LEXINGTON, Ky. – Jane Lyon bred and raised the unbeaten and unchallenged Flightline. But she can’t say he’s her favorite horse. “Do people love one of their children more than the others?” Lyon asked rhetorically. “Probably not.” Lyon owns Summer Wind Farm in Georgetown, Ky., where Flightline was born in 2018. She subsequently sent him to auction as a yearling, standard business practice for most of her colts. But she remained in for a piece of the action after he brought the hammer down at $1 million at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale, now making up a racing partnership with Hronis Racing, Siena Farm, West Point Thoroughbreds, and Woodford Racing. That team has been along for the ride as Flightline, under the care of trainer John Sadler, has dazzled, winning his five career starts – including three consecutive Grade 1 races – by a combined 62 3/4 lengths. Flightline has now returned to the state of his birth for Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland, for which he is the prohibitive favorite. Lyon was part of a sizeable crowd on hand for the colt’s final breeze Saturday as the anticipation ramps up. :: BREEDERS’ CUP 2022: See DRF’s special section with top contenders, odds, comments, news, and more for each division “Absolutely no one could have ever imagined this,” Lyon said as Flightline was walked cool at the barn. “He’s Flightline. I’m as in awe of him as everyone else is, and I still get caught up.” Lyon, a native of Little Rock, Ark., was a lifelong horse lover, but did not own horses until adulthood. Following her childhood dreams, she and her late husband, Frank Lyon – a business executive who died in 2015 – purchased the Summer Wind property in 1995. At the time, they had two geldings, neither a Thoroughbred. Today, Summer Wind houses about 40 broodmares, and Lyon has continued to expand the property since her husband’s death; it is now more than 1,000 acres. The soft-spoken and bloodstock-savvy Lyon delights in daily interaction with her horses and regularly has pockets full of carrots. She also is an advocate for lifelong care of Thoroughbreds and her farm houses pensioned mares and retired runners whom she has brought home. Lyon also has written two children’s books about rescued racehorses – “Skipingo Home: A Thoroughbred’s Second Chance” and “Primerica: A Home for the Brave” – the profits from which have benefited Thoroughbred rescue organizations. :: Bet the Breeders' Cup with a $200 First Deposit Match and FREE Formulator PPs. Join DRF Bets. Summer Wind burst onto the national spotlight following a savvy purchase by Lyon at the 2014 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky fall selected mixed sale, as she went to $2.1 million for the young mare Littleprincessemma, whose juvenile at the time was a multiple Grade 1 winner but who had been forced to miss the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile just days prior due to injury. He was American Pharoah, and he went on to sweep the 2015 Triple Crown and Breeders’ Cup Classic, making Littleprincessemma virtually priceless. Lyon has since bred and raised Grade 1 winner Chasing Yesterday out of Littleprincessemma, and that homebred recently began her own broodmare career at Summer Wind. The farm also has bred and raised Eclipse Award champion Game Winner, Grade/Group 1 winners McKinzie, Moonshine Memories, and Mozu Ascot, and other prominent runners. It is Feathered who has become a queen in this court, however. A daughter of Indian Charlie and from the Phipps family of Grade 1 winners Dancing Spree, Fantastic Find, Finder’s Fee, Furlough, and other standouts, Feathered was campaigned by Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners to win the Grade 3 Edgewood Stakes on the Churchill Downs turf in 2015 and also placed in three Grade 1 events on both dirt and turf. She was a $2.35 million purchase by Summer Wind at the 2016 Keeneland November breeding stock sale while carrying her first foal, the winning War Front filly Good On Paper. Lyon subsequently sent her to Tapit for the mating that resulted in Flightline. “Her foals [all] look different,” Lyon said. “But she has an attitude. She knows she’s special. So I suppose there is that connection.” Lyon said that from that year’s foal crop, she was particularly enamored with Littleprincessemma’s Tapit colt, now the homebred stakes-placed winner Triple Tap. Farm manager Bobby Spalding was the first to begin singling out the young Flightline. “What he said was how athletic the colt always was,” Lyon recalled. Lyon sends her yearling colts to sale via the Lane’s End Farm consignment, and as such, representatives from the farm regularly visit her yearlings to keep tabs on their progress and to help target particular sales. Lane’s End bloodstock adviser David Ingordo said he first saw Flightline in January of his yearling year, when the colt was about 10 months old. He was quick to point the colt out to Lane’s End principal Bill Farish, who also is a principal with Woodford Racing. “We were excited to see Triple Tap when we went out there – and then we saw this guy,” Farish said. “Actually, David brought him to my attention before I saw him. He said, ‘Triple Tap is nice, but she’s got another Tapit out there that’s pretty nice,’ and that was” Flightline. The partnership that formed around Lyon’s colt has enjoyed a dream run to this point. But Lyon is living her dream regardless of the Classic result on Saturday. “Finding Emma, being lucky enough to buy Feathered, the other mares I have had luck with, and the ones I haven’t – I love all of them,” Lyon said. “The whole dream is just having them there – being able to go out and see the babies, pet the babies, watch them grow up. Then if they get to be a racehorse, that’s icing on the cake. It really is.” And as for being responsible for the birth and early development of the horse rated the world’s best racehorse? “I can’t take credit for anything,” Lyon said. Then she smiled. “Except the fact that he loves carrots.” :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.