Stable Profile: Bell Racing's Breeding Strategy — Multiple Proven Mares × U.S.-Pedigree Sires, Engineered for Cross-Generation Consistency

At the new Padre Garcia Racetrack, Bell Racing keeps adding graded winners and track-record holders: Isa Bell (2026 Triple Crown Leg 1, new 3yo record), Midnight Bell (former 3yo 1,650m record holder), Bea Bell (2023 Philracom 2YO Maiden Stakes winner), Rapido (2026 Philracom-PCSO Locally Bred Stakes Leg 1 winner).
The repetition of one stable name in those headlines is not coincidence. Bell Racing runs a replication-focused breeding program built on multiple proven mares (Dr. Fager’s Gal / Tocqueville / Footsteps) crossed with U.S.-pedigree sires, designed to produce graded winners across generations.
This piece dissects the stable’s breeding program through the dam line of its runners.

Stable Outline — The De Leon Family and a Pro Volleyball Player

Bell Racing is owned and run by Elmer Thomas De Leon, whose day job is running the Philippine construction company Bell Construction. The stable is co-operated with his daughter Bea De Leon, a professional volleyball player (Ateneo de Manila alumna, runners include Creamline Cool Smashers).

Naming is family-driven:

“Bell” in a horse’s name is the visible identifier for Bell Racing, well-known locally. The principal’s profile — construction business plus a pro-athlete daughter — alongside Tiger Horse Farm’s Benhur Abalos (lawyer, politician, former DILG Secretary), illustrates that Philippine racing’s owner-breeder class is composed of operators with substantial day jobs.

Breeding Strategy — Multiple Proven Mares as the Foundation

Organize Bell Racing’s breeding program by dam and the mating design becomes visible.

Dr. Fager’s Gal and Tocqueville have each produced graded winners by multiple sires, demonstrating the classical strategy of locking the foundation on the dam side and confirming the mating with different stallions.

The Dr. Fager’s Gal Half-Sister Signal

The clearest signal of Bell Racing’s design is that Isa Bell and Midnight Bell are half-sisters out of Dr. Fager’s Gal.

• Isa Bell: by Union Bell PHI (the stable’s own retired flagship runner now standing as a sire) → Triple Crown Leg 1 winner, new record
• Midnight Bell: by He’s Had Enough USA (the imported U.S. Grade-class sire) → former record holder

Different sires (Union Bell is the in-house stallion; He’s Had Enough is the imported one), shared dam — and both filling top spots in the 3yo 1,650m record book at Padre Garcia (Midnight Bell held 1:42.80 from November 2025; Isa Bell took it to 1:41.68 in May 2026).

Dr. Fager’s Gal herself was a New York-bred who raced for trainer Jerry Hollendorfer from 2014 to 2017, winning the 2015 Beverly J. Lewis Stakes (Listed, Los Alamitos). Bell Racing securing a mare with a U.S. Listed win and producing multiple graded winners by different sires is a textbook case of mare acquisition translating directly into graded-winner production.

The Tocqueville Line

Tocqueville (ARG) is another core mare in the program.

• Bea Bell (by He’s Had Enough): 2023 Philracom 2YO Maiden Stakes winner; ridden by Jonathan Hernandez, trained by Donato Sordan
• Union Bell (by Union Rags USA): 2019 Philippine Stakes Races Horse of the Year, 6-for-6 with 5 graded wins

Union Bell then became Isa Bell’s sire, putting the Tocqueville line inside Bell Racing in a vertical cycle: broodmare → home stallion → next-generation graded winner. The stable isn’t just an outside-blood buyer — it carries home-bred blood into the next generation.

Footsteps and the Acquisition Story

Rapido’s dam Footsteps (USA, by Eskenderya) was bought by Elmer De Leon at the 2016 Keeneland Breeding Stock Sale for USD 7,000. Shipping to the Philippines cost USD 50,000 — more than the mare itself — as recounted by De Leon (see the Isa Bell article).

Bell Racing has shown that a low-cost mare can produce a graded winner with the right cross. Footsteps’ pedigree includes Giant’s Causeway, Storm Cat, Elusive Quality, Gone West, Northern Dancer, and Secretariat — the kind of “good page, modest race record” mare that the U.S. market sometimes underprices and that an attentive buyer can pick up cost-efficiently.

Sire Axis — In-House Plus Imported

The stable’s sire mix spans in-house (PHI) and imported (USA) stallions.

In-house horses become sires for the next generation, while established external bloodlines (He’s Had Enough, Union Rags) are used in parallel — a two-track “internal + external” approach. Few stables in an emerging market run both, and it speaks to Bell Racing having both capital depth and mating expertise.

Familiar Parallels

Compared to systems international readers know, Bell Racing’s strategy is easier to read.

Shadai Farm operates at a scale incompatible with direct comparison, but the strategic backbone — secure proven mares, confirm replication via multiple sires — is the same. Bell Racing executes that template inside an emerging market, positioning itself as a stable that competes on design quality rather than volume.

Where Tiger Horse Farm’s Benhur Abalos represents “a breeder who keeps producing graded winners over a long horizon,” Bell Racing reads as “a stable that uses a multi-mare mating program to build a new top tier quickly.” Two different styles at the top of Philippine racing — the diversity itself is what makes the market interesting.

Caveats

• Detailed racing record of Tocqueville (ARG) is not well documented in public sources at time of writing ※. She is known as the dam of Bea Bell and Union Bell at Bell Racing, but her racing CV and import history need further investigation
• Beyond the three mares cited (Dr. Fager’s Gal / Tocqueville / Footsteps), Bell Racing may have additional broodmares; this piece is limited to the cases verifiable in local reporting
• No betting implications: This is a stable strategy article, not a tipping piece

Related

• Field Report: Isa Bell Takes the Triple Crown Leg 1 — The standard-bearer of the Dr. Fager’s Gal × Union Bell cross
• Bloodline: He’s Had Enough — Profile of the imported U.S. sire that Bell Racing uses
• Profile: Tiger Horse Farm’s Benhur Abalos — Contrast with the other long-horizon breeder vertical
• Analysis: Imported Bloodlines — The volume side of international pedigree inflow

Summary

Bell Racing’s breeding strategy can be read as a replication-focused mating program built on multiple proven mares crossed with U.S.-pedigree sires.
Three core mares (Dr. Fager’s Gal, Tocqueville, Footsteps) are kept as the foundation, each crossed with Union Bell (in-house) or He’s Had Enough / Union Rags (imported), producing a cross-generation set of graded winners — Isa Bell, Midnight Bell, Bea Bell, Union Bell, Rapido.
The fact that Isa Bell and Midnight Bell are half-sisters out of Dr. Fager’s Gal is the clearest signal that the strategy is intentional and replicable.
The scale is far below Shadai Farm or comparable global operations, but the strategic backbone is the same, and Bell Racing demonstrates that a top tier can be built in an emerging market on design quality. We’ll keep tracking the mating selections and progeny outcomes going forward.

Sources

• Manila Standard, “Union Bell, Bell Racing Stable lead Philracom awardees”
• PNA, “Bea Bell rules Philracom Juvenile Stakes Leg 2”
• Philstar, “Bea Bell rules Philracom 2YO with plenty to spare” (Oct 13, 2023)
• Bea de Leon — Wikipedia
• Philippine Jockey Club