Champion Quarter Horse Breeder of the Year

VEGUITA—As the summer comes to a close, MJ Farms is collecting several wins in the horse racing world.

In August, Mac and Janis Murray, owners of the breeding ranch in Veguita, were named the American Quarter Horse Association’s Champion Breeder of the Year for 2024.

“It’s more of a prestige thing than anything else,” Mac explained. “It’s a big thumbs up from the professionals. They give you a nice trophy and a belt buckle.”

The biggest benefit of the recognition is it raises the profile of a breeder’s stock, he said.

In this case, it puts the farms three stallions — Big Daddy Cartel, Eye Am King and Condigo — in the spotlight and “then people want to buy your product, right?”

As if that wasn’t enough, the farm added an even bigger feather to its cowboy hat over Labor Day weekend. The top two finishers in the All American Futurity — often called the Kentucky Derby of quarter horse racing — are out of MJ Farms.

King of The Tide, sired by Eye Am King, took first, followed by Political Twist, also out of the Vegita breeding farm. With a $3 million purse, the Futurity is the world’s richest quarter horse race.

According to reporting by the Albuquerque Journal, the 7 to 2 favorite King of The Tide broke out early, then held off Political Twist in a photo finish, winning by 0.45 seconds.

“It’s just icing on the cake,” Mac told the Journal. “We’ve been in the breeding business 40 something-plus years and it’s every breeder’s dream to win the All American.”

Eye Am King has had some success as a sire, but this win catapults him to another level, Mac said.

“He’s never had a win of this magnitude,” he said of the horse’s offspring. “He had a winner in the Albuquerque million two years ago, and he’s had some really nice winners, but nothing the magnitude of the All American. There’s no race like it.”

Now that the race has been run and won, life on Champagne Lane — the cottonwood lined lane that leads to MJ Farms — will settle down for the fall as Mac and his team work on handling and training the next crop of foals.

Mac and Janis have called the 80-acre farm home for the last 25 years after relocating to the Land of Enchantment from Utah. Mac knew he always wanted to be a farmer and work with livestock.

“Back in the late ʼ70s, I met a guy who later became my best friend and he talked me into going into partnership on a race horse,” he said. “That kid of started the ball rolling. I got a couple of horses and did pretty well back in those days.

“I just kind of got hooked. I don’t think ‘addictive’ is the proper adjective. Maybe intriguing? Owning a race horse or maybe a stable of two, three, five, seven, it’s kind of like owning your own sports team.”

Mac’s love and appreciation for the horses he raises can be seen as he visits the stallions every day, rubbing their heads and straightening their manes. Often seen as wild and mean, the breeder says that’s far from true.

“They’re like people. If you treat them well, with kindness, they’re the gentlest things ever,” he says.

In addition to the three stallions, MJ Farms is home to about 40 breeding mares, Mac said, but only about 2 percent of them carry their own foals.

“Most of them, we do embryo transfers. The surrogate — what they call the recipient — carries the baby,” he said.

By doing embryo transfers, the farm can get anywhere from one to three foals a year from one mare, and it reduces the risk to the valuable equines.

“Our very, very best mares are quite valuable and there’s such a high risk of something happening during the pregnancy, especially during birth,” he said.

While high risk, the enterprise contributes a significant amount of money to the local and state economy, Mac says. With 15 employees at the farm, and the expenses of maintaining the property, feeding and caring for the horses, he says JM Farms contributes about $4-$4.5 million a year to the economy. Racing as a whole brings about $90 million to the New Mexico economy, he said, coming third after the oil and gas industry and tourism.

Looking to the future, Mac said he and Janis have no plans to do anything other than continue to breed and raise quarter horses.

“We don’t have any plans of retiring or quitting. Maybe slowing down a little bit. Maybe,” he says.

A veterinarian herself, Janis grew up in Wisconsin, a “city girl,” Mac said, with a passion for horses that matched his own.

“For 40 years, she’s been my best friend. We’re very, very lucky because at one point in life, we got to do what we’d always wanted to do,” he says with a smile.