SHAKOPEE, MN – On a subzero day in Lake City, Minnesota the winter of 2022, a pair of foals were born at nearly the exact same time. The odds of a Thoroughbred foal growing up to get to the races can be long, but the odds of a foal growing up to becoming a champion, regional or otherwise, is nearly infinitesimal. On this cold morning in Minnesota, two would grow up to win the premiere two-year old stakes at Canterbury Park on Festival Day 2024.

“We had several mares close together in their pregnancies,” said co-breeder Rick Bremer. “Badge of Honor went into labor and [wife and co-breeder] Cheryl and I went out to help her.”

The front hooves and head appeared, and the couple heard another mare in labor.

“It turns out that Hidygo was also foaling,” said Bremer.

The farm has eight large foaling stalls, four heated and four not. As luck would have it, Badge of Honor was in the unheated barn.

“We had to move Badge of Honor and her Midshipman foal, who would become Able Seaman, into one of the heated stalls. We had to carry the foal over and get the heat lamps going. Thankfully Hidygo was in a heated stall already,” explained Bremer. 

She foaled moments later. The Flameaway filly was to become Where’s Marilyn.

“We had to call our daughters in to help out with all that was going on that night.”

Fast forward a year and Where’s Marilyn was sold in the Fasig Tipton sale for $20,000 to Baha Bloodstock who wanted to pinhook the foal in the Ocala Breeders’ Sale. She was purchased out of that sale by Minnesota owner Anthony Didier for $20,000 and named after friend Marilyn LaCount.

Able Seaman, a few days before the sale, developed an infected lymph node and ended up being pulled from the sale. Friends and fellow Canterbury Park Hall of Famers Barry and Joni Butzow came out to the farm one day, checked out Abel Seaman and immediately bought half of the gelding.

Barry had the honor of naming the young horse.

“I named him after my son-in-law who had just had a surprise baby,” said Butzow. “I called him up and told him that I just named a horse after him.”

On Saturday both foals, nearly the exact same age, born feet apart from each other in Lake City, Minnesota, won the most prestigious races in Minnesota for their age and sex an hour apart at Canterbury Park.