Thoroughbred Horse Racing
Eugene Melnyk is the owner of Melnyk Racing Stables Inc. and Winding Oaks Farm in Ocala, Florida, a 1,100-acre (4.5 km2) property on land that was formerly Tartan Farms and where such racing legends as Dr. Fager and Ta Wee are buried. His racing and horse breeding operations have more than 200 Thoroughbreds. All of the Melnyk racehorses are named after Barbados landmarks and carry the blue and gold national colours. Blue and gold are also Ukrainian national colours.
Melnyk was named a trustee of the New York Racing Association in August 2003, a position from which he resigned in January 2007. He currently serves on the board of directors of the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation. Melnyk was a co-recipient of the National Turf Writers Association's 2002 Joe Palmer Award and has also been honored by the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association as national owners of the year in 2005, and he formerly sat on the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association board of directors.
In 1998, his colt Archers Bay won Canada's most prestigious race, the Queen's Plate. Another highlight came in 2007 with the 3-year-old filly Sealy Hill, who became the first filly to win the Canadian Triple Tiara, which legs include the $500,000 Woodbine Oaks, the Bison City Stakes, and the Wonder Where Stakes, since the series was inaugurated in 1999. Sealy Hill was awarded with triple Sovereign Awards—3-year-old filly, turf female and Canadian Horse of the Year. Melnyk also was a recipient of his first Sovereign Award as top owner.
Top racehorses include champion sprinter Speightstown, winner of the 2004 Breeders' Cup Sprint, Marchfield (2007 Breeders' Stakes), Flower Alley (2005 Travers), Pool Land (2006 Ruffian), Marley Vale (Test), Tweedside (Coaching Club American Oaks), Bishop Court Hill (Carter), Harmony Lodge (Ballerina), along with other graded stakes winners Indian Vale, Gouldings Green, Strong Hope, Host, Fisher Pond, Lodge Hill, Bovell, Pico Teneriffe, and Graeme Hall. Owns a substantial quantity of bloodstock and is standing stallions in Florida and Kentucky, including Speightstown (at WinStar Farm), Strong Hope (at Claiborne Farm), and Flower Alley (at Three Chimneys Farm), and Graeme Hall. In 2009 Harlington will stand at Hill 'n' Dale Farms.
Melnyk's Flower Alley is the sire of I'll Have Another, which won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes and was suddenly retired on the eve of the Belmont Stakes with an injury to his left front tendon.
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