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.”

Robby Norman (Norman Stables LLC) - Coal Battle

Article by Bill Heller 

Fourteen years ago, Alabama grocery owner Robby Norman needed a new direction in his life: “I went through a divorce, something I really didn’t want. We actually had just bought a new home. I had two young sons. I went to stay in an apartment in downtown Thomasville by the railroad tracks. I was flipping through channels on TV. On TVG, they were doing a story about Union Rags (2012 Belmont Stakes winner). I said, ‘You know what? This divorce stuff is negative. I’ve got to do something to get out of this.’ I watched that story.”

         Then he went on the internet and learned all he wanted about Thoroughbred racing: “There’s a lot of stuff you can google.”

         He found a partner and bought a Louisiana-bred. “It became a passion,” Norman said. “I guess we just thoroughly enjoy horse racing. Me and my ex-wife get along very well now. I named an Arkansas-bred for my ex-wife. We focus on the regional market: Oklahoma-bred, Texas-bred, Louisiana-bred.”

         His star Louisiana-bred Secret Faith had a tremendous year in 2024 with six victories and a second by a head in seven starts for trainer Jayde Geiner. Racing against state-breds, she won five stakes by margins of three-quarters of a length, 14, 6 ¼, six and 7 ¼ on December 29th. Purchased for $75,000, she has already earned $367,022.

         But she’s not the stable star. Norman’s Kentucky-bred. Coal Battle, purchased for $70,000, upped his dirt record to four-for-four by taking the $250,000 Smarty Jones at Oaklawn Park, virtually wire-to-wire by four lengths January 4th for trainer Lonnie Briley, who posted his first million-dollar year in 2024 ($1,055,476), his 34th year of training.

         Norman recounted their connection: “My brother Mark, who also bought a few horses, was doing some googling and noticed a training center in Opelousas, Louisiana. The person who owned the training center recommended Lonnie. We wanted somebody who was honest. I have two trainers, Jayde and Lonnie, and I could not ask for better trainers. They let us get involved. It’s made it a very fun family business.“

         And he knows all about family business. He majored in accounting at Troy University, and his first job was at a grocery warehouse. Then he made a dream come true for his father. “My dad had brain surgery when he was 21. He passed away at 52. His dream was to be in the grocery business. Mark and I just went and did it. He was alive when we had the first store.”

         One store, Norman Food in Thomasville, Alabama, has grown into eight and includes ones in Mississippi, Florida and Georgia.

         When Norman wants to get away from groceries, he turns to racing. “What horse racing does is vacations. We go to Lone Star Park or we race in Houston and go down to Galveston. We like to go to the Ocala Breeders Sales and we stop at the beach. We know all the best steak houses. We’re simple people, but we thoroughly enjoy it. You’ve got to take the good with the bad. It is a roller coaster of emotions.”

         Briley is deeply appreciative of Norman’s perspective: “He’s a great guy, a good person. If you run 1-2-3 in a race, he’s happy. He loves the game. He likes to go to the sales. He’s a friend, more than an owner.”

         Norman and Briley saw the Smarty Jones Stakes as the first important step in Arkansas to get on the Kentucky Derby trail. Norman said, “I slept good the night before the race, but the night before that, I didn’t hardly sleep at all. I just tossed and turned all night. My son Drew and I drove over eight hours to Oaklawn. I think he relaxed me. My step-son Logan was there too. My other son Nathan missed it. He stayed home. We were all excited about Coal Battle. I thought he looked good in the race. Reading the pace was very important. Juan (jockey Juan Vargas) did an excellent job.”

         Briley was very surprised Coal Battle vied for the early lead: “Normally, we take him back. Vargas just couldn’t hold him. The fractions were slow. In the stretch, Vargas told me he just grabbed the bit and he was gone.”

         In a post-race TV interview, Briley said early in the race he thought, “I’m going to kill that jockey.” Of course, he was much more appreciative of the rider, who’s ridden Coal Battle in five of his six starts, afterwards. Then he spoke of Coal Battle: “He’s a gutsy little horse. Don’t know if it’s sunk in yet. No. It’s crazy for the little guy, you know.”

         A lot of people are rooting for the little guy’s horse. In his previous start, Coal Battle had won the $100,000 Springfield Mile at Remington Park. At the end of the Smarty Jones Stakes, the announcer called him “The pride of Remington Park.”

         Coal Battle certainly gets around. He’s also raced at Evangeline Downs, Kentucky Downs, Keeneland and Delta Downs. “He’s easy to train,” Briley said. “He’s easy to be around. He’s run on slop, turf, muddy and fast tracks. The horse will run anywhere.”

         At Churchill Downs on the first Saturday of May?

        Of course, the phone started ringing after the Smarty Jones Stakes. “We have got calls about selling him,” Norman said. “Lonnie gets more calls than me. I got one last night. We’re going to let things calm down. As of right now, the decision is not to sell.”

Michael Hui

By Bill Heller

Stakes winning owners - spring 2020

By Bill Heller

Michael Hui – Zulu Alpha

When Michael Hui made his first trip to the racetrack (Oaklawn Park), he was 15 years old. He saved his first bet, christening his entrance into horse racing. “It’s the first wager I ever made—a $2 show ticket, an old Amtote ticket,” he said. “I definitely loved watching the horses.”

Forty-one years later, he’s saving much better souvenirs, thanks to his first Gr1 stakes winner, Zulu Alpha, a horse he claimed for $80,000 in September 2018. The seven-year-old gelding has emerged as one of the best turf horses in the country, thanks to consecutive victories in the Gr.1 Pegasus World Cup Turf and the Gr.2 Mac Diarmida Stakes.

“He’s exceeded every expectation,” Hui said. “I’m going to enjoy this ride. It could be a real fun year.”

But Hui not only owns a Gr1 winner, he and his wife have also bred a Gr1 winner, Nickname—the daughter of Nina Fever, a horse they claimed for $40,000. Nina Fever suffered a fractured sesamoid in the race she was claimed, was retired, and then was bred to Scat Daddy, producing Nickname—the winner of the 2015 Grade 1 Frizette.

This is heady stuff for Hui, who has only been in the game since February 25, 2010, when he claimed Diablo’s Holiday for $30,000 when she finished second in a maiden claimer at Oaklawn Park. He’d fallen in love with horse racing much earlier.

Hui’s parents, Albert and Ellen, came to America for an education and wound up educating others as professors: Ellen in chemistry and Albert in math and physics at the University of Arkansas at Monticello, 100 miles southeast of Oaklawn Park. 

When he started going to Oaklawn Park as a teenager with his friends, Hui said, “We had a blast.  We continued going when we could through college.”

Hui graduated from the University of Arkansas with a double major in math and physics and tacked on a master’s degree in industrial engineering. Working in analysis and management, Hui spent nine years at a logistics company in Shreveport, La.

He co-founded Transportation Insight, a logistics cost management consulting firm in Hickory, N.C., in January 2000; and it did well enough for him to relocate to Arkansas, where he reconnected with his teenage passion, in 2004. “It pulled me back in,” he said. “I’d be at Oaklawn Park most weekends.”

He thought about getting in the game. “I thought about it for a half dozen years,” he said. “I decided to take a little shot. It was cool to own a horse.”

His first claim, Diablo’s Holiday, didn’t give him his first winner. Amelia, a $7,500 claimer, got the job done.

“I didn’t really experience my first win until 10 or 11 months after I got in,” Hui said. “It was fun, but we ran second a lot, third a lot. It was all a positive experience.”

Not even close to how he did with two subsequent claims he made after connecting with Mike Maker. Taghleeb, a $62,500 claim at Saratoga in July 2016, won the $100,000 Remington Green Stakes at Remington Park, the H. Allen Jerkens Stakes at Gulfstream Park and the Grade 3 McKnight Handicap at Gulfstream Park in January 2017. He then finished second in the Grade 1 Man o’ War Stakes at Belmont Park.

Another $62,500 claim, Greengrassofyoming at Churchill Downs in 2016, won the Grade 3 Stars and Stripes Stakes at Arlington and finished fourth in the Grade 1 Arlington Million.

An $80,000 claim, Hogy, captured the Grade 3 Kentucky Downs Turf Sprint and finished second in the Grade 2 Woodford Stakes at Keeneland.

But the best claim was yet to come. That was Zulu Alpha, claimed for $80,000 by Hui on September 14, 2018, with another trainer Hui used, John Ortiz. Zulu Alpha won that race by 9 ½ lengths. “When I claimed the horse, I offered John a half-interest,” Hui said. “He said, `No, I have enough horses.’”

Zulu Alpha captured his first start for his new connections in the Grade 3 Sycamore at Keeneland.

Then Hui switched trainers to Maker, and Zulu Alpha won the Grade 3 McKnight, the Grade 2 Mac Diarmida and the Grade 3 Kentucky Turf Cup after finishing second by a neck in the Grade 1 United Nations. Zulu Alpha finished his six-year-old season by rallying from 12th to finish fourth by 1 ¾ lengths in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf to Bricks and Mortar, who would be named Horse of the Year.

With Mike Maker, Hui won his first Gr1 stakes with Zulu Alpha in the Pegasus World Cup.

In 2020, Zulu Alpha is two-for-two, and the sky’s the limit. Hui credits Maker: “He doesn’t say a lot, but when he talks about horses, he talks about balance and height. I have faith in Mike.”

“I never thought when I got in this, I would win a Gr1,” Hui said. “For someone who didn’t think he’d win a Gr1, it was like Christmas.” Even if it was a month late.