In 2022, just four Thoroughbred foals were born in North Carolina, according to The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred. One of those is Volleyballprincess, who won the Ruthless Stakes for 3-year-old fillies last Saturday at Aqueduct.
Volleyballprincess, by Kentucky stallion Mo Town, races for Bran Jam Stable and David Clark. The filly, bred in North Carolina by Dr. Frank Batten, is out of Batten’s homebred Stephen Got Even mare Prom Dress, also foaled in North Carolina and a winner on the track. Batten also bred Prom Dress’s dam, Family Effort. The North Carolina-bred won 13 of 69 starts and was stakes-placed at Philadelphia Park (now Parx Racing) and the Meadowlands.
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Improbably, another of this year’s emerging sophomores, Grade 3 Southwest winner Speed King, also has a close link to the Tar Heel State. Speed King, who races for Triton Thoroughbreds, is from the first crop of Kentucky stallion Volatile and was foaled in Kentucky. However, he was bred by Nancy Shuford, who owns Rock House Farm in Hickory, N.C. She is best known for breeding Grade 1 winner Beach Patrol.
A shrinking North American foal crop across the board has been particularly difficult for states with smaller programs, and North Carolina is no exception. The crop of four that Volleyballprincess came from in 2022 is down from 41 in 2003, the furthest back the state’s fact book goes with The Jockey Club.
The breed organization reported that one stallion covered a single mare in North Carolina in 2024. Mendelssohns Red stands at Single B Farm in Siler City alongside Steels Poco Pine, an American Quarter Horse Association and American Paint Horse Association stallion.
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