BROOKSTONE BAY - By Michael Cusortelli

Brookstone Bay didn't need much time to establish himself as a top-notch sire of racing American Quarter Horses.

In fact, Brookstone Bay’s first crop – which hit the racetrack in 2009 – included Runnning Brook Gal, the winner of the Grade 1, $1.9-million All American Futurity at Ruidoso Downs and that season’s AQHA champion 2-year-old.

Brookstone Bay was no slouch on the racetrack, either.  From 2003 to 2005, the now-10-year-old son of all-time leading sire First Down Dash earned $184,769 from 21 starts, and his seven wins included – appropriately – the 2004 First Down Dash Handicap (Grade 3) at Los Alamitos. The brown stallion also ran second in the ‘04 Sgt Pepper Feature Handicap (Grade 3) and world champion Be A Bono’s 2005 Vessels Maturity (Grade 1), and third in the ‘05 Los Alamitos Winter Championship (Grade 1).

Bred in California by Zory Kuzyk, Brookstone Bay has a pedigree that indicated he'd be a successful sire. His dam, the winning Coup de Kas (TB) mare Le Ritz, ran second, a nose behind champion Jumping Tac Flash, in the 1993 Miss Kindergarten Futurity (Grade 2) at Los Alamitos. Le Ritz's seven winners from eight starters included Valors Gold, a full brother to Brookstone Bay who won the  '04  MBNA America Texas Challenge Championship (Grade 1) at Sam Houston Race Park, and Remarkably Ritzy, a Grade 2-placed full brother to Brookstone Bay and a finalist in seven Grade 1 futurities and derbies at Los Alamitos from 1999-2000.

Brookstone Bay's second dam, the late Streakin Six mare Sixy Chick, won four stakes from 1984 to 1985, and was the AQHA champion 2-year-old filly in '84.  His third dam, the stakes-winning Chick's Deck mare Chickarun, produced two stakes winners from her 13 starters, including Grade 3 winner Sixarun, a top stallion in his own right who ran third in champion Brigand Silk's 1985 Rainbow Futurity (Grade 1) at Ruidoso Downs and qualified to that season’s All American Futurity.

Brookstone Bay is owned by Chad Richard of Roosevelt, Utah – whose A & C Racing and Roping campaigned Runnning Brook Gal – and Jim and Marilyn Helzer of Arlington, Texas. He stands for a $5,000 fee and is one of nine stallions, five of which are Quarter Horses, standing at JEH Stallion Station-New Mexico in Hondo.

Kim Saunders, the horse manager at JEH, estimates that Brookstone Bay will be bred to about 100 mares this year. He breeds mares at the farm, and frozen and cooled semen from the stallion is available to be shipped throughout North America and overseas.

All of Brookstone Bay's offspring from the New Mexico-based mares he is bred to are eligible for the New Mexico Horse Breeders' Association incentive award program, which last year paid more than $4.2 million in award money.

Saunders adds that Brookstone Bay, or “Brook,” as she calls him, is very demanding – but in a positive way.

“He wants to be fed first, brushed first and turned out first,” she says. “But he has a great personality. He can be led around with a cotton lead rope. One would never think he is a stallion by his demeanor, unless he is going to his job. Then, he’s all business.”

Brookstone Bay stood his first season, 2006, at Lazy E Ranch in Guthrie, Okla. He moved to JEH the following season and has been there since.

Through April 26, Brookstone Bay has sired 27 winners and the earners of more than $2.2 million from 61 starters. In addition to Runnning Brook Gal, who also won the 2009 Southwest Juvenile Championship (Grade 1) and is his top earner to date, his four stakes winners include Ivansbay, the winner of the '09 TQHA Sires' Cup Futurity (RG2) at Sam Houston Race Park, and Fillemup Phil, the winner of last year's $102,950 Blue River Derby (R) for state-breds at Indiana Downs

Brookstone Bay's runners have gotten off to a good start this season. He sired three of the finalists to the $248,491 New Mexican Spring Futurity (RG1) at Sunland Park, including fastest qualifier and eventual finals runner-up PK Bay. Also, Preacher James, a Brookstone Bay gelding out of the Sitting On Go mare Feature Little Sue, won the April 9, $76,500 New Mexican Spring Fling Stakes (R) at Sunland.

Saunders says that Brookstone Bay is in excellent health and is pleasant to be around in the barn.

“He is a very kind and sensitive animal, and he loves attention,” she adds. “He exudes class in everything he does, and he loves big hugs with lots of scratches.”