Page 43 - March_2023

SPEEDLINES
SPEEDHORSE March 2023 41
“Horses for Janis and I have been our passion all
our lives.” -Mac Murray
Mark Herron, TRACK
The right to be the #1 Leading Freshman Sire of Money Earners is a very competitive competition pursued each year by the new sires with their first crop of foals up and running. Each year this group of young sires put their pedigree, conformation, and race record on the line to show how they pass these factors on to the next generation. This title is a good indication of their ability to be a successful sire in the future. Eye Am King, a son of Mr Jess Perry and out of the mare Eye For Corona by Corona Cartel, is the 2022 Leading Freshman of the Year. His runners earned $885,307.
Eye Am King overcame a big obstacle to earn his title, as it is very difficult for a young stallion to prove himself when he has no race record to verify his speed as a racehorse. His race record shows that he made one start at Retama Park, going unplaced, and he was retired
due to an injury. As you will see, despite this obstacle, he certainly proved that pedigree and conformation gave him the foundation to be the #1 Leading Freshman Sire.
The story of Eye Am King begins at MJ Farms in Veguita, New Mexico, owned by Mac and Dr. Janis Spencer Murray. Mac tells us how it all got started. “Horses for Janis and I have been our passion all our lives. I grew up on a ranch when I was a kid and all I ever wanted to do was be a rancher or farmer. Unfortunately, it costs
a lot of money to get set up and it just wasn’t feasible at that time in my life.
“When Janis and I got married in 1997, she had a little operation in Utah, and I had a full-time job in Salt Lake City,” he continued. “I helped her on the weekends as well, before and after work.
It was called Spencer Farms. At the end
of 1999, we decided that we were going
to leave Utah to have the opportunity to maybe breakeven. We looked at Texas, looked at Oklahoma, looked at California, but we had been down to New Mexico to the Ruidoso Sales for nine years prior to that, and we felt like this area was a right fit for us.”
He then told how the name MJ Farms
as we know it today became the new face of this team. “Janis had kept her name Spencer because of her veterinary license in Utah.
She kept her name after we got married and when we moved, she decided to change her name to Janis Spencer Murray. We decided to come up with a farm name, so we called it MJ Farms using her first name and mine. We took possession of this place on January 10, 2000.”
The move to New Mexico proved to be
a good one. “The move to New Mexico has been a really good fit for us,” he explained. “From the horse breeding standpoint, it’s a turf paradise. The New Mexico program is really strong. I believe it and the Louisiana bred programs are the two best stakes programs
in the country. When we came from the intermountain area there were some strong progeny races in the Silver Dollar, the Diamond Classic and the Utah Classic, but basically
there was no such thing as a breeder award. So, when we got here and saw that in every race the breeder got money, that was very attractive.”