Welcome to Hawkstone Bloodstock

Pedigree analysis by Jessica Tugwell

An Introduction

Welcome, my name is Jessica Tugwell and I’ve been an avid horse racing fan and student of pedigree for most of my life. I started my first online horse racing blog in 2011 at the age of eighteen (which you can find at bettertalknow.wordpress.com if you’re so inclined), and decided that 2023 was well past time for an upgrade.

I’m passionate about pedigree research, and this blog will be a place for me to share my thoughts and analysis on everything from recent stakes winners to historical champions and everything in between. I have a particular interest in and focus on female families in my analysis, and hope to present fresh insights into pedigrees from that perspective.

Free subscribers will have access to bi-weekly posts, while paid subscribers will receive at least one additional monthly post with more in-depth analysis, such as stallion analysis and sale prospects.

Myself and my hero Better Talk Now in 2014

Like many people, there were two main factors that led to me falling in love with horse racing - my father’s interest in the sport and “the horse.” For me, said horse was Better Talk Now, who invoked memories of The Black Stallion in 11-year-old me when I saw him win the 2004 Breeders’ Cup Turf. That one day of watching the races with my father was all it took to get me hooked.

As with everything I find myself passionate about, I dove head-first into the multifaceted world of horse racing, and it wasn’t long before my passion and knowledge were recognized. After emailing into TVG’s The Morning Line one day in 2009, I was contacted by a producer and asked to come on as a guest via telephone for the Kentucky Derby with Bob Baedeker and Greg Wolf, and returned two weeks later in person at Pimlico alongside Matt Carothers and Ken Rudulph for Black-Eyed Susan Day. Afterwards, I was an official blogger for the TVG Community forum from February of 2010 until August of 2011.

I was a communications intern with NYRA during the 2012 and 2013 Saratoga meet, which remain some of the best experiences of my entire life. I helped with NYRA’s “Forbes’ Firsters” column, and in a lucky twist of fate the very first trainer I was tasked with getting quotes from was none other than Better Talk Now’s trainer Graham Motion. Two years after my second NYRA internship, I was a production assistant for TVG during the 2015 Preakness and Belmont. After helping out writing for a couple of ill-fated websites in 2017 and 2018, I worked for the Maryland Jockey Club as a racing official for a brief time in 2019 before realizing that office work was not a good fit for me. That fall, I wrote the “Maryland Million Watch” features for the Maryland Million website. That year was also when I had my first official work as a bloodstock advisor, helping a client to select a broodmare for the explicit purpose of breeding to a stallion he owned a share in.

I took a step back from the sport at the end of 2019 to reevaluate my goals and my relationship with racing, which had become a bit of a personal crutch, but came back in full force in 2022, booking more pedigree analysis work and getting hired as Content Manager for Little Blue Bird Stables. With my recent career momentum, I decided it was time to upgrade to a more professional website with a regular posting schedule.

Please take a moment to subscribe for free in order to stay up to date with my most recent analysis and musings on all things Thoroughbred pedigree. Or, if you’d like to help support the newsletter financially, you can subscribe for $5/month.

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