The beginnings of the Sun Valley Farm story originate back to 1831 when the main house was constructed on the farm by the Samuel Pepper family. What was once the Pepper family’s own distillery, now known as Woodford Reserve Distillery, is less than one mile down the road from Sun Valley Farm. The Samuel Pepper House still has the original look and feel of days gone by, and was meticulously restored in the early 1990’s by aviator Allen E. Paulson, and today is home to Barry, Jan and Brett Butzer.

Allen Paulson had already begun his breeding empire when he acquired the farm in 1986 and made it a part of his famed Brookside Farm. With this addition, Brookside became a sprawling nursery of over 1,600 acres from which Paulson would develop a Thoroughbred breeding dynasty. Champions and Horse of the Year Cigar and Azeri, along with champions Eliza, Escena and Ajina would all be raised there, and the Brookside team would go on to accumulate 17 Eclipse Awards and 9 Breeders' Cup Championship victories.

Barry and Jan Butzer are very pleased to continue this winning tradition on some of the most historically important tracts in the bluegrass. Their core private sales broodmare business has become one of the most successful in Kentucky, having produced some 135 stakes horses in just over a decade. In fact, nearly one in every three mares sold by Sun Valley Farm becomes a stakes producer for their new owners, a record unmatched by any Kentucky enterprise, and includes the dams of such outstanding performers as Harlan's Holiday ($3,625,000-G1), Heritage of Gold ($2,381,000-G1), Kudos ($1,238,000-G1), Saga Novel ($1,190,000-G3), Raise Suzuran ($2,863,000-G1), Tour of the Cat ($1,094,000-G2), Roza Robata ($732,000-G3), Kodiak Kowboy ($830,000-G2), Gene Crisis ($1,331,000-G1), Shes A Devil Due ($533,000-G2), Swiss Ace ($832,000-G1), Ubiquity($419,000-G2).