Allen’s Prospect knew his job, and did it without fail.

To take on the most difficult kinds of challenges, and make them look easy. That is a mark of greatness, and it was an everyday routine for Allen’s Prospect.

“In one of his early years at stud we bred him to 65 mares, and we were embarrassed,” said Mike Pons, business manager of Country Life Farm in Bel Air, Md., where Allen’s Prospect stood for 17 years. “Those were the days when a full book consisted of 40 mares. It may have seemed like we were getting greedy, but for those 65 mares, he probably performed a total of 75 covers.”

Of course, as time went by large books became commonplace, and Allen’s Prospect kept step with the best of them. Six times he covered more than 100 mares in a single season. At his zenith, in 2001, he covered 126; last spring the count was 109.

But those numbers only begin to tell the story. Along with an awesome libido, Allen’s Prospect had a remarkable facility when it came to impregnating his mares. Problem mares, including many who failed to conceive when bred to other stallions, were his specialty.

The end product was large crops of foals who hit the ground running.
Allen’s Prospect (a son of Mr. Prospector—Change Water, by Swaps, and thus a half-brother to broodmare of the year Fall Aspen) rose to become the Mid-Atlantic region’s leading sire in virtually every category, including lifetime progeny earnings, which exceed $38 million.

It’s rare for a Mid-Atlantic stallion to rank number one in the nation by one of the significant yardsticks, but Allen’s Prospect has led the nation by number of winners six times, including the past five consecutive seasons.

Allen’s Prospect died on September 3, forever altering the landscape within the Mid-Atlantic region’s breeding ranks, and at the Pons family’s Country Life Farm.

“He was the king, the alpha male, and all of the other horses reminded him of that every day,” said Mike Pons. “It was our job to let him do his job; he was the most strong-willed horse I’ve ever seen.

“Allen was smarter than most people I know,” continued Pons. “When we hired a new stud groom a few years ago, I let him do the hiring. We brought in several people and hired the one he liked the best.” That was Chuck Ness, who accompanied Allen’s Prospect to the New Bolton Center, where the horse had surgery for a tumor on his throat on August 26.

“He was his own man to the very end—after surgery he was hollering, trying to figure out how to become king of that domain,” said Pons.
Recovery seemed to be going well, recalled Pons, until four days after the surgery when Allen’s Prospect was observed taking an awkward step while grazing in a field—“like he stumbled over an imaginary blade of grass.”

His neurological condition quickly worsened, and the king was euthanized, so as not to be a witness to his own decline.

He was 21 years old—young, in terms of older horses.

Allen’s Prospect’s 17 years at stud passed all too quickly. But his influence will continue far into the future.