Robert Donaldson

Nearly 50 years after they jump-started their continuing love affair and marriage by jumping the fence at Garden State Park to watch the last race at the age of 14, Robert Donaldson and his wife, Sue, had an interesting afternoon on May 18, 2018. Previously, with the approval of Sue (a teacher), Donaldson (a 62-year-old retired pharmaceutical executive) had been racing claimers. 

That changed that afternoon when Donaldson called his former trainer, Carlos Guerrero, to inquire about a possible claim. Guerrero happened to be at the Timonium Two-Year-Olds in Training Sale in May. “I had spent time with that catalog,” Donaldson said. “I grabbed a sales book. I told him, ‘I want you to possibly buy a horse.’ I called to get a credit line for $100,000. They were on No. 43. I told him, `No. 50 is a Hard Spun.’ I said, `Carlos, have you seen him?’ He said, `He’s a good-looking colt. He texted me, `How much do you want to spend?’ I said, `$70,000.’ They were at $60,000, once, twice, three times; and Carlos bid $64,000.”

They got the colt. “Every horse prior to that I had claimed,” Donaldson said. “This is the first baby I bought.”

Now there was a personal matter to address. “I did this without speaking to my wife about it,” he said. “This went down. She was at school teaching three- to five-year-olds.”

The conversation when she got home went something like this:

“I bought a baby for $64,000.”

“What?”

“I bought this horse for $64,000.”

Donaldson continued, “She was cool with it. She’s a gamer like me. Not many people could tell their wife that, and it’s okay. Sue—I love her more today than I did then. I’m very lucky.”

They were 14 when they broke into Garden State to watch a race. “We were freshmen in high school,” Donaldson said. “She played field hockey. I played football. Her uncle dabbled with horses, and she always liked them. When we got together, we had a common interest.”

One afternoon, they bet $5 on a longshot at Garden State but couldn’t stay for the race. “We had to go home for dinner,” Donaldson said. “We listened to the results on the radio. He paid about $100. That was big-time action at my age. We were really smitten from then on.”

After Robert graduated from Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania, Donaldson worked for Kellogg’s before he found his career in pharmaceuticals, working for three different companies, including Astra Pharmaceuticals (now Astra Zeneca), a Swedish start-up company in Westborough, Mass. Sue worked at the Romney School for the Deaf and Blind.

Donaldson made his first claim at Garden State, taking Pitch Out for $7,500. “He turned into an overnight stakes horse,” Donaldson said. “I got offered $30,000 for him, and I took it.” That led him to claiming Groovy Feeling for $20,000. “She turned into a Gr2 stakes winner with John Servis and was the top handicap mare in New York,” he said. “She won the Gr2 Ladies Handicap and the Gr3 Rare Treat and Next Move. She was just a killer. She’d get on the front end and say, `See ya.’” He also had a good run with Slick Horn, a $40,000 claim. “Talk about a nice horse,” Donaldson said. “He would give you everything he had. When he heard another horse coming, he’d pin his ears back. He was ultra-game—a good hard-knocking horse.”

Donaldson took a break from Thoroughbreds for a good reason. “I had to educate my kids,” he said. “I put our priorities in place. The horses took a back seat. I got out of the game for a few years. I still would go to Garden State. I missed it.”

Both his daughter Christine and son Steven prospered after college, Christine doing clinical trials in drugs, Steven becoming a tree surgeon. He also is an artist, climber and a charity worker.

Then Donaldson got back in the game, reconnecting with Guerrero and reinstating him as his trainer on Spun to Run.  

Spun to Run needed five starts to break his maiden; he won two in a row then finished third to Maximum Security in the Gr1 Haskell. He captured the Gr3 Smarty Jones, finished a close fifth by 1 ½ lengths to Math Wizard in the Gr1 Pennsylvania Derby and won the $100,000 M.P. Ballezzi Appreciation Mile at Parx. That made Spun to Run two-for-two at one mile and convinced Guerrero and Donaldson to give their rapidly improving three-year-old colt a start in the Breeders’ Cup Mile to take on superstar Omaha Beach.

When Spun to Run won the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile wire-to-wire by 2¾ lengths over Omaha Beach, the Donaldsons had their first Gr1 stakes victory. Spun to Run followed that effort with a strong second to Maximum Security in the Gr1 Cigar Mile. “It’s just indescribable,” Donaldson said. “This horse has brought so much enjoyment—I can’t tell you.”

It’s a journey he’s shared with the woman he loves. “She keeps me grounded,” Donaldson said. “Sue is so much a part of me.”