During the 2023 foaling season, Donamire Farm welcomed a group of nine foals. Among that foal crop were four colts sired by Constitution, Beau Liam, Dialed In and Blame.For the first time since their early days growing up in the field together, three of the four colts born that year—now known as Chief Wallabee (Constitution), Crude Velocity (Beau Liam), and Trouble Calling (Dialed In)—will have a 'reunion' Saturday, May 2 under the Twin Spires at Churchill Downs.Chief Wallabee, runner-up in the GII Coolmore Fountain of Youth Stakes and third in the GI Curlin Florida Derby, is entered in the marquee event, the GI Kentucky Derby. Earlier on the card, 'TDN Rising Star, presented by Hagyard' Crude Velocity and Lafayette Stakes winner Trouble Calling are entered in the GII Pat Day Mile Stakes.Since the inception of Donamire Farm, founded by Don and Mira Ball in the late 1960s in Lexington, Ky., there has always been an emphasis on quality over quantity. It's an ideal that has been carried on for decades throughout a variety of chapters for the operation, which sadly lost its patriarch in 2018, but is continued by Mira Ball, along with her son and daughter-in-law, Mike and Katherine Ball.Though all three colts entered on Saturday's Derby card were raised on Donamire soil, only two were bred by the Ball family—Chief Wallabee and Trouble Calling—while Crude Velocity was bred by the farm's manager, Guy Mogge.Guy Mogge with Sweetnsour Kitty and her 2026 filly | Sara GordonA lifelong horseman who has experienced nearly all aspects of the Thoroughbred industry, and beyond, Mogge not only bred Crude Velocity out of his mare Sweetnsour Kitty (Lemon Drop Kid) but was also one of the first to lay hands on and help establish the foundations for the trio of colts.“I was at Fasig-Tipton February in 2022, and we had been getting shut out of buying weanlings to pinhook. So, I'm there trying to find a weanling in the back ring, and I see Sweetnsour Kitty walking around. I thought, 'well, she's kind of pretty,' and glanced at the pedigree. I saw [her sire was] Lemon Drop Kid, and I love Lemon Drop Kid, so I followed her up and bought her for $2,000,” recalled Mogge. “I was at Airdrie at the time, and Beau Liam was a new sire that year, so I paired the two. Some might say breeding a maiden mare to a first-year sire is practically stupid, but I did it.”For as long as he can remember, Mogge has spent his life in the company of superb equine athletes, both in the world of Thoroughbred racing and Quarter Horses. While growing up on Xalapa Farm in Paris, Ky., owned at the time by Lillie Webb and managed by Mogge's father, Mogge and his siblings dabbled in showing Quarter Horses before delving into racing Quarter Horses.“School wasn't my forte, so I stuck with horses. I used to break a lot of horses and ride out after I left college. Then I met my wife Julie, whose dad was Johnny Jones of Walmac Stud. Through that connection, I did even more with the Thoroughbreds,” said Mogge. “We used to go to Aiken, South Carolina with the yearlings and had a full barn there for six years starting in 1994. Then we'd come back up here and train them at the training center, or Keeneland, until they were dispersed. I worked the stallion barn at Walmac, and the sales, pretty much everything I did growing up but on a bigger scale.“Walmac had a huge stallion roster and I was always helping during the breeding season there with Nureyev, Alleged, Phone Trick, Miswaki, so I've been around some good ones.”After spending time in Oklahoma and Texas, Mogge and his wife returned to Lexington where he found himself back on the Thoroughbred stallion scene as the manager of Airdrie Stud's stallion division. Following that seven-year chapter, Mogge made the move to Donamire, where he joined the team as the farm manager in the summer of 2022.The foaling season of 2023 was his first at the helm.“I believe Chief Wallabee was the first foal born that season, and that was [his dam] A La Lucie's first foal, and it was also my first foaling season [as manager], so I was a little bit nervous,” said Mogge with a laugh. “It was a relief getting the first foal on the ground. Everything worked out well.“I think everybody was tickled to death when he came out and looked like he did. He always had a presence about him, just a flashy, strong foal. He was not your average baby.”Bred and owned by Mike and Katherine Ball, Chief Wallabee was born Feb. 6, 2023. The following month, on March 20, 2023, Mogge's Sweetnsour Kitty foaled Crude Velocity. It only took another three days for Trouble Calling, a half-brother to Donamire Farm's first Grade I winner Troubleshooting (Not This Time) out of Mira Ball's mare Into Trouble, to arrive March 23, 2023.A La Lucie with her 2026 filly | Sara GordonThe following year, Mogge sent Chief Wallabee, along with a few of the other yearlings, off to Bill Harrigan's training operation at Payson Park in Indiantown, Fl., in the fall. Meanwhile, Mogge put the groundwork into both Crude Velocity and Trouble Calling himself.“Unfortunately, I can't race a horse at the moment, it's a little expensive for me, so we decided to sell Sweetnsour Kitty's colt,” said Mogge.The bay colt sold for $12,000 at the 2024 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Sale and later returned in the Fasig-Tipton December Digital Selected Sale, bringing $3,000. By the following summer, he was entered in the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's June Two-Year-Olds in Training Sale, where he breezed a quarter-mile in :20 1/5 and subsequently sold for $250,000.“When I heard about the breeze in Florida, I thought, 'Holy crap.' I mean, that was just ridiculous, and then my brain was just going at a thousand miles an hour when I heard he was going to Bob Baffert, that was even more exciting, other than the fact that he was going to be in California and not Kentucky. I was listening to all of the hype, then he started breezing well out there, and people started talking,” said Mogge. “His maiden race was just phenomenal, in my opinion, for him to get into all that trouble and still get to the wire first.”It was the ability that Crude Velocity showed when overcoming that impossible trip on debut that earned the colt 'TDN Rising Star, presented by Hagyard' honors, becoming the first for his young sire. Owned by CSLR Racing Partners, LLC, he remains undefeated following a successful step up to allowance company in his last start and looks to be the headliner in Saturday's Pat Day Mile.It's a race where Crude Velocity will face off with his once-pasture mate Trouble Calling, which goes off four races prior to Chief Wallabee's Classic test in the first leg of the Triple Crown.“It's all been very exciting in the last couple of years with the racehorses and very impressive with the breeding program. Mike spends a lot of time looking over pedigrees for the matings. They've been doing it for a long time and it's finally paid off. They've had success in the past, but not at this level until now, so kudos to them,” said Mogge.This year, Sweetnsour Kitty welcomed a Corniche filly, born April 14, as Into Trouble produced a Kantharos filly on the same day. Meanwhile, A La Lucie foaled a Life Is Good filly, born March 25. Though mating plans have been confirmed for Into Trouble, who will be bred back to Not This Time, and A La Lucie, who returns to Constitution, Mogge is still pondering the next stallion for Sweetnsour Kitty.“My philosophy is you breed an athlete to an athlete and hopefully get an athlete. Knock on wood, it's worked out well so far.”When asked if he would be in attendance Saturday, Mogge said it all depends on when the last expecting mare of the season foals out. As it goes in the game of breeding and foaling, the mare's due date was nearing Derby Saturday.“If she foals before, I'll definitely be there. And even if she foals the day of, I'll probably be there anyway,” he replied with a laugh.The post Quality Over Quantity: Donamire Farm Represented By Three Derby Day Contenders appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.