FORMER BASEBALL PLAYER STANDS HALLADAY IN CALIFORNIA
Connor Harrell and his father, Curtis, are partners in Harrell Ventures
Connor Harrell admits to feeling down-cast after his young stallion Halladay didn’t fare better at Fasig-Tipton’s California fall yearling sale Sept. 24 in Pomona.
The sale was the first big test for his grade 1-winning son of standout sire War Front of the market for state-brews, where horsemen are reeling from the closure of Golden Gate Fields and other economic factors. While 12 of his 15 yearlings sold (one was withdrawn), the average price of $12,667 was well below what Harrell hoped for.
“Disappointed,” said Harrell, a third-generation horse owner whose syndicate is standing Halladay at Harris Farms for $7,500, when asked for his reaction. “But being realistic, there were a lot of folks in the same situation we are. It’s the sort of environment we’re in; just a tough market.”
The 8-year-old Halladay won the 2020 Fourstardave Handicap (G1T) at Saratoga for trainer Todd Pletcher, repelling a number of challenges from a strong fi eld in gate-to-wire style. He won two other stakes as well while banking $565,245.
Though Halladay’s success came competing on grass, Harrell noted that the stallion is from the Danzig line and ran well on dirt while placing third in a pair of maiden starts at Saratoga to begin his career.
“I always kind of wished we could have tried him on the dirt again,” he said.
The statuesque gray – he stands at 16.1 hands – is out of the Tapit broodmare Hightap. She was a dual graded winner of $300,000 for Gainesway Thoroughbreds and Winchell Thoroughbreds, the breeders of Halladay.
Harrell said he felt there was a lack of barn activity and vetting in general during the sale and that worked against Halladay’s off spring. He added that many of the winning bids came from online buyers.
Of course, it’s not unusual for a freshman sire to be overlooked in spite of strong credentials. There’s only one way to overcome it.
“They have to run,” Harrell said of Halladay’s first crop. “They have got to show up in the spring.”
Noting the incentives available for California-breds racing in the state, Harrell added, “We really want him to stay in California.”
Harrell, 33, of Houston, Texas, owns one-half of Harrell Ventures with his father, Curtis, co-owner of the other half. They race primarily in Florida and New York. Their 2-year-old Showcase won the Saratoga Special (G2) this summer.
His grandfather Eddie, who died in 2017, was a successful oilman and a racing enthusiast who formed a partnership, Alto Racing, with some New Mexico interests. Alto Racing had a number of graded stakes winners, including 2016 Kelso Handicap (G2T) victor Anchor Down and 2015 Florida Derby (G1) winner Materiality. After Alto Racing disbanded, Eddie formed Harrell Ventures as a family racing partnership in 2014.
Connor Harrell grew up less than 10 miles from Sam Houston Race Park and says racing “gets into your blood.” But during his youth, racing took a backseat to his primary interest, baseball.
A center field prospect, he played three years at Vanderbilt University before signing with the Detroit Tigers, who took him in the seventh round of the 2013 MLB June amateur draft. He played for four seasons in the Detroit organization, the final two with the Erie SeaWolves of the AA Eastern League. He collected more than 1,500 at-bats while compiling a .252 combined batting average.
“I had a good run. Believe it or not at 26 I was just aging out, and I thought it was time for the next thing,” Harrell said. “I keep my tentacles in the game in other ways now (staying involved with the Vanderbilt program), and really have only good memories of it in hindsight. I’m pretty thankful for that.”
Harrell works at Trammell Crow Co. in Houston now as a senior associate. The company is a commercial real estate developer in more than two dozen cities around the country. Harrell finds that his job, putting together deals on various types of projects, is not that much different from what he does in racing while developing partnerships.
He and his wife, Sydney, have a 1-year-old son, Foster, whom Harrell hopes will someday continue the family’s racing legacy.
Halladay was a grade 1 winner at Saratoga for trainer Todd Pletcher
Harrell said he named Halladay for the Hall of Fame pitcher Roy Halladay of the Toronto Bluejays and Philadelphia Phillies who died in a crash of his plane in the Gulf of Mexico in 2017.
“I never knew Roy, but I got to meet him,” Harrell said. “His last season was my first in Detroit, and we were with the same agency at the time.”
He said Harrell Ventures has about 45 horses in training around the country. They include a pair of Halladay’s yearlings currently at John Brocklebank’s facility in Utah that he plans to race in California next year.
Alto Racing had experience racing in California with trainer Richard Mandella years ago, but Harrell said it was simpler to race in the East once they connected with Pletcher and other trainers based there.
Halladay is the first grade 1 winner that Harrell Ventures owned outright. Fairly new to breeding, Harrell said he and his father considered a number of options, including one in Florida, before deciding on California.
Adrian Gonzalez’s Checkmate Thoroughbreds helped put together the syndicate deal that landed Halladay at Harris Farms.
“Halladay means so much to us,” Harrell said. “We had other opportunities, but we found the infrastructure we were looking for at Harris. Harris is so big in California breeding; it was the 800-pound gorilla. It just felt like the right fit for us.”
The stallion covered 61 mares in his initial 2022 season and 62 more last year, according to The Jockey Club statistics.
“For California, that’s right where he should be,” Harrell said. “Halladay has been well supported. We’re very pleased.”