For decades, Tim and Lisa Turney have been strong supporters of Kentucky horse racing. Most recently, they made headlines as the senders of the sophomore colt Succinct won three times in the qualifying race this year.
At the 2022 Keeneland September Yearling auction, the Turney family sold a son of Structure bred by Hidden Brook and Spruce Lane Farms, for $200,000 to Red White & Blue Racing. Named Neat, the three-year-old colt won the Bob Bork Texas Turf Mile Stakes on January 27 by 5 ½ lengths. In his next start, the chestnut colt won the Transylvania Stakes Presented by Keeneland Select (G3T) on April 5 by 1 length. On May 4, Neat finished seventh in the American Turf Stakes Presented by TwinSpires (G2T), but he bounced back, winning the Manila Stakes (G3T) on June 29 and again in the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame Stakes (G2T) on August 2.
Tim’s journey didn’t start in the Bluegrass. After graduating from college with a degree in animal science, he said, “I literally came to Kentucky because I met a guy at a bar.” The guy had some mares with Ben Walden Sr., and told Walden, “I’m sending this kid to you. Put him to work.” Tim flew to Kentucky on St. Patrick’s Day 1982, and he started working for Walden.
Two years later, he married his wife, Lisa, and eventually went to work for her father, Jim Conway. Tim said of Lisa, “She moved to Kentucky when she was probably four or five years old. Her dad came here to start the farm. She graduated from Notre Dame with a degree in microbiology.” He noted that “her grandfather used to say, ‘She was born in a feed bin and that’s where she’ll stay,’ because she wouldn’t leave the farm. She really loved it here, especially the kids.” Among other positions, Tim also worked as an identification person in Keeneland’s sales department.
Perhaps most notably, the Turney family has operated Shamrock Glen Farm in Versailles, Ky., since 1993. “My wife worked for her father. He had a farm called Gold Meadows, and we decided to do it ourselves,” Tim recalls. “Our plan was to rent a place for about five years, and if the numbers and everything looked good, we would look to buy a place.” He adds, “We had a handful of customers, just people we met along the way who encouraged us. So we took the plunge and bought a place. That was in 1993. We rented a place; we bought a place in 1998, and then maybe seven or eight years ago, we expanded. So now we have about 156 acres.” “And we can, we’ll breed 35 mares a year, maybe breed somewhere around 60, maybe more,” he noted.
He estimates he currently has about 75 to 80 mares, yearlings, and foals in stables, not counting the foals on the farm. “Of those, probably 90 percent are owned by some client.” And those clients aren’t just professional relationships. “We take in a few outside horses seasonally. But we’ve been very fortunate to have some incredibly loyal and good clients along the way. It’s nice that our clients are really friends first, and if they’re just clients, they become friends very quickly.” Those clients also include some of the most famous owners and breeders in the business, like William Warren (owner of four Grade 1 winners) and William Warren (owner of four Grade 1 winners). City of Light and Horse of the Year 2005 Saint Liam) and his son, Andrew. “We had a client, EJ Sukley, who we bred a mare for. The mare, Purim, won a Grade 1 at Keeneland, and was a successful stallion until he passed away,” Turney added.
Neat is now among those success stories. Tim describes him as “fantastic, easy-going. He performed really well. We had a couple of other horses that year that sold really well. And in the last three or four years we’ve sold some horses for big prices and some that didn’t do so well, but went on to become Grade 1, Grade 2 winners.” That includes Xigera who won the Mother Goose (G2) and Falls City Stakes (G3) last year. “And we’ve met some amazing people over the years doing this,” Tim says. “I can’t begin to tell you how many people have been influential in helping us along the way. Not us. Our clients are great. The mentorship we have with some of them—you can’t put a price on that. It’s really, really fun and really exciting.”
