While trainer Mark Hennig gets a part of wins within Saratoga Race Course’s Opening Weekend, Windylea Farm continues to have a good July at other racetracks.
Within the first nine days of the Saratoga Race Course meet, there have been a several owners who have made at least a couple of visits to the Winner’s Circle with their distinguished silks: Seth Klarman’s Klaravich Stables, Mike Repole, the Wycoff family’s Three Diamonds Farm, and Dean and Patti Reeves’s operation of Reeves Thoroughbred Racing.
Although, there is one local stable who has also won two races early in the meet: Windylea Farm. In fact, it may be fair to suggest that the Kip O’Neill-owned farm is having a successful July.
Besides winning allowance races Into Happiness and Ouster as part of Saratoga’s opening weekend, Windylea Farm has been winning races at Finger Lakes and Woodbine. Since the beginning of July, O’Neill, whose racing silks are green with a gold-colored “N” with a circle around it, has won 9-of-21 races between New York and Canada after last weekend’s racing.
“As you can see from our results, we’re racing at a higher level now and there’s more movement with horses when you do that,” O’Neill said to New York Racing Association publicist Ryan Martin earlier this year after Windylea Farm won its first owner’s title at the end of the Aqueduct Winter Meet.
“When they aren’t having success on the NYRA circuit, we can move them to Finger Lakes,” he added. “They learn how to win up there a little easier. If they have the ability, we can transition them back to the NYRA circuit, and we’ve done that in multiple situations.”
Starting 40 years ago in Bennington, Vt., not far the Green Mountain Racetrack, by his late father Phil O’Neill, Windylea Farm slowly evolved into a thoroughbred racing and breeding operation that is now based in Hoosick Falls, NY.
After competing for several years with a handful of victories at Finger Lakes, Turf Paradise in Arizona, and Canterbury Park in Minnesota, Windylea Farm expanded its racing operation to other tracks in Florida, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Louisiana in 2018. It was also the first time that the father-son team also had it first runner at Saratoga: Caitlin’satthebar, who was outrun against other claimers.
The O’Neills came back the next year with their first Saratoga winner: Super Silver. It was also during this time when Kip O’Neill contacted Mark Hennig to train a few of the Windylea Farm horses on the NYRA circuit.
Simultaneously, Hennig, who was an assistant to Hall of Fame trainers Jack Van Berg and D. Wayne Lukas in the 1980s and early 1990s before going on his own to eventually win Saratoga races that include the Personal Ensign Handicap (Summer Colony), the Adirondack Stakes (Raging Fever), and the Schuylerville Stakes (Gold Mover), was also looking to add horses to his stable.
“I was at the Timonium sale and got a phone call from him,” Hennig said. “We got together and helped built it up. It came along at the right time for me, too. He does a really great job managing his stable. He’s got horses well-placed everywhere. That’s why he’s winning a lot of races. If a horse doesn’t fit here, he will move them somewhere else. We are trying to do the best that we can.”
Since that initial contact, the O’Neill-Hennig team has won seven races on the NYRA circuit, including two at Saratoga, in 2021. That followed with five wins last year and six victories halfway through this year.
Hennig is currently handling 10-12 horses for O’Neill as a couple of horses are rotated to other tracks. At the same time, O’Neill has also been sending claiming horses to trainer Rob Atras, which has also been successful.
Ouster has been one of Windylea Farm’s consistent horses by earning over $275,000 in 12 starts. The 5-year-old gelding has won 3-of-6 races this year with a pair of second-place finishes. His lone blemish this year was an eighth-place finish in the Commentator Stakes at Belmont Park on May 29.
Bred by chemist Cheryl Prudhomme and retired dentist Dr. Michael Gallivan in Fort Edward, Ouster made a brief impression in his debut with a third-place finish at Aqueduct in March 2022. After a three-month break and two more races, Ouster finally won his first race with a 1¾-length victory on the Aqueduct turf course in November.
“He has come a long way. The horse showed early that he might be all right, but it took a lot of time to get him stretched out,” Hennig said. “He kept having these little nagging things. Once we got him stretched out to a distance, turf or dirt, it came to him. When you look at him, you can see that’s what he wants. He’s a monster.”
Along with Ouster, Into Happiness made dramatic last-to-first going-away move in the middle of the track to put the Windylea Farm colors in the Winner’s Circle on Opening Day. This was the second straight win for the 4-year-old filly, who was claimed for $40,000 by O’Neill and Hennig on June 23.
“That was a nice big turnaround for her first race back,” he said. “We didn’t have to do much with her. We just had to keep her happy and lead her back over there.”
Hennig and O’Neill will explore options for both Ouster and Into Happiness. In the meantime, Hennig is glad to get the pair of wins this early in the meet.
“It’s always nice to get that out of the way,” he said. “When you get 3-4 weeks into the meet and you haven’t won a race, it starts wearing on you.”
