Dana Bonnell
Boo Dutton broke his maiden as a 5-year-old in a $5,000 claiming event at Michigan’s Mount Pleasant Meadows, and since that humble beginning the gelding has won nine more races and nearly $200,000 through age 10.
Michigan-bred Boo Dutton didn’t start until age five and became a stakes winner at nine, and he’s still going By Joe Nevills
The story of the 2007 foal crop has largely entered its epilogue phase. Classic winners Super Saver, Lookin at Lucky and Drosselmeyer have ventured off to careers at stud. Wise Dan, Horse of the Year in 2012 and 2013, is living the pensioner’s life at trainer Charlie LoPresti’s farm, while 2011 Horse of the Year Havre de Grace is a broodmare after selling for a record $10 million at auction. Meanwhile, Game On Dude and Little Mike welcome visitors daily at Old Friends Thoroughbred Retirement Farm in Kentucky. On the other side of the ledger, Boo Dutton is doing the best running of his life. The 11-year-old gelding has long been a staple of Michigan’s handicap ranks and has only gotten better with age, winning the older male division of the Michigan Sire Stakes at Hazel Park for the second consecutive year on September 2. It was the highlight of a 2017 campaign in which he had compiled earnings of $51,251, the most he’s made in a single year. Boo Dutton runs for owner Kala Crampton and trainer Jason Uelmen, who were married on October 7. “He’s a pretty neat old horse,” Uelmen said. “He just keeps going and going.” Even more unlikely than a decade-old runner hitting his stride this late in the game is the way the Michigan-bred got there. Boo Dutton was bred by Edward Khoury’s Twin Cedars Farm and sired by perennial leading Michigan sire Equality out of the winning Cryptoclearance mare Inty Binty. AMERICAN RACEHORSE • WINTER 2018 65