Sassy started as a dream for George Towner.  As a teenager, daughter Shannon, rode a filly named Lady Roman Spring (Horatius- Salem Susan, by Salem) when she was in early race training.  Spring went on to race and earned about $50K during her career, with the majority of her money earned in Allowance races.

George always loved Spring and felt that she was a quality horse.  When Spring’s owners wanted to breed her, they identified Storm of Angels as the prospective sire.  The owners of Storm of Angels were not particularly interested in breeding their stallion to Spring, but they were convinced to allow the breeding as they wanted to breed to the owners’ other mare who was sent up at the same time.

Little did the owners of Storm of Angels know that Spring’s filly, Spring Kitten (Kitty), would be Storm of Angel’s first (only?) stakes winning progeny.  Kitty was a black type winner of $160K with a E of 102.  Kitty’s highlights were winning the Buckland Stakes, finishing 3rd in the Mr. Diz Stakes, and finishing 3rd in the Baltimore Breeders Cup Turf Sprint Stake running against colts (lost by 1/2 a length).  She placed in 7 stakes and won 4 allowance races.

George loved Kitty and always dreamed of breeding her to create a racehorse of his own.  This idea sat in the back of his mind for years and then in 2010 after speaking to Kitty’s owners he realized that the bucket list item could become a reality.

In the summer of 2010 George and Shannon took ownership of Kitty.  They did a lot of studying and researching to learn about breeding, nicking, and nearby stallions.  They selected Prized as the sire of Kitty’s first foal.  Kitty was sent to Prized a little late in the breeding season and after a few breeding attempts, no foal was in evidence.  It was pretty disappointing for the newbie breeders, so they sent Kitty to a boarding barn to wait for the next year.  Kitty was tested and no reproductive problems were found, so there was hope for the next year.

At the boarding barn, Kitty started on a new career as a riding horse and she even went on her first trail ride which was successful.  A few days later she sustained a pasture injury to a hind leg which left her completely lame.  She went through a few months of stall rest, followed by short stints of hand walking.  She was pretty sound at the walk when the plan was made to ship her off to NorMar Farm for rehab.

After a long battle to get Kitty on the horse trailer, she stepped off the trailer at NorMar lame again.  A consultation with Dr. Cooper Williams led to using IRAP treatment on Kitty’s injury.  She went back on stall rest for a number of months and then eventually progressed to walking and then full turnout.

With Kitty sound once again, George and Shannon went back to the drawing board for sires.  After a lot of research they decided to breed her to Albert the Great at Pin Oak Lane Farm.  Albert was a winner of over $3 million and he sired a number of big winners who have won over various distances.  Albert nicked very well with Kitty, so a match was made.  The great folks at NorMar shipped Kitty over a few times to get her bred and she took either the second or third try.

Kitty’s next home was Ghost Ridge Farm where she would settle in an reside from November until she foaled in April.  She had to foal in Pennsylvania in order for the foal to qualify as a Pennsylvania Bred horse.

On April 3, 2011, Kitty’s filly, Sassy Little Cat, was born.  As a first foal, she was small and underweight.  Despite a slow start, she eventually caught up to the other foals her age.

Sassy was a difficult foal.  Out of the 60 foals born at Ghost Ridge that year, Sassy was the least friendly foal on the farm.  She was afraid of people and had zero desire to be around people.  Her mother didn’t help as Kitty really did not socialize very well with large herds of mares, she was always an outsider.  Kitty also was very difficult to catch for most people when she was turned out in large paddocks.  So despite being imprinted and handled as a newborn, Sassy was not interested in making friends with people.  She was also opinionated from a young age.  When Kitty was taken out of their stall to get her feet trimmed, an angry Sassy repeatedly double barrel kicked the stall door in an attempt to break it down.

The two spent a few months at Ghost Ridge before moving to Maryland so George could be closer for visits. They spent time with the Napravniks while Jazz and Cindy worked with Sassy to get her more familiar with human handling.

After being weaned and growing teeth, Sassy discovered carrots.  George shamelessly spoiled Sassy in an effort to   teach the filly that humans are enjoyable to be around.  Sassy quickly learned that people can be enjoyable to be near, and that George in particular was like a giant Pez dispenser.

At 9 months of age, Sassy moved again, this time to Delaware to get her Delaware Certification.  Her new home was EquiStar Farm where she made quick friends with a pony filly, some minis, and a gelding that looked exactly like Secretariat.  The crew at Equistar worked more to familiarize Sassy with human handling.

Sassy went into heat for the first time while she was in Delaware and she started getting aggressive and dominant towards humans.  The farm requested that we either pay a trainer to work with the filly or move her somewhere else, so we engaged a local Natural Horsemanship trainer to work with Sassy.

George spent a lot of time staying in Delaware at his brother’s house and the two of them watched Sassy’s training sessions and got to learn some of the handling techniques.  Sassy’s attitude improved enough to make her safe to handle again, but when Shannon visited, she felt that Sassy’s education and manners were still lacking.

For Sassy’s continued education she moved to Advantage Horsemanship’s Fox Quarter Farm in Westminster, MD. Scott Purdum specializes in training young horses and working on ground manners, so part of our boarding agreement included more ground work and early saddle training.  During her stay, she learned to pick up her feet consistently and to have more spacial respect for the people handling her.  In her last month, she was broke to saddle and she left able to quietly walk, trot, and canter under saddle.

In the beginning of 2012, Sassy stepped onto the trail of race training.  She moved to Prospect Farm to continue saddle training with Billy Santoro.  Billy doesn’t like the young horses to come in with previous saddle training because a lot of people create problems, but I think that Billy was reasonably happy with the basics that Scott instilled in Sassy.

Billy and his staff rode Sassy around the training track as well as cross country around the 500 acre farm.  She learned to trot and canter like a racehorse, going eye to eye, leading, and following.  She also was good enough to go out to the track by herself, which is pretty good in a very young two year old.  They felt that Sassy was pretty opinionated, but she was also businesslike and she seemed to enjoy having a job.  In the last month she was also introduced to the starting gate and she did a great job learning about the gate.

In mid April, Sassy moved into the final phase of race training.  We shipped her to Fair Hill to her new home in trainer Mike Trombetta’s barn.

In May 2013, George began to organize a group of his friends, and all of them joined together as owners of Sassy to watch her progress through what we hope to be a successful and healthy racing career.  All of us, Linda, Mitch, John, Bert, Dallas, Joanne, George, and Shannon come together to happily cheer Sassy on.

In 2015, Sassy began a new racing season with trainers Fenneka and Dave Bentley.  We’re excited for the great care Sassy is receiving and we love the  European style training regimen and daily turnout.  The entire Sassy Team is looking forward to a great year!

Go Sassy!