Located 30 minutes from Churchill Downs and 45 minutes from Keeneland in beautiful, rolling Shelby County, the farm is home to 130 acres of grass covered hills.  The original property was 55 acres for many years until 2007, when adjacent land was purchased and connected to the original property.  Mike and Penny live here, in the home where they raised their girls.  Abby still lives at home and helps on the farm, while Elizabeth lives in the next town over and Sara is attending college.  The original farm was purchased in 1986 when Mike and Penny moved out of Louisville.

The Lauer farm is now home to the breeding operation and occasional racehorse needing time off.  The mares we have are foaled mostly in Indiana and brought back to Kentucky a few days after birth.  They are then raised on our farm, while the mares are re-bred locally.  We’ve relied heavily on state incentive programs outside of Kentucky.  The breeding programs we participate in the most are Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio as they have been quite good to our breeders.

For example, in Indiana each time the horse wins, regardless of who the current owner is, 20% of the winning purse is paid back to the breeders.  On the racing side of this, if an Indiana-bred horse wins any race at or above a $10,000 purse, $15,000 claimer, the winning purse is 40% higher.  Both the current owner and the breeder get to reap this purse award.

For the $10,000 purse example, the winning Indiana-bred horse takes their winning portions from a $14,000 purse, simply because they were born in Indiana.  For years we have participated in the breeding program, and plan to continue foaling in Indiana and advocating for better breeding programs both in Indiana and locally.

Coming alongside the breeding, we have also operated a horse transport company for 30 years and continue to transport horses both locally and regionally.  All of our breeding trips are run from the farm, by our transport company.