Kindle

Caldara Farm bred her in Kentucky, a bay filly by Indian Charlie out of the Carson City mare Carson’s Vanity, foaled March 14, 2008. Lane’s End consigned her to the 2009 Keeneland September Yearling Sale as Hip 1803 and HnR bought her for $50,000. The price was reachable because of a flaw. She was, in Hank Nothhaft’s assessment, "a bit short." She was later moved to Kentucky to be bred there, on the reasoning that regional sires do not sell.

She did not run at two. Gary Mandella started her for the first time at Golden Gate Fields on September 25, 2011, and she won, rallying two paths off the rail under Aaron Gryder and driving clear. Five weeks later she was second at Santa Anita, and on December 3 she won an allowance at Hollywood Park with Mike Smith aboard. Two wins and a second from three starts at three.

She found her form at four, and the charts show the day it happened. On September 21 at Fairplex Park, back from seven months off, Edwin Maldonado had the mount for the first time and she wore front bandages for the first time. She broke, crossed over, took the lead before the first turn, and won the Bangles and Beads Stakes by three lengths. From that afternoon to the end of her career she was in front at the quarter, the half, and the head of the stretch in every race she ran. Six for six. She never gave a rival the lead again.

A month later she took that speed down the Santa Anita hillside in the Senator Ken Maddy Stakes (G3), cut out an opening quarter of 20.97, the fastest of her life, and turned for home five lengths clear. Broken Dreams got to her in the final strides. Thirty-four days after that the two met again in the Cool Air Stakes at Hollywood Park, and Kindle went straight to the front and beat that same mare by two and three-quarter lengths under nothing more than steady handling. The chart caller noted she was "pulling a bit under a snug hole," which is another way of saying she was doing it easily. The Equibase figure was 108, the best of her career.

Six weeks later she went back down the hill for the Monrovia Stakes (G2). She cut out 21.70 and 43.50 and led at every call, and it took the reigning Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint champion to get past her. Mizdirection won by a half length. Kindle earned a 107 in defeat, a figure most graded winners never reach.

Twenty days after that she tried seven furlongs on a sealed, wet-fast Santa Anita main track in the Santa Monica Stakes (G2), the first time in her life she had been asked to go that far. She made the pace, was still in front at the head of the stretch, and fought along the rail into deep stretch before finishing third. Her best work came on turf and all-weather, and the four highest figures of her career all came on grass.

She was away for 344 days. On January 5, 2014, at six, she came back for another Monrovia, broke from the rail with Rafael Bejarano up, and did what she had done every time for two years. She was in front at the quarter, the half, and the top of the stretch. Pontchatrain wore her down in the last furlong and beat her three-quarters of a length. Mandella had said before the race that she still had a lot of speed. She went to the wire fighting, as she had every time down that hill, and it was the last start of her career.

Eleven starts, four wins, four seconds, a third, and $243,370. Two black-type wins, and placed in four graded stakes with three of those beaten three-quarters of a length or less, every one of them after making the running.

Her first foal, Made in America, by Tiznow, is the only one of her produce that HnR kept and raced. Ben Colebrook trained him. He won three of six starts and $112,010, and all three wins came over the all-weather at Turfway Park, the last of them the Forego Stakes at Turfway in January 2021. He is a Hall of Honor honoree in his own right.

Her second foal was the one the industry noticed. Kindle was among the small handful of HnR mares good enough to get a season to American Pharoah in his first book, and the resulting chestnut colt, Allah Maak, was sold as a weanling at Keeneland November for $400,000, landing exactly on his reserve. Peter O’Callaghan of Cavalier Bloodstock bought him and later said it was the most he had ever paid for a foal. O’Callaghan brought him back through the same ring eleven months later as Hip 91 of the 2018 Keeneland September sale, where Godolphin bought him for $2,200,000 with Sheikh Mohammed on the grounds for the first time in roughly a decade. He topped the opening session, was the first yearling of the sale to break seven figures, and was the most expensive horse sold at public auction in North America that year to that point. O’Callaghan called him "probably the best yearling we’ve ever had." He never made the races, but the sale stands as the highest price Kindle’s pedigree and physical have commanded, and the highest paid for any horse at North American public auction that year to that point.

Palazzi, by Pioneerof the Nile, was bred by HnR in partnership with the Pioneerof the Nile Syndicate. HnR bought him back for $375,000 as a weanling at Keeneland November, then sold him to Team Casse for $510,000 at Fasig-Tipton Saratoga in 2019. He took five attempts to break his maiden, then won the Texas Turf Mile at Sam Houston in his first start at three. That year he was also second in the Transylvania Stakes (G3) at Keeneland, second in the Audubon at Churchill, and ran in both the Belmont Derby Invitational and the Saratoga Derby Invitational, each a Grade 1. He took a year to find himself again, and changed hands for $35,000 at the Keeneland horses of racing age sale along the way. What he did next is the part worth reading. At five he won three straight, including the Pattison Singspiel Stakes (G3) over the E.P. Taylor turf course, and ran fourth in the Canadian International (G1). At six he won the bet365 Eclipse Stakes (G2) at Woodbine over a mile and a sixteenth on the Tapeta, a graded win on a different surface at a different trip from his Grade 3. He is eight now, still in training for Gary Barber and Mark Casse, and won at Gulfstream this May. Thirty-eight starts, seven wins, $642,410.

The rest of her produce: American Symphony, by Into Mischief, won twice. A Day to Remember, by American Pharoah, brought $300,000 from My Racehorse and Muir Hut Stables at Keeneland September in 2022 and has won at four and five. Fire, by Authentic, is unplaced. There is a Justify colt foaled in 2024, and a Quality Road filly foaled in 2026 who is her last.

Four winners from five runners, two black-type winners, one multiple graded stakes winner. Her foals have grossed roughly $3.8 million at public auction against the $50,000 HnR paid for the mare.

Now. Kindle is pensioned in 2026 at the HnR farm in Versailles, Kentucky, where she joins Living the Life (IRE) and Randie’s Legend.