Odds On Racing - Harness Racing

Odds On Racing's

Personality of the Month
for July 2006

Terry Hunt

Terry Hunt--whose name in harness racing circles is synonomous with Cottonwood Farm--is a major participant in breeding and racing in Illinois.

His Cottonwood Farm, located in Big Rock, is owned and operated by Hunt on a daily basis. The 53-year-old has owned and/or bred over 1,300 horses since his first gig as a horse owner in 1983. Most recently--in early June 2006--Hunt was inducted in the Illinois Harness Racing Hall of Fame in a ceremony at Hawthorne Race Course.

Terry Hunt

Terry, a Crown Point, Indiana native, graduated from the University of Evansville in 1974 with a B.S. in Business Administration. He wed his college sweetheart Marty in June of 1975 and they recently celebrated their 31st wedding anniversary. During his early days after college, Terry worked as both a private and public accountant and became a co-owner of an industrial sand mining operation. He eventually sold his interest in the sand mine to focus full time on the day to day operation of running his farm. In 1980 Terry and Marty welcomed daughter Sarah into their family. Sarah went on to become a national champion horseback rider, an all-state basketball player and a Magna Cum Laude graduate from Milikin University on her way to a M.S. degree from Midwestern University, and an eventual occupational therapist at Marianjoy.

Terry formed Hunt Harness Horses in 1985, and since then his pacers and trotters have carried the stable colors to victory countless times. Some of his top equines have lincluded: Broadway Preview, Vain Jain, Braintree, Broadway Commodity and others.

Terry is active in the business on all levels, in the owning as well as the breeding ranks. He's also served multiple terms on the IHHA Board of Directors, serving as First Vice-President and Treasurer.

"I still enjoy the thrill of racing, and have been very fortunate the past couple of years to share ownership of horses like Constant Change, Enemy At The Gate and Undeniably You," Terry noted. "Anyone involved with a breeding operation has a long term commitment to the sport. Notice I didn’t say investment.

"Cottonwood Farm has invested millions of dollars into their breeding program, and while that is a huge concern for me, I recognize it as a cost of doing business the right way. The element that makes breeders the most susceptible to the ups and downs of the business is that we cannot change much. We are either in the business or we are out. I can’t pick up our farm and move the operation to New Jersey or Ontario. I also can’t just turn the mares out for a season and wait until things get better."

"I think the Illinois foaling rule is archaic," Terry noted. "I know it is restrictive and has cost us a lot of business over the years. The thought that a farm makes money boarding a mare for that 30 days is crazy. The only way we make any money is on stallion fees. With our profit margins on board I would have to board a mare for about a year and a half to net $1,000 in profit.

"I wish the stallion ownership rule were less restrictive," Terry continued. "I would certainly favor a reduction in the required percentage of Illinois ownership. I am not sure that the rule is effective because I really don’t understand the purpose of the current regulations.

"I do remain convinced of one thing however. If Illinois completely eliminated the restrictions on stallion ownership and did away with the foaling rule we would not suddenly be flooded with top stallion prospects. The economics of the breeding and yearling market in Illinois makes such a move economically un-viable.

"To bring in a legitimate, top ranked stallion prospect, the sort that is generally syndicated and ends up at Hanover or Kentuckiana, the public has to support a horse with a stud fee of between $8,000 and $20,000. Then in order for that stallion to be successful, their yearlings must bring significantly higher prices than are generally paid here in Illinois…otherwise the stallion is a dead issue.

"What would most likely happen is that we would attract second-tier stallions that weren’t considered good enough to stand in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Ontario (with their racinos)," Terry added. "Open it up, I am all for making our product better by increasing competition…but until the economics of our local breeding business are way more attractive, I wouldn’t expect George Segal to move Brittany Farm to Highland Park. The back yard breeder is always going to exist pretty much the same I think. He is likely breeding for his own use, planning to raise, raise train and race his own product. I don’t think that changes in the foaling rule or stallion ownership would impact him at all.

"Horses bred in Illinois are extremely competitive wherever they go," Terry said. "Loyal Opposition became the fastest female in the history of the sport--winning at the Meadowlands in 1:48.4 in the Lady Liberty and she followed that up winning the Milton in Canada. Fox Valley Shaker won the $443,200 Sweetheart. There are many more examples, but I really wanted to get to another part of why I believe the quality of racing generally put on in Illinois is first rate.

"Take a look at the horses that have gone out to the Meadowlands to race for the better purses offered there," Terry noted. "That doesn’t surprise me, and the other part of that same example is the one that I have preached for years. We undervalue our own product here in Chicago. To be sure there are bottom end horses that cannot carry their own weight and therefore get assigned the lowest claiming prices. The point is that our $8 to $10,000 claimers are largely as good as the $20,000 claimers at the Meadowlands.

"There are many current examples of those horses racing out there now," Terry added. "In Chicago they were just "8’s" because someone said that 8 is the number. In East Rutherford they don’t call their bottom-enders $8,000 claimers. The fact that their $20 claimers cannot compete at that level when they come to Chicago is not an indictment of the racing in New Jersey – rather it is the fact that they promote in a positive way—they don’t try to tell the public that these are cheap horses."

2006 Personality Archives
June: George Smallsreed
May: Rick Moore
April: Kevin Mack
March: Tom Kelley
February: Dick Buxton
January: Walter Paisley