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SPEEDLINES
Steve Holt and Jeff Jones also co-own Champion Empressum, shown winning the Rainbow Derby.
H “I tinkered with a few horses back in the early 80’s and then the oil field busted
in about ‘85 and I got out, but I still had that interest in it.” - Steve Holt
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Steve Holt has had a pretty good year as the co-owner and co-breeder of the winner Hes Judgeandjury and as a co-owner of third-placed Chasing AJ in the All American Futurity. Holt is also the co-breeder and co- owner along with Jeff Jones of Empressum, the 2021 Champion Three-Year-Old Gelding and a horse that has already qualified to the 2022 Champion of Champions. But this horseman is no stranger to racing. He has not only bred horses to run but he has gone the claiming route as well. He claimed DE Passem Okey for $7,500 and went on with the horse to win nearly $500,000 while earning the title of Champion Distance Horse in 2010 and 2011.
Steve Holt didn’t start with racehorses but grew up around horses, and they were the working kind of horses. His love of racehorses started this way. “Back in the 80’s I was just a young man working in the oil fields and I saw
that the oil industry and the horse business ran hand in hand. I had some good friends who used to go up to Ross Downs and watch them run on Sunday way before pari-mutuel. I took an interest in it and got an adrenaline rush out of it. I tinkered with a few horses back in the early 80’s and then the oil field busted in about ‘85 and I got out, but I still had that interest in it.”
He related this about his dream of owning his own horses and the start of the Stepping Stone Ranch, “I told myself back in ‘85 that if
I ever got financially comfortable, I would try
it again. So, in 2000 I bought a little ranch up here in Guthrie not far from the Lazy E. It was 40 acres and it had horse facilities on it. I started like a lot of them - I had more facilities than horses and I said I needed a bunch of horses here to justify having this place. So, I went out in about 2002 and I bought like seven mares. They were good mares, but they were what I
called middle of the road type of mares, and I bred to the good stallions. I raised the babies.”
Holt explained how some reality set in about his goals as a breeder. “I was going
to take the colts to the sales and make a lot of money. I found out right quick that the horse business isn’t about quantity but it’s all about quality. I sold those first babies out of those seven mares, and I don’t think I made money on any of them. So, I regrouped and sold all but one of them and then I went to the Heritage Place Winter Mixed Sale that year and bought a mare named Fontana Beaujolais. She was a Moon Lark mare
and out of Debonairess. She was in foal to Corona Cartel. I gave $31,000 for her and she had an April baby and that was Crazy About Corona, who is the granddam of Hes Judgeandjury and Empressum.”
He continued, “Fontana Beaujolais had a lot of pedigree that had multiple black type
“I found out right quick that the horse business isn’t about quantity but it’s all about quality.” - Steve Holt
32 SPEEDHORSE October 2022
© Susan Bachelor, Speedhorse
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