“We had a good year. I was happy with the way things turned out, and I think we’ll have a bigger and better year next year,” said Rich Miller at Mountain Springs Stables in Palmyra, PA. Busier than ever since selling his farm in Shartlesville, PA, Rich Miller stood seven stallions for the 2025 breeding season. “We foaled about forty five mares this year, and we bred about sixty to seventy mares. The two most popular stallions were Uptowncharlybrown and Enticed. People are always interested in the new kid in town. We have the mares for the Uptowncharlybrown syndicate here, and a man from Kentucky sent twenty mares here to foal this year,” said Miller. Uptowncharlybrown has been the leading stallion in Pennsylvania in 2023, 2024, and is leading in 2025, and Enticed, new in PA this year, is ranked second in PA this year and was a top ten second crop sire in 2024.
“We have a good conception rate this year, and our vet is here every day. We expect twenty two mares from Kentucky next year too, and we are in talks to possibly bring in two more stallions next year, million dollar winners,” Miller said. “We had Alejandro here for awhile, but he wasn’t very interested in breeding, so he went back into training at the race track. We have new people coming into the game too, and we’re optimistic about the future,” explained Miller.
At WynOaks Farm, Barbara Wheeler described their breeding season, “Weigelia is still going strong at twenty four. We retired Weigelia’s son, Beren from racing last year, and this was his first year standing. We didn’t market Beren this year we just test bred him to some of our own mares and clients’ mares. We also have Command Post, and we bred him to our own mares and clients’ mares. New stallions have the appeal of a shiny penny, and our stallions are a good value and offer durability and longevity.” Weigelia and Beren both raced until six. “Disco Ebo, by Weigelia, just won a stake this year at Laurel at the age of six, and she won over eight hundred thousand in her career. Smooth B, by Weigelia just won a race on July 16th at Delaware Park at the age of ten. He’s won over a million dollars.” Wheeler said. “We are going to be sending a dozen or so yearlings to the sale in October this year at Timonium too. Pennsylvania still has a strong and viable breeders’ program, so it’s good to spread the horses around,” Wheeler said.
As Smarty Jones enters the National Horse Racing Hall of Fame this August, fans still visit the twenty four year old legendary stallion at Rodney Eckenrode’s Equistar Training and Breeding Farm. “We bred some mares to Smarty this year and to Brody’s Cause, but our most popular stallion was Zozos. He’s the new stallion, and I think one of the best in Pennsylvania,” said Eckenrode. “We had lots of support for Zozos, and I was surprised and pleased at the quality mares that were bred to him. We had good race mares that won several hundred thousand dollars bred to him. Zozos has a great pedigree and race record, and he should be a great regional fit here. He had speed and most races are sprints in this area. There was a lot of excitement about him this year,” explained Eckenrode. “We’re optimistic and look forward to Zozos babies next year.”
As the 2025 breeding season ends, Pennsylvania breeders, owners, and trainers optimistically await next year’s foals and hope for a star.
Cover Photo Credit to Kim Pratt
