Seelster Farm’s Ann Straatman said Camluck did much more than change her life, or the life of her family’s farm. The Hall of Fame stallion changed a nation.
“Right now, progeny earnings for Camluck are almost $225 million. The next closest competitor is Western Hanover and he’s at, $213 million. It’s going to take a lot for someone new to come up and create that kind of legacy. Camluck has put Ontario on the map, Canada on the map in terms of competition and he certainly put Seelster on the map. I don’t know where we’d be without the old horse,” Straatman said.
Camluck died Aug. 9, 2015 at age 28. He spent 25 years at Seelster Farms in Lucan, ON.
“I had Camluck longer than I’ve had my kids,” Straatman said.
Straatman said it all started with a simple agreement between her father, the late Hall of Famer Chris Van Bussel, and Camluck’s trainer and part-owner Bob McIntosh of LaSalle, ON.
“It was something my father developed on a handshake with Bob McIntosh. It was a mutually agreed-upon sharing agreement with Seelster supporting and McIntosh supporting the early breeding years and being rewarded greatly after the Camluck two-year-olds hit the track,” Straatman said. “From then on, he bred full books in Ontario and my father was always afraid to raise his service fee more because he was a little breeder and he wanted the little breeders to still be able to afford to breed to Camluck.
“He got out there and had full books and was the most fertile stallion we’ve ever worked with.”
Hugh Mitchell, the chief executive officer of The Western Fair District, said Camluck was “a game-changing stallion. He revolutionized the game.”
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