Claiborne Farm is home to some of the best and most valuable Thoroughbreds in the country. Days spent without handling a Grade 1 winner or producer are few and far between.

However, some of the most valuable horses I have been around on the farm have never been to a racetrack and have not produced a single winner. They are not even Thoroughbreds. These horses are Claiborne’s teaser stallions.

The farm has five main teasers: Bradley, Julio, Oliver, Tiger, and Whitey. They are spread around the farm and tease the same barns each day. Julio stays at the stud lot and teases the mares that come to breed to the farm stallions. The other four tease only the mares that live at Claiborne.

Bradley (Alexa Ravit photo)

Julio with groom Jon Niehaus. (Alexa Ravit photo)

Oliver (Alexa Ravit photo)

Tiger (Alexa Ravit photo)

On my “extra” days, I meet up with Broodmare Manager Wesley Purcell and Jeremy Harlow, his assistant, at 5:15 a.m. If a mare needs to be checked to determine if she is in heat, her door is opened, and the stallion is allowed to peek his head into the stall. Typical signs of mares in estrus (heat) are raising of the tail, leaning into him, and urinating.

However, not all mares show all of these cues. Knowing the quirks of each mare is important. Some mares are always aggressive toward the teaser, and their way of showing that they are in heat is to become apathetic or just less aggressive toward him. If a mare appears to be in heat, she will be checked by the farm veterinarian, Dr. Scoggin, who will be looking for large follicles and uterine folds to signal peak fertility.

Tiger at work at Claiborne. (Alexa Ravit photo)

If a mare is a maiden, meaning that she has never been bred before, she is “jumped” by one of the teasers before she goes to the breeding shed. The teaser wears a shield so that he cannot actually breed her. This practice is done for the safety of the stallion that the mare will be bred to. Even though a maiden mare is in heat, she might not react well the first time she is mounted. All of Claiborne’s mares have to tolerate being jumped by a teaser before they will be sent to the breeding shed at Claiborne or elsewhere. At Claiborne’s breeding shed, all maiden mares, regardless of what farm they come from, are jumped by Julio before they are bred.

Julio wearing a shield. (Alexa Ravit photo)

Although teasers do not get to breed to Thoroughbred mares, they are not left empty handed. The fertile teaser stallions are used to impregnate any nurse mares that are rented by the farm during the foaling season. This allows the nurse mares to be used next year, and it keeps the teasers motivated to do their jobs!

When I first started coming with Wesley and Jeremy to tease mares, I was most intrigued not by the teasing process but by the method through which the teasers get to all of the barns. There are more than 200 mares on the property that will have been teased by the time that the breeding season is over. With more than a dozen barns of mares, the teasers must get to multiple barns. To get to each barn, the teasers are not hand-walked or vanned over. Instead, they run alongside Wesley’s Chevrolet Tahoe.

As Wesley drives, Jeremy holds onto the stallion’s shank through the side window. All of the stallions are as comfortable running with the truck as racehorses are to being ridden. They willingly gallop next to us from barn to barn. This method is faster for the humans and good exercise for the equines! (Unfortunately, I could not get a picture of this in the dark.)

Arch colt out of a Forestry mare. (Alexa Ravit photo)

Medaglia d'Oro filly out of a Distorted Humor mare. (Alexa Ravit photo)

Tapit colt out of a Giant's Causeway mare. (Alexa Ravit photo)

Tiznow colt out of an Empire Maker mare. (Alexa Ravit photo)

The next month promises to be an extremely busy time at the foaling barn, with more than 60 mares due to foal during that span. When swooning over babies at Claiborne Farm, or any Thoroughbred farm, one should not forget that there was a teaser stallion who risked getting bitten and kicked for the sake of making sure that those foals could be safely and successfully conceived. They are truly the unsung heroes of Thoroughbred breeding.