Her husband Mallory is the farm manager at Gallagher’s Stud, one of New York’s oldest and most storied breeding and racing operations. Located in Ghent, New York and established in 1978, the farm has produced a host of graded stakes winners, including Allez Milord, a grade/group I winner in both England and the U.S.
; Rahy’s Appeal, winner of the Grade II Top Flight; and Straight Story, winner of the Grade III Fort Marcy Stakes. More recently, Gallagher’s Stud bred and raced the stakes winner Maximova. Jerome and Marlene Brody bought the land on which the farm sits in 1976, at first for a Black Angus breeding operation.
The Thoroughbreds followed two years later, and the Morts arrived in 1979. Karen said that she was a “horse-crazy” young girl, one who collected Breyer horse statues and who read "Black Beauty," the "Black Stallion" series, and the "Misty of Chicoteague" books. That was about as close as she got to horses until she met Mallory during her first, his second, year at Penn State University.
“We met on the soccer field,” she said, standing on the Saratoga backstretch watching the farm’s horses train. “He played, and I was the manager, because Penn State didn’t have a women’s team.” Nor had Karen’s high school in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, at least until she came along.
“The boys’ coach said, ‘If you can get enough people to sign up, you can have a team,’” Karen recalled. “We put up a sign-up sheet on the door, and we got nearly 70 girls to sign up, and the school has had a team ever since.” Karen majored in biology and environmental resource management, while Mallory studied animal sciences, and it was he who gave Karen her first horse, a foal out of a half-Appaloosa mare and by an Appaloosa stallion.
When the Morts moved to New York to work at Gallagher’s Stud, that foal, named Winona by Karen, went with them. “Mrs. Brody said that Winona reminded her of Brigitte Bardot because of her long, wild mane,” said Karen with a smile.
“My youngest sister bought her from us and made a show horse out of her, and she lived until she was in her early thirties.” While the Morts were in college, Penn State raised quarter horses, and Mallory worked in the stables, checking the foaling mares at night, sometimes accompanied by Karen. Years later, she still goes to the foaling barn in the middle of the night, sometimes to observe, sometimes to help when her husband needs an extra pair of hands.
When the Morts first got to Gallagher’s, driving up from Pennsylvania in Mallory’s 1965 Mustang, Karen worked for the farm, too, in the office and in the barns and on the road at Angus cattle shows. She helped in the breeding shed and she prepped yearlings, she groomed and she ponied. At the Saratoga sales, she showed horses to prospective buyers.
And in addition to all that, she and Mallory raised three sons, and for 30 years, she’s been a nutrition educator, mostly for Cornell Cooperative Extension. “I do individual consultations and I teach classes,” she said. “I also get invited to churches and libraries and state offices.
We focus on healthy foods and cooking techniques, emphasizing cooking from scratch. I’m a big fan of the Mediterranean diet and heart-healthy foods.” The Morts and Gallagher’s Stud each sold two horses entered at this week’s Fasig-Tipton sale of preferred New York-breds.
Gallagher’s bred hips 378 and 547, the Morts hips 373 and 533. Hip 373, a filly by Maclean’s Music, sold for $230,000 to RT Racing, and hip 533, a colt by new stallion Beau Liam, went to Legion Bloodstock for $70,000. The Gallagher’s Stud yearlings sold for a combined $150,000.
“She had a lot of interest,” Karen said of the filly they bred. “She’s just an outstanding physical [specimen]. She’s a big, stout filly that walked all day,” said Mallory, referring to the number of times that potential buyers asked to see the filly out of her stall.
In 2022, a yearling bred by the Morts brought $320,000, and that colt, now named Rhetorical, won his first start on July 26, at Saratoga by five lengths. He’s a half brother to Sterling Silver, who won the Johnstone Mile by 9 3/4 lengths on Aug. 7 — and who was also bred by the Morts.
“When we sell the yearlings and send them off to their new homes, I feel like we did when we sent our sons off to college,” Karen said. “When we visit them at the barns at the tracks where they train, I feel like they are in their temporary living situation at their dorms where they are learning new skills. We love seeing Sterling Silver win, but we also can’t wait until she retires, since [owner] Mark Anderson plans to send her home to Gallagher’s to be a broodmare.
That would be a dream come true for me.” The Morts have lived at the farm for 45 years. They raised their children there, along with generations of Thoroughbreds.
“They’re right out my kitchen window,” said Karen. “I see the mares and foals, and one of my favorite things to do is to go up to the foaling barn, usually in the middle of the night in the winter months to watch as the foals are born. “Most of my friends and family do not understand how complicated the horse business is,” she reflected.
“They think we are lucky to live in such a beautiful place, and we are, but there is so much involved in making good decisions for the horse’s care, knowing the right people and having good connections, patience, timing and luck.”.
