Just four years after going full tilt in the breeding business, Ken Morden and Caroline Thornton of Oak Knoll Stables have found themselves in a position most would envy – they have a table booked in the dining room
at Mohawk Racetrack for the biggest night of the year in Canadian harness racing.
The couple will be cheering on the Canadian-bred Ok Boromir, who is the only colt in the $1.5 million Pepsi North America Cup field of 10 with full Canadian connections. The son of No Pan Intended out of Double Creme will start from the inside post next Saturday, June 27. Local reinsman Luc Ouellette will handle the driving for trainer Frank Baker, Jr. of Thamesford, Ont., who purchased the bay for $14,000 in the Forest City Sale with Wray and Janet Wilson of Thorndale, Ont.
“We had four foals that year and it was our second year of breeding. We had raised at that point a total of eight foals in our lifetime and one of them is in the North America Cup. The word excited is way too calm. We are beyond ecstatic,” says Thornton.
“He was small and we used to joke that he looked like a filly,” she laughs. “His nickname at the farm that year because he was the smallest foal was ‘Little Guy’ and Frank Baker today calls him ‘The Big Horse.’”
While Morden had owned a few broodmares in the past, it wasn’t until 2005 that he and his wife decided to develop a new facility and start breeding on a fulltime basis in Campbellcroft, Ont. The couple now has 10 broodmares and seven foals this year.
With a strong foundation mare in Double Creme, a winner of over $400,000 on track and a mark of 1:51.4, the couple’s breeding business has taken off.
“We bought her at a sale as a three-year-old and she was so sick when she got here that I thought they had sent us the wrong horse. She came off the trailer and I said to Ken this is a 10-year-old this is not a three-year-old something’s gone wrong. But she raced for us and Dr. Moira Gunn did an embryo transfer [to get Ok Boromir] because ‘Creme’ was racing.
“She now has a two-year-old colt Ok Commander, who is trained by Gregg McNair, and he qualified this week. And here on the farm we have her yearling daughter who is by Camluck and a filly foal by Dragon Again. But the exciting news is that she is in foal to No Pan Intended so she’s carrying a full brother or full sister to Ok Boromir. So she is a very prolific mare, she has a foal every year easily, she’s just great.
“I wish I could tell you how bizarre it is. We built our barn in 2005, our first foals were born in 2005, Boromir and his companions were born in 2006. And now we have our table booked at Mohawk and we’re just beyond excited. This is going to be a big thrill no matter what he does. It’s just an honour to have him there.”
For those who can’t make it to Mohawk on Saturday, The Score will air a special live broadcast of the stakes-filled card starting at 8:30 p.m.
To view Saturday’s entries, click here.