Goodnight Olive: From Champion Sprinter to Promising Broodmare
- Kaeli Bartholomew
- 11 hours ago
- 7 min read
Nothing can quite compare to a great mare. A horse with the fire to beat the best, time and time again, and the potential to leave her mark long after her racing days are over. Goodnight Olive is one of those mares.
Goodnight Olive's Pedigree:
She was born on April 30, 2018, at picturesque Stonestreet Farm in Lexington, Kentucky. Her dam is Salty Strike, a beautiful dark bay mare, plain except for the star etched onto her forehead. Salty Strike found success racing in the colors of her breeder, Craig B. Singer. With Kenny McPeek in charge of her training, the daughter of Smart Strike won eight stakes, two of them graded, and earned over $485,000.
Retired after recording her final victory in 2012, she entered the Keeneland January Horses of Racing Age Sale, where Stonestreet Thoroughbred Holdings, always a farm eager to acquire high-class mares, went to $800,000 to add her to their broodmare band. The desire for her came not just from her exploits on the racetrack, but also from her dazzling pedigree.
Salty Strike traces back to Cosmah, dam of legendary sire Halo and champion racehorse Tosmah, and Almahmoud, dam of iconic broodmare Natalma, who herself produced champion and breed-shaping sire Northern Dancer, champion La Prevoyante, and Danehill, who became a powerhouse stallion in Europe. (Paulick Report)
While Salty Strike’s first foal, a daughter of Medaglia d’Oro named Katie’s Keepsake, went unraced, her second foal, a daughter of Tiznow named Smile More, managed to win two of six starts and place in three others.
But her progeny would not quite live up to the considerable sum she was purchased for until Goodnight Olive was born in 2018. They had paired Salty Strike with 2004 Horse of the Year Ghostzapper, an absolute powerhouse that won 9 of 11 races, four being Grade 1s, highlighted by the 2004 Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Yearling Sale:
Stonestreet Farms sent their well-bred filly to the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Yearling Sale in 2019. Consigned by Summerfield, she caught the attention of bloodstock agent Liz Crow. Crow picked her up for First Row Partners for $170,000, a price that would prove to be a bargain.
Like many of First Row Partners’ horses, Goodnight Olive was sent to Paul Sharp in Ocala, Florida, for her early education, then joined the barn of trainer Chad Brown.
Three-Year-Old Season (2021):
Much like her sire Ghostzapper, whom Chad Brown had worked with while an assistant for Bobby Frankel, Goodnight Olive did not step into stakes company early in her career, as bone chips in her ankles put large gaps between some of her races at three and four. Though that’s not to say she wasn’t a near-immediate success when she finally made it to the races.
Second on debut in March at Gulfstream Park, she returned during Keeneland’s Fall Meet in October with a romping 8 ½-length victory going six furlongs. She then moved up to Aqueduct for the winter, where she again trounced her competition, going nine lengths clear in a seven-furlong allowance.
Four-Year-Old Season (2022):
Off again for nearly seven months between the conclusion of her first season and the beginning of her four-year-old campaign, Goodnight Olive finally made her way back into the starting gates for an allowance optional claimer at Belmont Park in June, which she won by 5 ½ lengths. Plans to send her to the Shine Again Stakes next out were scrapped when the race was canceled from lack of entries, so she instead made another start in an allowance optional claimer, this time at Saratoga, which she won by 3 ¾ lengths. That would be her last time racing outside of graded company.
With a four-race win streak and recurrent dominant performances against lesser competition, Olive’s connections decided it was time for her to face the best in Saratoga’s Ballerina Handicap (G1) in late August. She had no problem with the step up in class and won by 2 ¾ lengths, defeating the prior year’s Eclipse Champion Female Sprinter, Ce Ce, in the process.
“She's not unlike her dad, who I worked with, who wasn't on the track much but was very talented,” Chad Brown said after the race (BloodHorse). “But the team of owners always let me do the right thing with this filly and never pushed her beyond what she was ready to do. Now she's finally got it together. I really appreciate their patience, because when she is on the track and running she's doing it with ease and unchallenged."
With just three weeks’ rest between her two wins at Saratoga and a chance at glory in the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (G1) on the horizon, Brown made the decision to give Olive time to rest until the big dance. That rest paid off, as the speedy filly powered home to a 2 ½-length victory over the 2021 Eclipse Champion Two-Year-Old filly, Echo Zulu.
“She symbolizes everything that’s good in horse racing,” Brown said with pride after the win (Past The Wire). “Being patient, always putting the horse first, bringing together a lot of different people - some didn’t even know each other before they went in on this horse together - and a large ownership group that is worthy of this win with their patience. A lot of memories made today.”
The victory made Goodnight Olive a shoo-in for the honor of 2022 Eclipse Champion Female Sprinter.
Five-Year-Old Season (2023):
Goodnight Olive was back at Keeneland for more success during the following Spring Meet, holding off a chasing Maryquitecontrary to win the Madison Stakes (G1) by one length, the smallest margin of her career thus far.
The Madison marked her seventh consecutive victory, a streak that would disappointingly end in the Derby City Distaff (G1) in May. Stuck on the inside throughout the race, jockey Irad Ortiz, Jr. simply could not find a place for his horse to go in the stretch. Goodnight Olive finished in third, bad racing luck, not a lack of wanting, the sole cause for her loss.
“I was stuck the entire way,” Ortiz explained (Thoroughbred Daily News). “I had no place to go. I couldn’t get out of there. I had tons of horse, just no place to go.”
Returning to New York for the summer, Goodnight Olive raced next in the Bed o’ Roses Stakes (G2) at Belmont Park. And though this trip was again a rough one for her, Ortiz was able to send Olive wide in the turn, and she ran down Wicked Halo and Carmel Swirl by a length.
She then tried to defend her title in the Ballerina Handicap (G1) in August, but victory was not to be. Echo Zulu, the champion filly Goodnight Olive had defeated in the prior year’s Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint, got her revenge. Olive was second, 2 ½ lengths behind her.
Like the previous year, Brown opted to rest Goodnight Olive until the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita, where she would try to become a two-time winner of the Filly & Mare Sprint. And that she did. She soared under the wire 2 ¾ lengths in front, making her just the second repeat winner of the race, after Groupie Doll (2012-2013).
Sale & Retirement:
Just four days after winning at the Breeders’ Cup, Goodnight Olive entered the sales ring at the Fasig-Tipton November Sale. The sensational mare commanded a sensational price; the hammer fell at $6,000,000, with Gavin O’Connor picking her up for his client, John Stewart of Resolute Farm.
Their intentions were to continue her racing career, but ultimately, it was decided that Olive had done enough on the racetrack, and she would instead join Stewart’s broodmare band in Midway, Kentucky. She brought with her not only the power of her female family, but that of Ghostzapper as well.
Ghostzapper mares have produced the likes of Triple Crown winner Justify, Eclipse Champion Sprinters Drefong and Book’em Danno, and Eclipse Champion Turf Male Up to the Mark.
First Foal by Not This Time:
Goodnight Olive gave birth to her first foal, a colt by Not This Time, on February 10, 2025. Nicknamed “Ollie,” the colt was described as “big time, all the time”.
Second Foal by Seize The Grey:
Goodnight Olive was bred next to Seize The Grey, winner of the Preakness Stakes (G1) and Pennsylvania Derby (G1) in 2024. He was primarily chosen for being a son of Arrogate, a towering four-time Grade 1 winner who tragically died at the young age of seven after having sired only three crops.
Goodnight Olive foaled her Seize The Grey colt on March 23, 2026, and he looked like a force to be reckoned with from the very start.
“He was a very big, strong foal at birth, 152 lbs., but over the past few months he has turned into a really cut athlete,” Noel Murphy, Farm Manager at Resolute, said of the colt. “He’s just a natural to look at, same care and routine as the rest of the foals but definitely looks different.”
Chelsey Stone Stewart, CEO of Resolute, shared similar sentiments. “Physically he is a beast. He’s been like that since birth. He carries himself with purpose and power with a great shoulder and hip.”
Called “Big Puma” or just “Puma” around the farm, Goodnight Olive’s Seize The Grey colt looks better and better every day. Muscles ripple through his coat. He’s strong and loves to run, but is still easy to get along with.
“Very laid back, really easy to work with, ask and he is happy to oblige, but if you don’t ask and just try to make him do something, then mom’s fire comes shining through,” Murphy said of the colt’s personality. “He’s a very smart horse. He understands the ask and enjoys the daily routine but definitely wants to be appreciated by the team for who he is.”
Bred to Gun Runner for 2027 Foal:
After the birth of her 2026 colt, Goodnight Olive was bred to Hall of Fame racehorse Gun Runner.
Goodnight Olive spent her racing career proving that she was an elite sprinter. Though only time will tell what her foals will become, the future looks bright for them as well.
As the years pass following her retirement from racing, she enjoys a quieter life, raising foals in the Bluegrass and receiving love and praise from the fans who come to visit her.
“She is at peace with herself,” Murphy said. “She’s a two-time champion and she knows that.”
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