On November 5, Michael Cavey and Nancy Temple had a reason to pop some bubbly. At 33-1, Champagne Room, bred in the name of their Respite Farm in Paris, Kentucky, stamped herself as the probable champion two-year-old filly with a three-quarter-length victory in the 14 Hands Winery Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (gr. I) at Santa Anita.

Owned by Joseph Ciaglia Jr., Exline-Border, Gulliver Racing, Robin Christensen, Dan Legan, and Sharon Alesia, Champagne Room (Broken Vow – Lucky to Be Me, by Bernstein) broke her maiden in the August 6 Sorrento Stakes (gr. II) at Del Mar, then finishing third and fourth in back-to-back grade Is. She has won or placed in four of five starts and earned $1,286,600.

Consigned by Denali Stud, a weanling Champagne Room was sold for $70,000 to Summerfield Sales at the 2014 Keeneland November sale. After she RNA’d at Keeneland September the following year, Ciaglia bought Champagne Room as a juvenile, consigned by De Meric Sales, for $310,000 at OBS April this past spring.

Cavey, a retired general practice veterinarian, quipped, “I tell people I’ve treated everything from aardvarks to zebras.” But he added, “I’d always had an affinity for horses, particularly Thoroughbreds. They’re a very special animal to work around. A good Thoroughbred, there’s just something about it. It just makes you feel good working with it.”

In the 1980s, he sold his veterinary practice and became the broodmare and racing manager for famed horsewoman Adelaide Riggs. “She had an excellent eye for movement and for an athlete,” Cavey recalled. “Working for her, I was able to see—travel and see—a lot of good animals, see how they were put together.” He added, “When she passed away at the end of 1999, then I branched out, and the animals that I was breeding started racing in my own name.” In 1987, Cavey and Temple bought Champagne Room’s fourth dam, Erzulie Freda, bred by Tartan Farms of Ocala, Florida. “We missed Erzulie Frieda at the dispersal, but we bought her from the person who bought her there,” Cavey recalled.

The influence of the legendary John Nerud and Tartan appears on both sides of Champagne Room’s pedigree. Broken Vow is by Tartan-bred champion and classic winner Unbridled. Champagne Room is out of Respite-bred Lucky to Be Me, who has a Drosselmeyer weanling, is in foal to Strong Mandate, and will visit Uncle Mo in 2017. Cavey described Lucky to Be Me as “big” and “long-striding,” like her sire Bernstein. Her dam, Belle Erzulie (by Pulpit), also foaled stakes winner Inhisglory and graded-placed Hat of Jacks (both by Storm Cat-line stallions).

Respite bred Belle Berzulie’s dam, grade III winner Fancy Freda, who was by Known Fact, a champion son of Tartan Farms’ stellar stallion In Reality, out of a mare by Nerud homebred Fappiano (himself sire of Unbridled). “We bred to Known Fact to pick up the In Reality that had been successful for them, and then we bred to Pulpit to bring in another line to …outcross,” Cavey said.

After purchasing a 200-acre property, then home to cattle and crops, in 1999, Cavey and Temple created Respite Farm. “We’re very hands-on. We deliver all of our own foals,” he noted. Respite is also home to Carney’s 70 short-horn cattle and Temple’s Australian Shepherds, which she shows. Cavey helps his equine surgeon wife, adding, “I carry her bucket now; she does most of the work.”

Their broodmare band numbers about four to five horses, including Lucky to Be Me and a filly from the family of champion and leading sire Uncle Mo, whom Cavey bred. At Fasig-Tipton November in 2010, Cavey sold his dam, Playa Maya (in foal to Broken Vow), for $1.65 million to Coolmore’s M.V. Magnier. “After Uncle Mo, we thought we’d done it, so we dispersed the majority of our horses,” he said. “Oddly enough, now that Champagne Room has done so well, she’s probably going to keep us in the horse business for a few more years.”

2016 also yielded Respite-bred Laoban, an Uncle Mo colt who won the Jim Dandy (gr. II) at Saratoga. Like Champagne Room, he hails from a classy female family. “I think we overlook the female families way too often,” said Cavey. “I want to breed to a strong female family, and we also try to outcross, but then come back to popular sires.”

But Fortune has just as much to do with these accomplishments as nicks and physical match-ups. Cavey mused, “A breeder’s luck is a lot more important than anything else we do. And we’ve been very lucky, with Uncle Mo falling into the hands of the people that had him, and now Champagne Room being owned by and trained by some really good people. And we’re anxious to see where she goes from here.”