26
By Eleanor Tolbert – Reporter, Louisville Business First
August 26, 2022
While Scott Hagan is dedicated to his real estate career, his day job helps him pursue his other passion: Saddlebred horses.
The local developer is behind several well-known properties in Louisville, including Shelbyville Road Plaza. What some may not know is that he’s also accomplished in the equine industry, specifically for breeding and showing American Saddlebreds.
This week, Hagan, one of the owners of Hagan Properties, has 11 of his horses entered in the World Championship Horse Show at the Kentucky State Fair.
“I’ve done this for over 50 years,” Hagan said. “I started showing when I was five and have been in the business since then.”
This year marks the 119th World Championship Horse Show. The show, held at Freedom Hall since its construction in 1956, is an eight-day competition with between 1,900 and 2,000 horses participating.
Hagan said the competition is split up into different classes based on style and difficulty, as well as age and gender of the rider and the horse. Of the 11 horses, Hagan is personally showing five in the competition.
“There roughly 240 classes in an eight-day period, all of them are having different specifications and qualifications to show and to move on,” Hagan said.
One of Hagan’s horses in the show, HS Daydream Heads Up, won the American Saddlebred Breeders Hall of Fame award for Horse of the Year in 2021. Hagan said he won the Three-Gaited World Grand Championship with HS Daydream Heads Up two years ago. Last year, the horse-rider duo won the Fine Harness World Grand Championship as well.
Those classes are two of the three most difficult classes to win and the most prestigious classes at the World Championship Horse Show, Hagan said. As an amateur, he won against professional trainers in the classes.
“That was the first time in history that an amateur breeder/rider-driver have won those two classes on a horse that they bred and raised,” Hagan said.
Along with showing his horses, Hagan has a passion for breeding Saddlebreds. Hagan Saddlebreds, the name of Hagan’s horse business, raises 15 to 30 foals every year, according to its website.
Hagan said he has broodmares on farms in Carlisle, Kentucky, and Columbia, Missouri. His performance horses and horses in training are at operations in Simpsonville and Versailles, Kentucky, as well as in Ohio and North Carolina.
In 2021, he was inducted into the American Saddlebred Breeders Hall of Fame, and in 2017, he was named the American Saddlebred Horse Association (now known as the American Saddlebred Horse & Breeders Association) Breeder of the Year.
“I really enjoy showing horses, but my deepest satisfaction is in a very deep knowledge of pedigrees and breeding these horses,” Hagan said.
Hagan was first introduced to the Saddlebred industry in the early 1960s when his family moved to North Middletown, Kentucky, a press release said. In the small town known for its Saddlebreds, his family met Buford Hall, a North Middletown resident in the American Saddlebred business. Hall was hired to teach Scott and his brother Terry how to ride, gait and show Saddlebreds, the release continued.
In the 1970s, Hagan’s parents help start the North Middletown Horse Show with the help of Bill Munford, the legendary manager of the World Championship Horse Show. In their youth, the Hagan brothers showed their horses on the Central Kentucky Horse Show circuit. Scott Hagan also worked with Earl Curtis, Rae Deane Stone and Arthur Hancock at Stone Farm, whose Gato del Sol won the 1982 Kentucky Derby.
Louisville-based Hagan Properties was founded in 1991. It develops luxury multifamily communities, build-to-rent single-family communities, shopping centers and self-storage facilities. A press release said the company typically has about $100 million worth of projects under construction.
The fair began Aug. 18 and will run through Sunday, Aug. 28, at the Kentucky Exposition Center, 937 Phillips Lane. The World Championship Horse Show will wrap up on Saturday, Aug. 27.