The Extreme reason behind the Flying Dutchmen's first Australian investment

Cover image courtesy of Newgate Farm

A name new to Australia appeared on the buying sheet at the 2026 Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale on Sunday, where the Flying Dutchmen signed the docket for the I Am Invincible filly by Shoals (Fastnet Rock), sold by Arrowfield Stud.

It was a first foray into the Australian market for the United States-based racing and breeding entity, who have exploded onto the American racing scene in recent years, racing the likes of Graded winners Owen Almighty (USA) (Speightstown {USA}), who ran in last year's G1 Kentucky Derby, and Shred The Gnar (USA) (Into Mischief {USA}).

Payton Boersma, the outfit’s Chief Operating Officer, was on site to place the winning bid but the filly had also made an impression on president Hunter Rankin in his time at the sale. Rankin sees the purchase as the beginning of a fruitful relationship with the Australian industry.

The love of the game

Thoroughbreds are in Rankin’s blood; his parents Alex and Sarah Rankin own Upson Downs Farm near Louisville in Kentucky, breeding and preparing yearlings for the sales. The farm sold its first seven-figure yearling in 2022, selling an Into Mischief (USA) filly for US$1.35 million ($1.95 million) at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale.

“That’s where I fell in love with the game,” Rankin said. “Growing up, I wanted to be involved, but I didn’t think I would really do this for a living.”

The game always called Rankin home, and in 2015, he took over running Sagamore Farm for Kevin Plank, the founder and CEO of Under Armour. During his tenure, the farm purchased and campaigned Global Campaign (USA), who would go on to be a multiple Graded winner including victory in the G1 Woodward Handicap. He started his breeding career at WinStar Farm and has sired multiple stakes winners from his two crops racing.

“That was such a blessing and such an incredible time in my life,” Rankin said. “I loved being in Baltimore and being a part of what we did there at Sagamore. I’m very proud of that whole chapter of my life.”

In 2021, Rankin was hired to be the Senior Director of Racing for Churchill Downs, but he departed the role after 18 months, looking for a role that was a better fit.

“In the end, I decided that side of the business just wasn’t for me,” he said. “I missed being around the horses and the trade, and I missed being a part of racing from an ownership perspective, rather than from a corporate perspective.”

The opportunity to return to what he loved came from Travis Boersma - founder of Dutch Bros Coffee and father of Payton - who Rankin met in 2018.

“He had an interest in the game, they were claiming some horses out west,” Rankin said. “At the time, they just wanted to have fun, it wasn’t a huge venture, so I advised him a bit but not really seriously. And then when they purchased a share in Flightline for $4.6 million, Travis called me and said, “I'd really like to get a little more serious about this’.”

The 2.5% share in the unbeaten Flightline (USA) turned plenty of heads when selling $4.6 million ($6.65 million) in the November of 2022 via the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale. Brookdale's Freddy Seitz signed the docket on the day for his then-undisclosed clients.

It marked a time of transformation for the Boersmas, who began racing under the Boardshorts Stables LLC banner - which would transform into the Flying Dutchmen, paying homage to their coffee enterprise and to the homeland of Travis Boersma’s grandfather.

“So we put together a business plan, which we are still acting on,” Rankin said. The operation has expanded significantly in the years since, with the broodmare band now numbering 25 at the entity’s own farm, plus around 70 horses in training.

“I think it's become even more serious than what any of us had imagined in that first meeting in 2022. We’ve got 20 2-year-olds this year, which is by far our biggest crop in the states, and now we’re expanding a little into Australia. We’re really excited.”

The draw down under

Rankin credits Payton Boersma for the venture to Australia. The 23-year-old company COO has been a keen student of pedigrees since the family’s first involvement with racing and interned with Eclipse Analytics, which provides genetic potential analysis to Thoroughbred breeders, in London.

“He became really fascinated with international breeding and racing,” Rankin said. “He started studying Extreme Choice and how successful the stallion has been in Australia, and his curiosity was piqued enough for us to make the trip down and check it out. I don't know that we really planned on buying anything on the first trip down, but we were going to look at a mare we had going to Extreme Choice, so it just made sense to take a look at the sale as well.

“We were really, really impressed with the stock that we saw. Sometimes even if you have no plans to buy, you see something that you like enough to take a swing at it.”

It was no small swing either, with the outfit outlying $750,000 for the daughter of Champion 3YO Filly Shoals, who has already produced G3 Begonia Belle Stakes winner Isthmus (I Am Invincible). Shoals comes from one of Australia’s greatest racing families, being a granddaughter of Shantha’s Choice (Canny Lad).

The vendor Arrowfield Stud has stayed in the filly, a partnership that Rankin is excited to be part of.

“We really felt like Arrowfield and John Messara were people that we wanted to have a relationship with long term,” he said. “For us, having a partner like them in Australia is really interesting and really important, and it’s something we want to build on in the future.”

An Extreme full circle moment

The real reason for the trip to Australia was Newgate Farm’s super sire Extreme Choice, who finished the Inglis Easter sale with a whopping $1.56 million average yearling price and seven of the sale’s 26 seven-figure lots. When Rankin visited the Hunter Valley, he saw a horse that reminded him of the champions back home.

“He’s a very American style of horse,” he said. “I think that’s the reason I really liked him. He’s not that big, but everyone knows that. He’s just such a prolific sire. I know his fertility is not what they hoped it would be, but his ability to overcome that speaks to his dominance, he's amazing.

“Henry Field was nice enough to give us a tour of Newgate, which is where our mare is. We were very happy with her condition, but we just loved seeing Extreme Choice. For Payton, it was like the first time somebody meets Michael Jordan. He was completely in awe of Extreme Choice. It was a really cool experience.”

In March, Field announced that Extreme Choice would serve mares on Northern Hemisphere time, and the Flying Dutchmen’s mare - 5-year-old Pounce (USA) (Lookin At Lucky {USA}) - was amongst the first in the shed this year. Seeing her was, for Rankin, a bit of a full circle moment.

“Ironically, me and a group of friends in the States bred her,” he said. “We raced her a couple of times, then sold her in a digital sale to John Stewart.”

Pounce is out of winning Twirling Candy (USA) mare Bouncy (USA) and hails from the immediate family of millionaire Essence Hit Man (Can) (Speightstown {USA}), twice Canada’s Champion Male Sprinter whose 12 wins include four Grade III and four Listed events. Debuting in the November of her juvenile year for trainer Mark Casse, she won three of her first four starts, culminating in the G3 Herecomesthebride Stakes at Gulfstream Park the following February.

After her second win at start number three, Rankin placed Pounce in the Fasig Tipton February Digital Sale, where she was a US$370,000 ($535,000) purchase for John Stewart’s Resolute Racing. Less than two weeks after her sale, she would pick up that first Grade III win.

In the summer of her 3-year-old year, she added the G3 Lake George Stakes at Saratoga to her record, and was second in the G2 Mrs Revere Stakes at Churchill Downs ahead of a gallant fourth in the G2 Pegasus World Cup Filly & Mare Turf Invitational Stakes at the start of 2025. Touching down in Australia later that year, she ran twice for Chris Waller prior to her retirement.

“When she was going to be retired, I called John Stewart and just said, ‘hey, you know, we were looking for a filly to breed to Extreme Choice down there, and we would like to buy that filly’,” Rankin said.

“Payton and I were talking about her one day, and Payton started doing a little research on her pedigree and how she would fit with Extreme Choice, and he came to me and he said, ‘she'd be perfect if Resolute would consider selling her’. We did a deal with them privately and we are just happy it worked out for everybody.

“Coming to Australia and seeing a filly that I bred in the States, it’s kind of a bizarre set of circumstances, but it’s really cool to have her. It’s a real full circle moment.”

American speed and stoutness is evident in Extreme Choice’s own pedigree; his dam Extremely is from the second crop of Chilean Champion Sire Hussonet (USA), who was brought out to Australia by Messara in 2003 to much success. Her own dam Going To Extremes (USA) (Nasty And Bold {USA}) was a terrifically fast mare, winning 11 races from six furlongs out to a mile in the late 1990s, including the Listed Royal North Handicap at Woodbine in the second year it was run on the turf.

Breeding a proper racehorse

The partnership with Messara and Arrowfield is one built on the common belief of breeding a proper racehorse above and beyond breeding for results in the ring.

“John Messara’s philosophy on breeding is very similar to ours, because we're trying to breed racehorses, we're not trying to breed horses that we can sell,” Rankin said. “We feel that if you try to breed racehorses, the revenue will follow, rather than trying to breed a commercial horse that you can sell. I think if you do that over and over and over again, the mare will prove themselves. And then if you try to sell their offspring, they will sell better.”

While dirt racing is where the fervour is in American breeding, Rankin recognises the importance of a diverse broodmare band and of not ignoring turf’s growing influence.

“When you're breeding in America, everybody wants an American dirt horse, everybody wants a chance to win the Classic race, and ultimately that's what we're trying to do too,” he said.

“But you can't ignore the influence that that turf is starting to have in this country, so when we end up with a turf family or a filly that was very good on the grass, we're going to support her properly.”

Not This Time (USA) is a stallion that Rankin highlighted as one for Australians to keep an eye on. The son of Giant’s Causeway (USA) was a dirt horse himself, but his impact on all surfaces - with his 2025 highlights including G1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint winner Cy Fair - cannot be ignored.

“One of the hottest sires in America right now is Not This Time,” Rankin said. “He's very influential on the dirt, but he's also very influential on the grass. They tend to be precocious and quick, and that’s a big influence in Australia, it seems. There's a lot of people breeding for speed down there. He can get you a very, very fast horse on any surface.”

It’s the same attributes that Rankin recognises in Extreme Choice.

“We believe that his abilities could transfer well to America and possibly even American dirt,” he said. “We won't know if there's any truth to that until we run the experiment, but it's something that I think we would regret if we didn't try. We think he's prolific enough to give it a shot.”