In her 29 career outings, Ornate was a decidedly workmanlike performer for Anita Cauley, collecting seven wins for the longtime owner and breeder over three seasons.
While Ornate's on-track results might not have been the stuff that inspired joyful gasps from inside a winner's circle, her second career in the breeding shed has a pattern of doing just that.
For all the euphoria that came over Cauley after watching her homebred juvenile filly On Fire Baby record a 61/4-length victory in the Grade II Golden Rod Stakes at Churchill Downs this past Saturday, the Louisville-based owner made sure to pay homage to the mare who was largely responsible for that moment in the first place.
On Fire Baby is now the second graded stakes winner to be produced by Ornate, the former $80,000 Fasig-Tipton July purchase who has become the star and main contributor to Cauley's four-horse broodmare band.
Campaigned by Cauley and her late husband, Barry Ebert, Ornate is also the dam of Grade II winner High Heels — who ran third in the 2007 Kentucky Oaks — as well as stakes winner French Kiss. Those three, along with another daughter of Ornate named Lustful, make up Cauley's entire breeding arsenal which currently resides at Lee McMillan's Amende Place in Paris.
When High Heels — the first foal out of Ornate — retired with earnings of $484,636, Cauley figured she had already experienced her once-in-a-lifetime horse.
Four starts and three wins into her career, On Fire Baby is forcing her owner to have second thoughts about that.
"I have been very lucky to have the fillies I've had out of Ornate. She's been very kind to me," beamed Cauley after the Golden Rod. "With High Heels I thought, 'Wow I've been in the business for 20 years and I finally get a good horse.' I just would say little prayers that I hope I get one more chance before I pass to experience that again. It's beyond words to think I've got another sister who can do something special."
One who can attest to how much Ornate and her daughters have meant to Cauley is Gary "Red Dog" Hartlage, a native of Louisville's Shively suburb who has trained for Cauley for more than 20 years — including Ornate and High Heels.
Like Cauley's operation, Hartlage's keeps the number of head in his barn to modest proportions. And just as a strong family has elevated Cauley's participation in racing, Hartlage maintains a kindred atmosphere in his shedrow as clients past and present always flood the winner's circle when one of Hartlage's runners end up there.
"That is exactly why my late husband and I hired him is because when you see the atmosphere around his barn, it is family through and through," Cauley said of Hartlage. "Everybody cheers for everybody else. We could all be very competitive, we all want to win but we all want everybody to do well. I feel as much a part of his family as his family."
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