History

Dare Me Not was sired by the American Thoroughbred Port Giata who had a brief racing career and then was retired as a breeding stallion. Port Giata's sire was Daumier, well known for siring many winning hunter/jumpers throughout the East Coast. Dare Me Not's dam, the Hungarian mare Jutka, was a successful event horse bred at Port A Ferry Farm, located near Charlottesville, Virginia. Jutka was campaigned and won numerous three-day competitions, from Maine down the Atlantic Coast and west to Kentucky.

The farm's mares are primarily Magyar Hungarians, the line originally developed at Port a Ferry Farm by Countess Judith Gyurky. Among them are also a few quality American Thoroughbred mares whose conformation complements the farm's stallion and breeding objectives. Countess Gyurky developed the Magyar line in the United States over a period of 30 years, by carefully identifying and obtaining outstanding horses whose characteristics supplemented and improved her line, and incorporating them as outcrosses in her breeding program. This very individualized management approach was a practice for which the state studs in Hungary were internationally acclaimed, and over centuries it produced a breed of tremendous versatility, strength, and favorable genetics. Mechum's View Farm continues this tradition of selective introduction of quality Thoroughbred and other blood into its breeding program.