Mark Davis and Craig Dado – Raging Torrent

Article by Bill Heller 

Talk about a power lunch. Five years ago, Mark Davis, owner, and president of an electric power company and a restaurant owner, had lunch with horse-obsessed 14-year-old Gillian Guerra, and instantly dived into horse racing, even though he’s allergic to horses.

         His partner Craig Dado, a long-time executive at Del Mar and Santa Anita before starting his own company, tells the story of the lunch which got Davis into racing: “I got a call from Gillian’s dad. He was a chef at Mark’s restaurant. Gillian worked there, too. He said, `I’ve got this daughter who’s horse crazy. She loves horse racing.’ He said, `What can I do?’ I said, "Okay, let me set something up.”

         Dado went to trainer Doug O’Neil’s barn and ran into Steve Rothblum, a former trainer who is now a bloodstock agent for O’Neil. Dado takes up the story “Steve and I are tight. I said, will you have lunch with this girl?” He does and another gentleman is there. It was Mark Davis. So the meeting goes well. All of a sudden, Mark pops in and said, `I want to buy a horse for her.’ They claimed a horse for Gillian. The point is Mark loved what Steve did for her and said, `I want to buy horses.’ Then he writes a big check. That’s where Raging Torrent came from. Mark is head over heels in horse racing. He’s buying a farm in Kentucky. Gillian is now a freshman at the University of Kentucky. He’s paying her way through college. He’s an amazing, generous person.”

       Asked about paying Gillian’s college costs, Davis described the concept of paying it forward, being nice to someone because someone was nice to him; “When I was 16, someone did something for me. She helped me with the horses five years ago. She’s a pretty special girl.”

         Gillian said, “I’m eternally grateful for him. He saw I had a passion for it.”

         Davis does, too. He didn’t let his allergy to horses stop him from having more than a dozen horses on his California farm, including three Clydesdales: “We got the first Clydesdale, Becky, when she was pregnant. The sire is a Quarter Horse. We might be starting a new breed.”

Davis named the nine-month-old foal Pegi for his company, the Precision Electric Group, Inc., with offices in Seattle and San Diego.

         Davis’s love of Clydesdale is immense: “They are gorgeous. They are so beautiful.”

         Thoroughbreds are too, and Davis has more of them than he ever imagined: “It got a lot bigger than I thought it was getting. We bought five horses at the Keeneland Sale, two with Jeanie Buss, one of the Lakers owners. Jeanie never owned a horse other than with her family.”

         Davis’s horses have taken him to Dubai, which is where he expects Raging Torrent to make a start, and possibly South Korea: “I’m still learning, because I’ve only been in racing for five years. I’m 71 years old. I don’t have to work very hard. I like doing all this stuff. It’s worth trying.”

         Raging Torrent is why. Purchased for $75,000 as a two-year-old, he upset likely Sprint Champion The Chosen Vron by a head in the Gr. 2 Pat O’Brien at Del Mar. After finishing seventh from the rail in the Gr. 1 Breeders’ Cup Sprint, he captured the Gr. 1 Malibu by a length and a quarter on opening day at Santa Anita, December 26th.

         The two victories were especially meaningful to Dado, who was an executive at Santa Anita and Del Mar for 30 years: “It was pretty surreal to be in the winner’s circle for both the Pat O’Brien and the Malibu. I’ve been there presenting the trophy.”

         Dado started working as an intern at Santa Anita in 1990 and worked his way up to executive roles there, from 1991-2000, and at Del Mar from 2001-2021.

         Along the way he started Great Friends Stable in 2007: “I was Chief Marketing Officer at Del Mar and I wanted to bring fans into the game as new owners. Let current fans into the game. It’s very different from My Racehorse. We only have 20 shares.”

        He left Del Mar in 2021 to start his own company in San Diego, Sports Injury Central: “Basically, it’s a media site helping gamblers and fantasy players with updated injury status and how it’s going to affect the outcome of games. My partner, David Chow, was the team doctor for the Chargers. We thought there was a void in the market, especially football. It’s very challenging but it’s a lot of fun watching the company grow. We had 750,000 people come to the website.”

         He called Raging Torrent’s victory in the Malibu “Amazing. I worked at Santa Anita for 10 years. Opening day was always the highlight.”