m from Napanee, and I trained horses for the Klemencics in the past, I’ve got nothing but great things to say about them — so if he would’ve won, I would’ve felt as good for him. He congratulated me afterwards. I was pretty happy.”
As for Stormont Beautiful, the show will go on.
“[Her return] will probably be in mid-April,” said Benn. “She’s at five miles a day [jogging] and I turned her the other day because she was getting a little sharp. She’s solid.”
(Standardbred Canada; photo of Stormont Beautiful winning on Sept. 30, 2025)