Harris Farms Foaled and Raised Fun to Dream California-bred Horse of the Year

Harris Farms foaled and raised Grade I winner Fun to Dream was named 2022 California-bred Horse of the Year at the CTBA Awards Dinner on Monday night. She added to her previous California-bred accolades of champion 3-year-old Filly and Sprinter.

During her championship season at three, Fun to Dream won five of her six starts including the Grade 1 La Brea Stakes at Santa Anita and the Betty Grable Stakes and the Fleet Treat Stakes at Del Mar. She kicked off her 4-year-old season with a victory in the Santa Monica Stakes (G2), her fourth consecutive win.

Fun to Dream was bred by the partnership of Connie Pageler and her trainer, Bob Baffert. She races for Pageler and Jill Baffert. By the late champion Arrogate, she was produced by the winning Maria’s Mon mare Lutesshttps://ctba.com/breeding/broodmare-of-the-year/, who was claimed by Baffert for Live Your Dream Racing in her final career start. Lutess, who was named the CTBA Broodmare of the Year. She is also the dam of Cal-bred stakes winner Heck Yeah (Acclamation).

“I did this, it was a crazy thing,” said Baffert. “I called Garrett O’Rourke at Juddmonte and I told him I’m going to do something really crazy, I’m sending you a mare that I claimed for $8,000. I saw those guys with California Chrome and an $8,000 mare and thought, why can’t we do that? I told Connie, we’re going to breed her to Arrogate, one of the greatest horses I ever trained. And we got lucky. We talked about what to name her and it’s fun to dream, that’s why we’re all in this business. And that’s how she got her name.”

Fun to Dream has a career record of six wins in seven starts and earnings of $546,590.

The other finalist for Horse of the Year with Harris Farms connections was The Chosen Vron, by our dearly missed stallion, Vronsky. He was named California-bred Champion Older Horse and Turf Horse.

Champion California-bred 2-year-old Filly Sell the Dream was also foaled at Harris Farms.