Brian Kahn bred The Puma, In Our Time fuel spring success

Brian Kahn’s spring has become a clean lesson in patience paying off late, then suddenly. In the span of roughly two months, two horses he bred, The Puma and In Our Time, delivered the kind of results that can define a breeding operation for a season, or longer.

The Puma supplied the flash. The 3-year-old colt by Essential Quality out of Eve of War, by Declaration of War, won the Tampa Bay Derby on March 7, then came back March 28 and ran a narrow second in the Florida Derby, losing by a nose to Commandment after a career-best effort in defeat. Those two preps gave him 100 Kentucky Derby qualifying points, with 56 already on his card going into Gulfstream, enough to make him a Derby lock if he stays healthy. He earned 50 points for the Tampa Bay Derby after collecting 6 more for third in the Sam F. Davis Stakes, and he was bred in Kentucky by Hidden Brook Farm and Brian Kahn. Eve of War had not produced a foal to race before him, another reminder that breeding often asks for years of faith before it gives back a headline horse.

Then came In Our Time, who extended the run on April 12 at Keeneland. The 5-year-old mare by Not This Time out of Laura’s Pleasure, by Cactus Ridge, won the $400,000 Giant’s Causeway Stakes by 1 3/4 lengths in 1:02.17 for 5 1/2 furlongs on firm turf. It was her first graded stakes win, arriving after she had already won the Cellars Chiraz Stakes in 2024 and placed in five graded stakes. Resolute Racing got its first graded win at Keeneland from the effort, and owner John Stewart’s eye is already on the Breeders’ Cup later in the year if she stays sound.

Kahn’s background gives the spring its deeper frame. Born and raised in Los Angeles, he said his interest in racing began in high school after listening to Jim Healy. He started following horses in 1979, when Affirmed was 4 and the sport was in the middle of the Spectacular Bid era, then worked as a hotwalker for Gary Jones and other trainers before Duncan Taylor urged him to come to Kentucky. Kahn moved to Taylor Made’s Nicholasville farm in 1989, just before Sunday Silence won the Preakness, and that move helped set the path that now circles back through The Puma and In Our Time.

The timing matters. The Florida Derby has produced 26 eventual Kentucky Derby winners and 31 Triple Crown race winners overall, including 15 Kentucky Derby winners, with Always Dreaming the most recent in 2017. For Kahn, this stretch is not just a hot streak. It is the delayed payoff of a business built on waiting, pairing, and believing long before the race results make the plan visible.