Taking a valuable mare to Keeneland is a world apart, but horse trade is horse trade. And Robert Slack well remembers the gypsy dealers coming to the family farm, back in the old country, during a spartan postwar boyhood. He was raised in the northern hills of Britain, just up the road from Appleby-in-Westmoreland, home to an ancient horse fair. To this day hundreds of wagons converge on Appleby every summer, and crowds watch horses trotted up “the flashing lane” and splashing through the River Eden.“We kept fell ponies,” Slack remembers. “So we'd get quite a few of the traders coming by, to buy horses from my father and brother. They were pretty intimidating, for a lot of people, but to us they were just people we dealt with. So we were quite used to them.“There was no repository at the Horse Fair! It was 'buyer beware,' and really beware. But I've always liked the dealing side of it, and actually it's not unusual for us to sell one or two off the farm. But, yes, this sale will be a little more sophisticated.”The owner of Stoneriggs Farm is talking about the upcoming Keeneland November Sale, where he will be offering the 9-year-old Chart (Lea), dam of GI Natalma Stakes winner Voyager (Justify), in foal to Constitution. He bought her in the same ring, five years ago, for $210,000 as part of a foundational investment. Overall, in fact, Slack signed for 17 mares at that auction. He had just sold his Florida real estate company, and was playing up the winnings in the Bluegrass. He had bought Kilflynn Farm, out near Paris, including a parcel of the “magic” land where the late Arthur Hancock raised so many top horses at neighboring Stone Farm.Slack had owned a smaller farm in Ocala, for around a decade until 2006; and as the real estate business thrived, he maintained a foothold by claiming the odd filly. Now, after cashing out, he had resolved on a far more purposeful program.“But I only had about eight to 10 mares at the time, and buying these 420 acres was of course quite an undertaking,” he says. “So the one thing I did need was horses. So I went to Keeneland and bought some fairly nice mares. And this one happened to be among them.“She was very good looking, and that's our number one criterion. We almost always buy maiden mares, and we're very focused on physicals. If you looked at the race records of some of our mares, you'd think why on earth would anyone breed them? But if you offered me two mares with the same pedigree, and one had won four Grade Is and the other hadn't done much at all, I'd just as soon have that one. Because I believe some of these fillies that are raced heavily kind of leave it on the track.”In fairness, Chart had won a graded stakes on turf at Woodbine. She was also out of a War Front half-sister to dual graded stakes winner/Grade I runner-up Brilliant (War Chant), so warranted a little extra. Similarly, a mare Slack had bought in the same ring the previous year, Violent Times (Violence), had won a stakes race. Yet she only cost $75,000. Her first foal, a Charlatan filly, cleared that investment handsomely as a $375,000 yearling-and has meanwhile emerged as GIII Santa Ysabel Stakes winner Forced Entry. On the other hand, a daughter of Empire Maker recruited in 2022 had shown zilch in three starts. Yet her first foal is GII Louisiana Derby winner Emerging Market (Candy Ride {Arg}).Chart's first foal, by Medaglia d'Oro, was undermined by an ankle cyst. But her next, a Justify filly, brought $300,000 at the 2025 January Sale as a short yearling-from D.J. Stable, who had once raced Chart herself and similarly sent her to Mark Casse. After running second on debut at Churchill, Voyager was pitched straight into the Schuylerville Stakes and again finished runner-up. She then broke her maiden at the Spa and then hit the jackpot at Woodbine, over the exact same mile of turf that had conveyed her dam to the GIII Ontario Coleen Stakes.Whoever buys Chart will also have high hopes of her Flightline filly, who elevated her value from $290,000 at Keeneland in January to $625,000 in the same ring last month.Slack is comfortable with churn among his broodmares. On the one hand, he is not inclined to persevere with those that do not demonstrate promise when started with good covers. At the same time he is happy to cash out one, like Chart, that does take her opportunity-on the basis that the program should fund itself so far as possible.“Sometimes we have to be opportunists,” Slack observes. “I mean, I'd love to have a farm full of mares like her. But we have to be realistic, be very aware of the market and take the opportunity to move one on for a good price.”Local Knowledge (inside)n | Sarah AndrewOne way or another, the system seems to have been functioning from the outset. Another young mare on the farm, Chestnut Street (Scat Daddy), was claimed for $30,000 but has now produced GII Amsterdam Stakes winner Local Knowledge (Yaupon).“In total we've had six stakes winners off the farm this year, from 60 starters,” Slack says proudly. “Considering that our average mare cost is about $75,000, it's quite remarkable really. The land is some of the best there is; I have outstanding staff, starting with my manager, Martin Keogh; and we treat the horses very well.”It is not enough, for instance, simply to pronounce that this is some of the best land anywhere for the raising of Thoroughbreds; not even if rejecting use of nitrogens.“We have a soil map of the farm because it has seven or eight different types,” Slack explains. “We bought the farm next door, too, which was 180 acres. So where the best soil is, between the two of them, we keep the weanlings; and where it's poorest, down by the river, we keep our barren mares. So we really do go through things down to the Nth degree.”A general flair for husbandry is in his blood; likewise, a particular acuity in horsemanship. Because Stoneriggs is named for the 34-acre hill farm his parents bought in 1941, which remains in the family today.“I was born and raised on the edge of that hill just above Appleby, and it felt like the coldest place in the world,” Slack recalls. “They basically kept cattle and sheep, but did have a couple of horses. In fact I'm kind of amazed, looking back now, that we didn't have electricity or running water-but did have a racehorse!”Slack's niece Dianne Sayer trains a few horses on the same land, emulating her late mother.“They only ever had a few horses, and the work is very hands-on,” Slack says. “So yes, horses do run in the family somewhat. I have the handwritten autobiography of my grandfather, from the late 1800s, and he talks about racing horses. Back then they used to be ridden to the races, then they'd run three times, and then be ridden home again. Unless you're familiar with Cumbrian dialect, you'd have a hard time understanding any of it. But it shows how a seed had been planted somewhere.”Certainly some ancestral patience governed Slack's decision to concentrate on breeding and trading, instead of seeking more immediate gratification from a racing stable.“I turn 80 in a couple of months,” he says with a chuckle. “But I tell people I'm five years into a 20-year plan. I spend a lot of time on it, talk to a lot of people in the horse business. It keeps me occupied, which I think as you get older is very important.”So while travel is more demanding after a health setback five years ago, even when wintering in Florida he remains thoroughly engaged, planning and booking matings for a broodmare band now extending to 70.It has been quite a journey. On losing his father, at 22, he accompanied his mother to visit her sister in California and found work picking peaches.“So I got a look at the U.S. and thought, 'Well, this is it for me,'” he recalls. “I liked the freedom, I liked the business atmosphere. What I do in Kentucky would be impossible to do in England and Ireland. I will spend the rest of my days here, for sure. And I hope the farm will stay in my family long after I'm no longer here. My son lives on the farm, and his 11-year-old daughter is intensely interested.“I look at this farm as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But while I'd like to say that our success is the result of some wonderful strategy that we have, realistically we've been extremely blessed. Life was fairly tough back in those days, in England. So it was good to find opportunities as they arose. I still like to explore. I guess I've always had that in me. I'm quite into AI, and will ask Grok to analyze a race for me. I never went to university, had no further education, and have had to make my own opportunities. There have been some tough times, in life. But here we are anyway-and things are very good now.”The post Keeneland Breeder Spotlight: Slack Charts Long Voyage from One Stoneriggs to Another appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.