Taking breeding to a new level

Across the Atlantic, an ambitious jumping stud with British and Irish links is pushing boundaries in a bid to revolutionise US breeding, writes Nancy Jaffer

- Nancy Jaffer

SPY COAST FARM is far more than a breeding operation, even though it hosts around 250 horses on 400 picturesque acres in the heart of Lexington’s Bluegrass region, nestled close to the Kentucky Horse Park.

Owner Lisa Lourie, a former nurse who has a master’s degree in health care management, only runs at full throttle. She uses her abundant energy to make her farm and its 60-strong staff a focal point for all kinds of activity to enhance the breeding business. That includes a sophisticated rehab and fi tness centre that opened in the spring of 2019, a quarantine facility, a brand-new education centre as well as facilities for training Spy Coast progeny from the breaking in stage right up to grand prix jumping. Spy Coast regularly welcomes tours, and even has a gift shop.

“It’s all part of agri-business, another profi t centre,” explains Lisa, who is part of Wellington Equestrian Partners, the holding company that owns the Winter Equestrian Festival’s home in Wellington, Florida. It is managed by impresario Mark Bellissimo, who calls Lisa “very principled and very passionate”, noting she has “a strong vision for equestrian sport”.

Lisa is also a partner in the Bellissimomanaged entity that owns the Tryon International Equestrian Centre in North Carolina, where the FEI World Equestrian Games were held in 2018. She has a small farm in Tryon and one in Wellington that is leased out to top Irish rider Shane Sweetnam, who has been Lisa’s business partner since 2004. But it is the Kentucky property and all its facets that serve as the base of her operations.