Frank Fletcher Jr.

By Bill Heller

How can you not like owner Frank Fletcher Jr., a man who names all of his Thoroughbreds for his dog Rocket? Especially when one of them, Lady Rocket, whom he owns with Ten Strike Racing, takes off at Aqueduct December 4th, winning the Gr. 3 Go for Wand Stakes by nine lengths. That was another thrill for Frank Fletcher, whose whole life has been thrills, successes and philanthropy.

When you marry the captain of the cheerleaders, work for and with Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, and count your fraternity brother at the University of Arkansas, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones as a close friend, you know you’ve done well in life. The fact that he is a major contributor to Toys for Tots, Easter Seals and the Make-A-Wish Foundation tells you all you need to know of his character.

He has prospered in restaurants, automobile dealerships, hotels and horses, frequently working like a dog to achieve success. He’s not averse to taking chances. Hell, he got into trouble with his father once for piloting his Cessna 172 plane without permission. He was 14. 

“The successful entrepreneurs are the people willing to take risks,” he said in a 2013 interview.

Maybe it’s because people took a risk with him, adopting him as a baby in Little Rock. He was raised as an only child and has spent an entire lifetime making his parents proud.

Before he was a big man in business, Frank was a big guy in the seventh grade: six-feet-four. He helped his basketball team win a state championship and also played football until the 10th grade when he had three teeth knocked out in practice.

By then, he’d already set a rigorous work pattern, working in a cotton gin after school and on weekends. He hit it off with Judy Hamm, the captain of the Pine Bluff High School cheerleading squad, when he let her borrow his car to ride in a parade. They married and have two children, Chris and Jerilynn and three grandsons, Jacob, Sam and Adam.

At the University of Arkansas, Frank joined the Kappa Sigma fraternity and met Jones, who would later lead him into owning Thoroughbreds.

Fletcher served in the Army Reserves, then took two jobs, working at a bank from 8 to 5, and then at a pizza place from 5:30 to midnight.

Then Frank landed a job selling paint for DuPont, which led him to Sam Walton. Frank tried selling him 300 gallons of paint, and he only wanted 50. He said it was too costly. Frank called headquarters, and they agreed to let Walton have four months to pay. That did it.

Two years later, Walton made Frank a manufacturer’s representative. Like everything else in his life, he went full throttle, arriving at 5:30 a.m. and working until 9 p.m.

Everything was great until Walmart decided to deal with manufacturers directly instead of through reps. Walton suggested Frank start manufacturing products Walmart would buy, and that’s exactly what Frank did. He rented a garage and began making lamps.

His success doing that led him to getting involved with a breakfast investment club, a Hilton hotel in North Little Rock and, ultimately, car dealerships. Fletcher Auto Group now has 10 dealerships in Arkansas and Missouri.

When Jones bought the Cowboys, Frank started traveling frequently to Dallas. He said Jones convinced him to bet $2,000 to win on a Thoroughbred that Jones owned. The horse finished fourth. Frank kept the faith, bet on the horse again, and he won. “I was hooked,” he said.

Lady Rocket winning the Gr3 Go for Wand Stakes by 9 length at Aqueduct

He initially hired Bob Holthus to train his horses, and he won his first race with Boss Man Rocket in 1989. He had subsequent success with Son of Rocket, who was third in the 2001 Gr. 1 Arkansas Derby, Rocket Twentyone, who won the 2013 Gr. 3 Arlington Washington Lassie, and Frank’s Rockette, who captured three straight graded stakes in 2020: the Gr. 3 Victory Ride, Gr. 2 Prioress and Gr. 2 Gallant Bloom Handicap.   

His long list of awards includes the 2011 Sales and Marketing Executive International Arkansas Top Manager of the Year. In 2013, he was inducted into the Walton Business Hall of Fame at the University of Arkansas. Three years later, he was presented with the university’s Distinguished Alumni Award.

With Jerry Jones, Frank founded the Students Acquiring Knowledge through Experience program at the Sam Walton College, which provides college students with real-life, hands-on experience with businesses. It’s a head start for the students’ careers and cements Frank’s contributions to the American dream, the one he lived.    

George Hall

Spurred on by his grandfather, George Hall fell in love with horse racing at a young age. “He took me to Belmont and Aqueduct,” George said. “Then one summer, he took my brother John and me to Saratoga. I think I was nine years old. We did doubleheaders every day: the Thoroughbred track in the afternoon, dinner, and the harness track at night. We did that every day for a week. It was a great time.”

More than 50 years later, George is still having a great time at the racetrack, campaigning his second Gr. 1 stakes winner, Max Player.

In early 2019, George co-founded Sports BLX, which allows low-cost ownership interest in Thoroughbreds and in other sports and athletes. He co-founded Sports BLX with Joseph De Perio. “The concept was to see if we could create a market where people that might want to buy a small share of a horse or a company that owns a horse could feel the experience following a horse like an owner does,” George said. “It seemed a worthwhile endeavor. It now includes deals with athletes, professional sports teams and racecars. It’s a very broad company.”

Born the son of a New York City cop in Queens, George, now 61, got a bachelor’s degree from the Merchant Marine Academy and an MBA from Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He became the founder, president and majority shareholder of Clinton Group Inc., a Manhattan-based investment company which opened in 1991. Its success allowed George to invest in Thoroughbreds.

A trip with a friend to Monmouth Park in 2005 was the catalyst. “I was introduced to Kelly Breen in the stands,” George said. “Kelly was the leading trainer at Monmouth. He is extremely enthusiastic, and he invited me to see his barn just to show us his horses. I had my two-year-old daughter with me, Kathryn. He gave her carrots to feed the horses. I said, `This is a very nice man.’ He’s so enthusiastic. We talked about getting into it. We decided to go to the Keeneland Sales.”

They spent $118,000 to buy four horses and could not have done much better. George named his first horse for his daughter, Keeneland Kat, and she won her first start, a maiden race, by 6 ¾ lengths. She stepped up to the $100,000 Sorority Stakes and won again by 2 ½ lengths. That earned her a start in the Gr. 1 Frizette and she finished a non-threatening third. “Being third in a Gr. 1 with your first horse was pretty special,” George said. “Then she started having minor issues.”

Unfortunately, the issues ended her racing career. “She was just a great horse,” George said. “Kelly did a great job with her. She became a broodmare. We bred her for five, six years and sold her.”

Another member of George’s initial yearling foursome was named Fagan’s Legacy to honor his grandfather, Larry Fagan. Fagan’s Legacy finished second in his debut, then won a maiden race by five lengths and the $82,000 Pilgrim Stakes by 3 ¼ lengths.

George admitted that his immediate success got him a tad over-confident: “Oh, yeah, we thought it was easy.”

It isn’t. Fagan’s Legacy didn’t hit the board in five subsequent starts and never raced again.

Ruler On Ice and Pants On Fire, who made their debuts 13 days apart in September 2010, took George on a great ride. Pants On Fire, who was second in a maiden race at Philadelphia Park to begin his career, won the 2011 Gr. 2 Louisiana Derby by a neck, earning a spot in the Kentucky Derby. He finished ninth to Animal Kingdom. Pants On Fire  won the Gr. 3 Pegasus at Monmouth Park and finished fifth in the Gr. 1 Haskell. Later on, he won the Gr. 2 Monmouth Cup and the Gr. 3 Ack Ack back-to-back, finishing his career with 11 victories from 41 starts and earnings of more than $1.6 million.

Ruler On Ice, a Keeneland yearling whom George said was a “little wild when he was young,” was gelded. He finished fifth in his debut at Monmouth. The following spring, he finished third in the Gr. 3 Sunland Park Derby. He was the first also-eligible for the 2011 Kentucky Derby but didn’t get into the race. Instead, he finished second in the Federico Tesio Stakes at Pimlico.

That was good enough to convince Kelly to take a shot with Ruler On Ice in the Belmont Derby. Sent off at 24-1, Ruler On Ice won by three-quarters of a length under Jose Valdivia, Jr. “It was unbelievable,” George said. “That was pretty spectacular.”

Ruler On Ice then ran third in the Gr. 1 Haskell and fourth in the Gr. 1 Travers. His only other victory came in an allowance race, yet he wound up with more than $1.7 million in earnings off four victories, five seconds and three thirds in 23 starts.

Off the track, George has shared his business and equine success with others. He was the recipient of the New York University’s prestigious Sir Harold Acton Medal in recognition of his philanthropy. One of his charitable acts was establishing the George E. Hall Childhood Diabetes Foundation at Mount Sinai Hospital.

George’s three children enjoy horses, too. That two-year-old visit to the Monmouth Park backstretch helped shape his now 19-year-old daughter Kathryn’s life. While attending New York University, she maintains her appreciation of horses. “Her life’s passion is show jumping,” George said. “She loves horses. She has two jumpers and travels around.”

George Jr., 18, likes going to the track with his dad but is more attached to fish than horses. “His passion is fishing and cooking,” George said. “While he takes a gap year after graduating from high school, he’s working at a restaurant. He catches them in the morning, brings them in and filets them.”

Their 12-year-old sister Charlotte, rides ponies and also enjoys going to the track.

The Hall clan may have their best racetrack moments ahead of them, thanks to the emergence of their four-year-old colt Max Player—a home-bred who was born on their 385-acre Annestes Farm in Versailles, Kentucky, and is trained by Steve Asmussen. 

“I think he’s a late-maturing horse,” George said. “We always thought he was very talented.”

As a three-year-old, Max Player captured the Gr. 2 Withers Stakes in just his third career start, then finished third in both the Belmont Stakes and the Travers to Tiz the Law. “Losing to Tiz the Law was no disgrace,” George said. “He was a standout, great horse.”

Max Player may be another. “In his early races, he had a tendency of getting away slowly,” George said. “We learned over time we have to keep him closer to the pace. If he’s too far behind, he has too much to do.”

This year, he was two lengths off the pace in the Gr. 2 Suburban and won by a neck. In the Gr. 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup September 4th at Saratoga, he was less than one length off, and dominated, scoring by four lengths in a powerful performance.

He had already earned a spot in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. “The Suburban was a `win and you’re in,’ race,” George said. “The Jockey Club was important to show that he belongs in that race.”

He belongs. Like his owner belongs. At the racetrack. Asked what his grandfather would have thought of his equine accomplishments, George said, “I think he’d be thrilled. I wished he could have lived longer to see it, himself.” He paused a second and added, “Maybe he did.”

Ron and Ricki Rashinski

All it took was a friendly conversation, a brilliant book and a trip to Saratoga to turn Ron and Ricki Rashinski into passionate Thoroughbred owners. “They’re phenomenal,” their trainer, Eddie Kenneally, said. “They love the game.”

They loved it a little bit more when Point Me By won the Bruce D. Stakes, the renamed Secretariat Stakes at their home track Arlington Park to become their third Gr. 1 stakes horse. Ricki said she didn’t hide her feeling rooting him home. “I’m not a quiet fan,” she confessed.

That itself is an endorsement of horse racing—one she didn’t have initially when Ron, who has a real estate management company in his native Chicago, broached the subject to her. “My wife didn’t want to get involved with it, but once she got a taste of it, she changed,” Ron said. “We spent some time at Saratoga, four or five days. Then a week. Then two weeks.”

Ricki said, “At first, I wanted nothing to do with it, but he took me to Saratoga. The track is beautiful. The people who work at the track were wonderful. They went out of the way to help you understand things. The whole town was all about the horses. And there were the horses themselves.”

Ron was as enthralled as she was about Saratoga. “They’re stopping traffic for horses to cross Union Avenue,” he said. “Wherever you go, you can have a Daily Racing Form with you and not have people think you’re a degenerate. It was like Wrigley Field; but instead of the Cubs, you had the New York Yankees.”

Besides racing Thoroughbreds, Ron and Ricki are involved in vintage car road racing. “We go to different tracks around the country,” Ron said. “We also had a small sponsorship in a car that won a 24-hour endurance race in Daytona.”

Ron was enticed into Thoroughbred racing by Jane Schwartz’s book Ruffian: Burning From the Start. Ron said, ”I’m a sports guy. I was intrigued by her story. I was amazed that there was a horse who was never headed. Then the match race with Foolish Pleasure... Even when she broke down, she was in the lead. My interest kind of snowballed from there.”

He felt enough—with an assist from multiple Eclipse Award Photographer Barb Livingston—to visit Ruffian’s grave at Belmont Park near a flagpole in the infield with her nose pointed toward the finish line. “[Ricki and I] left a bouquet of flowers,” he said. “We’re just fans—new fans. Even though I’m just a fan, I’m choked up.” He’s got a lot of company, even after all these years.

The Rashinskis couldn’t do anything to help Ruffian, but they sure are helping other horses now, through their support of Anna Ford’s New Vocations program, converting retired Thoroughbreds to a second career. “I love the animals,” Ron said. “We’re very involved. They do a great job, New Vocations.”  

  Ron decided to get involved in Thoroughbred ownership after meeting a gentleman from Wisconsin—Gary Leverton, who has since passed away. “We started talking, and we wound up partnering up on a horse at an auction at Hawthorne,” Ron said. “My wife and I were totally oblivious to Thoroughbreds.”

Initially, the Rashinskis used Chicago-based Hugh Robertson as their trainer, racing as Homewrecker Stable. Ron got the name when someone suggested that investing in vintage cars can become a homewrecker.

When the Rashinskis decided they wanted to race in New York and Kentucky, they hired Eddie Kenneally to train. “We trusted those two men implicitly with our animals,” Ricki said. “We’ve been with Eddie for 25 years.”

Ron said, “We don’t have a lot of high-priced yearlings. We don’t buy very expensive horses.” Yet they’ve won repeatedly at racing’s highest level, thanks to the skills of Kenneally—a very under-publicized top trainer. 

Their first outstanding horse was the filly Bushfire. After finishing third in her 2005 debut at Churchill Downs, she won six of her next eight starts including the Florida Oaks, the Gr. 1 Ashland, the Gr. 1 Acorn and the Gr. 1 Mother Goose. One of her misses was a solid third in the Gr. 1 Kentucky Oaks. Her only finish out of the money in her first nine starts was a seventh on a sloppy track in the Gr. 2 Davona Dale. Her earnings topped $800,000.

In partnership, they had another star in Custom for Carlos, who had six victories, four seconds and one third in 15 starts, taking three Gr. 3 stakes, the 2009 Jersey Shore, the Mr. Prospector and the Count Fleet Handicap, and making almost half a million dollars.

Again in a different partnership, their gray Sailor’s Valentine captured the Gr. 1 Ashland in 2017 on the way to making more than $400,000 in 13 starts.

By the time Point Me By made the races in 2020, Ron had learned, somewhat, to control his emotions when his horses raced. “To tell you the truth, I have trouble handling horse racing,” he said. “I was Mr. Pepto Bismol. I’d be pounding that stuff down. If the horse didn’t win, I felt I let people down. Now I know people are just happy for the experience. They don’t care. I’m a little better now.” Winning a bunch of stakes helped.  

Their three-year-old colt Point Me By, (a son on Point of Entry) was a $30,000 purchase at Keeneland and didn't have anything near those credentials when he stepped into the starting gate for the Bruce D. Stakes, having followed a maiden victory with a fourth in an allowance race. He won the Mr. D by 2 ¾ lengths under Luis Saez, who took off a day from his dominant meeting as Saratoga’s leading rider, to pilot Point Me Buy in the Bruce D. and Zulu Alpha, who finished seventh in the renamed Arlington Million, the Mr. D.

The Rashinskis would love to bring Point Me By back to Arlington next year. But Arlington Park closed forever in late September. “It would have been nice to come back and try to win the Million if he was good enough for it,” Ron said. “Too bad.” He’s got a lot of company, too, after all these years of elegant racing at Arlington Park.

Hugh Robertson

Two Emmys connections celebrate after winning the Mister D Stakes at Arlington Park

Was  it coincidence or karma? Two Emmys’ trainer/co-owner Hugh Robertson didn’t care. He was just thrilled to be standing in the winner’s circle after Two Emmys—a five-year-old gelding purchased with his partner Randy Wolfe for $4,500 as a yearling at Keeneland—delivered Hugh’s first Gr. 1 victory in his 50th year of training Thoroughbreds.

That it came on August 14th in the $600,000 Mr. D Stakes—the renamed Arlington Million—in Arlington Park’s Gr. 1 stakes was serendipitous. So was his meeting with Wolfe, thanks to a kind stranger sitting behind Wolfe at Arlington Park for the 2002 Breeders’ Cup.

Hell, Hugh was hoping to become an attorney as an underclassman at the University of Nebraska. Then he switched his law book for a condition book and never looked back. “I took a semester off and never went back,” he said.

He’s never been disappointed in that decision. Though he may not be well-known nationally, he topped $1 million in earnings 14 times, amassing 1,542 wins and more than $31.5 million in earnings, thanks to consistent success. From 1998 through 2020, his win percentage has been higher than 15 every year but one, when he checked in with 13% in 2008.

His 47-year-old son Mac has already won 1,428 races and earned more than $37.5 million, working in concert with his father. “We have 125 to 150 horses between us,” Mac said. “We’ve had a good run. It’s nice to be able to send your horse to your dad or your horse to your son.”

He was thrilled when Two Emmys won the Mister D. “I’m happy for my dad and my mom,” he said. “Everyone wants to win a Gr. 1. My mom and dad struggled to make ends meet. We’re been fortunate to have a lot of good clients. Nobody does it on his own.”

Hugh started at Penn National, spent eight years there and moved on to Chicago, going on his own in 1971. Twenty-two years later, Polar Expedition, an incredibly quick speedster, took Hugh on a great seven-year run, winning 20 of 49 starts and earning just under $1.5 million.

“Once I got Polar Expedition, things took off,” he said. “He was a little, tiny  horse. He was 15 hands and weighed maybe 900 as a two-year-old—a horse who wouldn’t have brought $1,000 at a sale. He was freak. He did everything right, right from the start. I told his owner, John Cody—I told him before he ever ran, `He’s the best horse you’ve ever had, and I’ll try not to screw it up.’ A lot of horses get ruined. He was a nice horse.”

He didn’t take long to show it, emerging as one of the top two-year-olds in the country by winning five of his six starts by daylight, including scores in a pair of Gr. 2 stakes: the Arlington Washington Futurity by 4 ½ lengths at one mile and the Gr. 2 Breeders Futurity at Keeneland by 5 lengths.

When he won his three-year-old debut, the Mountain Valley at Oaklawn Park by three lengths, the sky was the limit. Polar Expedition finished third in the Southwest Stakes, then captured the Gr. 2 Jim Beam Stakes by a neck in his first start at a mile-and-an-eighth. Polar Edition went off the 1-2 favorite in the Gr. 2 Illinois Derby, only to finish a distant seventh on a sloppy track. Regardless, Polar Expedition went on to the Preakness Stakes, leading early before fading badly to 10th.

Polar Expedition maintained his class throughout his career, taking two mile-and-an-eighth Gr. 2 stakes: the Washington Park Handicap at Arlington and the Gr. 2 National Jockey Club Handicap at Hawthorne in his next-to-last start in 1998 as a seven-year-old.

In 2002, Hugh hooked up with Randy Wolfe, a retired worker from an electric co-op in Madison, Wisconsin. At the Breeders’ Cup at Arlington Park, Wolfe mentioned that his father and his father-in-law had owned horses and that he was thinking about buying one. “I got talking to the guy behind me, and he asked me who I was going to hire to train the horse,” Wolfe said. “He said he knew someone, and called Hugh. He came down 15 minutes later, and we talked.”

Randy liked what he heard. “We were both from Nebraska,” Wolfe said. “I knew I could trust somebody from Nebraska.”

Hugh suggested they claim a horse. They did, and then more. “We’ve had 18 horses with Hugh,” Randy said.

The best one cost $4,500 at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale. “I was a little upset,” Randy said. “I said, `I don’t need another $4,500 horse.’ He kept telling me to have patience with this horse. He’s an English Channel, and they don’t get good until they’re four or five. He doesn’t push a horse. He has the best interest of the horse all the time. He’s not going to run a horse if he’s not ready to run.”

Two Emmys did okay as a four-year-old, then improved quickly at five. He finished second in the Gr. 2 Muniz Memorial at the Fair Grounds, then second in an allowance race at Arlington Park from off the pace and second by a neck on the lead in the Gr. 3 Arlington Stakes.

Hugh had nominated Two Emmys for the renamed Arlington Million. “I was sure he’d run at a mile and a quarter,” Hugh said. “Other than Domestic Spending and the horse from Europe, it came up a little light. I thought he was competitive in there. I stuck him in there. Take a chance.”

With a new pilot, James Graham, Two Emmys struck the lead and walked the field to a :52.43 half-mile. “When he ran :52 to the half, I knew we’d get a part of it,” Hugh said. “And then the 1:16 (for three-quarters). I was sure we’d hit the board.”

Flying at him late was Domestic Spending, the 2-5 favorite ridden by Flavien Prat who was six-for-seven lifetime.

Two Emmys dug in. “He’s pretty game,” Hugh said. “He ran the last quarter in :22 3/5. You’re not going to catch a front-runner coming home in :22 3/5. At the 16th pole, I was pretty sure he was going to win.” He did, by a diminishing neck.

Two Emmys and Jockey James Graham hold off Domestic Spending to win the Mister D Stakes at Arlington Park

Hugh joked with TVG’s Scott Hazelton, ”I never thought I’d have a horse in the Million, and then when I do, it’s not a million.” Hugh added, “It’s nice, but I wish they’d keep running.”

He’ll have quite the memento from Arlington Park, and a horse who may just win other stakes, too. “If you get a hold of a good one, you try not to mess him up,” Hugh said.

“Good horses will run for everybody. A good horse is dangerous in anyone’s hands.” But only at racetracks still running. “It’s a shame,” Hugh said. “It’s a beautiful racetrack.”

Michael Cannon - Cannon Thoroughbreds

Michael Cannon (Cannon Thoroughbreds) - Smooth Like Strait

Michael Cannon, a multiple success in business, was in unfamiliar territory with his Thoroughbreds. “I was a failure,” he said. “I’m not lying. I was a complete failure. I took full responsibility. I bred Smooth Like Strait. Then he ran his first race and was a real disappointment. I told my wife he was our last chance of success. I was starting to undo Cannon Thoroughbreds. I spent a lot of money, and I got very little reward. You have to know in business when to pull the plug. I was looking to get out of the business.”

Fortunately for the Cannons, Smooth Like Strait didn’t take long to show his immense talent—taking Michael, Jennifer and their four children, Cole, Chloe, Camryn and Cooper on the ride of a lifetime. His last eight starts have been in graded stakes with four victories, two seconds, a third and a fourth against elite turf company. “He turned it around,” Cannon said. “We’re back and stronger than ever.”

Cannon has spent most of his adult life helping companies do exactly that: getting strong. The 52-year-old president and CEO of Cannon Nevada, a venture capital firm based in Henderson, has started or acquired 22 businesses. Zero have gone bankrupt. “I’m pretty good at cutting out the bull****, simplifying and getting down to making money,” he said. “So far, I’m always looking to share with others. I do like helping other people. It’s not all about the money. It’s really about success. I just keep trying new things. Some work, some don’t. I’m too dumb to quit. So I keep working. Fortunately, I’ve been more successful than not.”

His interest in horses came at an early age. “My dad loved racing, and my mom was from Nevada. I spent a lot of time in Nevada. I knew horses very well.”

His mother, however, didn’t let him pursue his interest in music or football. “I played trumpet, but she wouldn’t let me practice at home,” he said. “She also wouldn’t let me play football in high school. And I was fast.”

When he attended Alan Hancock Junior College in Santa Maria, Calif., he made the football team as a freshman and was a starter at wide receiver in his second season. “I was the only white receiver—a white kid with red hair—with really talented African Americans from inner cities,” he said. “They came from rough neighborhoods. I didn’t even know how to put the pads on. They taught me everything. These guys became good friends.”

Following junior college, Cannon received a bachelor of science degree from Boston University’s School of Management, an advanced certificate in negotiation from Harvard University and an advanced certificate in mergers and acquisition from UCLA.

He had an incredible experience in 1988 while doing an internship in London. He even had tea with Diana, Princess of Wales. “There was a new American Institute of Foreign Studies, and about six of us out of 300 were allowed to meet her,” he said. “I had to take two days of classes for protocol. They take that protocol very seriously. Just learning how to shake hands took an hour. You can’t squeeze her hand. When she finally showed up, she couldn’t have been any nicer. She was prettier in person than she was in pictures. She didn’t give a damn about all that protocol. She grabbed my hand and seized it.” 

While in college, he bought his first horse—a $1,000 weanling named Achillean Spirit. “He ran at Golden Gate and tracks in Utah and Nevada and was very successful on that small circuit: Beaver City, Utah, and Ely and Elko, Nevada,” Cannon said.

Then he began syndicating horses as Sport of Kings Syndication. He did that for three years and took a hiatus from horse racing to focus on his rapidly advancing business career. He founded and led Warehouse Las Vegas, Accurate Courier and 4Wall Entertainment before founding Cannon Nevada in 2018.

Eight years earlier, he had reconnected with Thoroughbreds, posting minimal success. He purchased Smooth Like Straight’s granddam, Beautiful Lil. She produced Smooth Like Straight’s dam, Smooth as Usual. He raced her, sold her and got her back after her racing career ended in a sale at Keeneland. She began Cannon’s small broodmare band, based at Columbiana Farm in Kentucky.

Early reports on Smooth Like Strait were incredibly positive from day one. He shared this story with Christine Oser in her October, 22, 2020, story in The Blood-Horse: “The minute he was born, Homer Rader at Columbiana said, `You know what? You’ve got a good one.’ And that’s literally within 24 hours of him being born. I sent him away to be trained at Bill Wofford’s Rimroc Farm in Kentucky. He breaks them and gets them prepped for training, and then he called me up and said, `Smooth Like Strait—this horse is going to win you a graded stakes race.’ I’d never heard that before.”

Then Smooth Like Strait, who is trained by Mike McCarthy, made a dreadful debut, finishing ninth by 20 lengths at Del Mar on August 17, 2019. That abysmal performance was on dirt, and once Smooth Like Strait switched to grass, he became a star—flashing seven victories, three seconds and a pair of thirds in 14 starts while earning more than $900,000.

He could have won a lot more, narrowly missing his first three starts in Gr. 1 stakes. He finished second by a head in the Hollywood Derby, second by a neck in the Francis Kilroe Stakes and third by a neck in the Turf Classic at Churchill Downs. “When you’re coming from nothing, and you’re losing Gr. 1’s by a neck, we were proud as hell. Just to be in a graded stakes was terrific,” Cannon said.

Then Smooth Like Strait broke through, winning the Gr. 1 Shoemaker Mile by a length and a half on May 31. That prompted Cannon to conclude, “I’ve come a long way since 1991 in Beaver City, Utah.”

John and Diane Fradkins

Timing is everything, right? Well, for John and Diane Fradkin, mistaken timing was everything. If not for a faulty timer at Del Mar, the Fradkins might have sold their debut winning, home-bred two-year-old colt, Rombauer, last year. Instead, they kept him. Rombauer rewarded them with his stunning victory in this year’s Preakness Stakes and then a distant, but certainly respectable, third in the Belmont Stakes.

The Fradkins breed to sell, not to race; and they figured they’d be offered a huge price after Rombauer won his one-mile, grass debut by a half-length by roaring home in :22 4/5 in his final quarter-mile. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a first-time two-year-old do that,” John said. 

Fradkin expected multiple offers. Instead, Rombauer was given a pedestrian Beyer Speed Figure of 48 for his victory in 1:38 1/5. “Something just didn’t feel right about that time,” Fradkin said. “The mistake was substantial. I think it was the equivalent to a full second. I think it was the difference between someone offering $250,000 and getting no offers after a maiden special weight at Del Mar in the summer. Two weeks later, there were substantial stories about the times being wrong at Del Mar. The Speed Figure was changed from 48 to 55. And I still think it should have been closer to 70.”

Regardless, Rombauer soon generated multiple offers. In his second start, Rombauer finished sixth in a grass stakes. Then, in his dirt debut in the Gr. 1 American Pharoah Stakes at Santa Anita last September 24, Rombauer finished second by three-quarters of a length to Get Her Number, defeating highly regarded third-place finisher Spielberg by 4 ¾ lengths.

“We did take a gamble by not selling him, ever since he hit the board in the American Pharoah,” Fradkin said. “It was a gamble, and it paid off.”

Big time. And it was much appreciated. “There are a lot of ups and a lot of downs in racing,” he said. “We’ve been in the game since ’93 and breeding since ’97. You can go many years in a row losing money.”

This won’t be one of them. “The last month has been surreal,” Fradkin said.

Fradkin, who lives in California, got his first taste of horse racing in 1970 when he spent the summer in Cherry Hill, N.J. “I was 11 years old, and we went to Delaware Park,” he said. “I remember it was fun. I still remember a horse I bet on who won—a gray horse. He came from last and won.”

Could he have envisioned breeding and owning a Gr. 1 stakes winner? “Of course not,” he said.

Fast forward some 15 years. Fradkin was working as an institutional bond salesman, which meant keeping Wall Street hours and finishing your day at 2 p.m. A co-worker who grew up near Santa Anita convinced Fradkin to journey to the famed track. “He taught me how to read the Daily Racing Form,” Fradkin said. “He taught me how to handicap.”

Subsequently, Fradkin figured he’d be a better handicapper if he owned a horse. He claimed a seven-year-old gelding named Ruff Hombre for $25,000 on June 24t, 1993. Ruff Hombre finished 11th that afternoon. But given nearly two months to recover from new trainer Ron Ellis, Ruff Hombre won his first start for Fradkin by three lengths in a $20,000 claimer. Ruff Hombre, who won 18 of his 74 career starts and earned more than $230,000, never raced again; but he had kick-started his owner’s new career—breeding.

Using the money they earned from Ruff Hombre’s victory, the Fradkins went to the 1993 Keeneland September Sale, and with the help of a bloodstock agent they hired, purchased Ultrafleet for $10,500. “We gave her to Ron Ellis,” Fradkin said. Ultrafleet didn’t do well on the track, so the Fradkins decided to breed her. She turned into a broodmare superstar.

Her stars include Cambiocorsa, who won six straight races at Santa Anita and earned more than $520,000; California Flag, who won 11 of 27 starts, including the 2009 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, and earned nearly $1.3 million; and Cashmere, the dam of Rombauer.

Rombauer ended his two-year-old season by rallying from 11th to 5th in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile to Essential Quality, who would be named Two-Year-Old Champion. In his three-year-old debut on the synthetic track at Golden Gate Fields, Rombauer won by a neck, earning an all-expenses-paid entrance into the Preakness.

Trainer Mike McCarthy wanted to start Rombauer in the Kentucky Derby, but Fradkin convinced him to bring him back in the Preakness.

“When he started to range up around the turn and got into third, I felt pretty good about him hitting the board,” Fradkin said. “I told my wife, `He’s going to hit the board! He’s going to hit the board!’ Then I said, “He’s going to win! He’s going to win!”

He did, by 3 ½ lengths.

“It was a great feeling,” Fradkin said.

It still is.

“We don’t have kids,” Fradkin said. “In some ways, the horses we breed are like our kids. It's an emotional feeling, probably like the one parents get from watching their kids play Little League. We kind of feel the same way.”

Thank goodness for mistaken timing. 

Nick Cosato - Slam Dunk Racing

Nick Cosato’s unique journey through Thoroughbred racing has led him to two different partnerships with two different trainers who produced two Gr. 1 stakes victories. He earned those accomplishments.

“I’m pretty passionate about the game,” Cosato said. “You have to be. Owning horses is difficult. Running a partnership is difficult. I’ve got more than skin in the game. I’ve got bone marrow in it. I’m all in.”

Now 54, Cosato lives in Sierra Madre, Calif., two miles from Santa Anita. He was born in nearby San Gabriel. “I was pretty much born on the apron of Santa Anita,” he said. “Every Sunday, I was there with my father—like clockwork.”

He grew up idolizing Bill Shoemaker. “I was obsessed with Shoemaker,” he said. “I wanted to be a jockey, and he was the best. Everything he wanted to do, I wanted to do. My parents would have been all right with that.”

Unfortunately, growth re-routed his dream. He guesses he was 10 or 11 when he realized he was too big to become a jockey: “I said, `This isn’t going to happen.’” He would grow to be 5’7” and 170 pounds.

He went to college at California Poly Pomona, majoring in animal science, while he worked in a restaurant, umpired baseball games and officiated basketball games. “I’m a sports junkie,” he said.

The sport he loved the most was horse racing. “I would always watch jockey agents from my fascination with Shoemaker,” he said. “I thought it was a very interesting job—a pretty cool job. I was fascinated with it.”

After college, an opportunity came his way. “I knew a jockey agent, Tony Strangio, who represented an apprentice jockey, Christine Davenport,” Cosato said. “She was the first jockey he ever had. He was going to open a business. He asked me if I’d take her book. I thought it was a perfect opportunity.”

He entered his new profession with an unrealistic outlook. “I thought this was going to be easy,” he said. “I found out it wasn’t as easy as I thought. I didn’t expect to start with Eddie Arcaro, but it was difficult getting her mounts. She didn’t have a lot of business. She was struggling.”

Cosato struggled, too. “You pay your dues,” he said. “I paid, and then some.”

He survived those difficult early years to carve out a 21-year career as a jockey agent, handling Patrick Valenzuela three different times, Corey Nakatani, Garret Gomez, Victor Espinoza, Michael Baze and Aaron Gryder.

Then he walked away to invest in a medical research business in 2010. “I didn’t work on the racetrack, but it never left my heart,” he said. “About a year later, I thought I’d want to dabble owning some horses. I partnered up with a couple other people. I thought, I’m going to start this little partnership. I liked college basketball, so I named it Slam Dunk Racing. I’d make it a fun thing. Our trainer was Peter Eurton. It rapidly began growing. We currently have 18 partners for 75 horses.”

He hit a home run when he reached out to Ron Moquet, who was training Whitmore. “I knew Ron a bit from being a jockey agent,” Cosato said. “Whitmore won at first asking.”

Cosato wanted in. Moquet asked his partners, and they declined not to sell any interest in Whitmore—a wise decision considering he would win the 2020 Breeders’ Cup Sprint and be named Eclipse Champion Sprinter. But Cosato had another idea after he was turned down as a co-owner. “I called Ron back and I said, `I want to buy his mom.’ I called the owner. At first, he said no. Two weeks later, he called me back and sold her to me. That was my foray into buying mares.”

He’s prospered ever since. Asked if being a former jockey agent gives him an edge, Cosato said, “I think it does. My whole life has been around horse racing. I have a decent amount of knowledge from the game. I majored in animal science. I know about things like feeding. I think the most important thing is placing horses. Trainers often lean on jockey agents for upcoming races.”

Cosato said that Slam Dunk Racing owns all of its breeding stock itself. “I would say 35 to 40 percent of my race horses are owned by Slam Dunk solely,” he said.

The others are in partnerships. Slam Dunk Racing’s partners on Drain the Clock (trained by Saffie Joseph) are Sal Kumin, Marc Lore and Michael Nentwig. Slam Dunk Racing’s partners on Maxim Rate (trained by Simon Callaghan) are Doug Branham and Stable Currency.

In the span of six days, Maxim Rate won the Gr. 1 Gamely Stakes at Santa Anita on May 31; and Drain the Clock captured the Gr. 1 Woody Stephens Stakes at Belmont Park on the Belmont Stakes undercard on June 6.

Two Gr. 1 winners in a week? Even Bill Shoemaker would have been impressed with that.

Mark, Stacy and Bob Krembil - Chiefswood Stables

Some people talk about doing the right thing. The Krembil family, who breeds and races as Chiefswood Stables, has been doing the right thing for humans and horses for decades from their base in Schomberg, Ontario. Along the way, they have emerged as one of Canada’s most powerful stables, winning multiple owner titles at Woodbine and receiving two consecutive Sovereign Awards as Canada’s Outstand Owner in 2018 and 2019. 

Now their colt, Weyburn—named for a small town in Saskatchewan—has emerged as the early favorite for this year’s Queen’s Plate, (Woodbine on Saturday, August 22) following his extremely game victory in the Gr3 Gotham Stakes at Aqueduct March 6th for trainer Jimmy Jerkens.

Before his intended start in Ontario, Weyburn will likely make his next starts in the Gr3 Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont Park on May 8th and then onto the Gr1 Belmont Stakes in early June.

Bob Krembil, the 78-year-old patriarch of the family, founded a mutual-fund company and sold it in 2000. In 2001, he launched the Krembil Foundation. “It focuses on neurosciences,” his 54-year-old son Mark said. “One of my interests is biology. We’re trying to make a difference helping people solve their problems. We’re hoping to help people with Alzheimer’s.” The Foundation also deals with the immune system and arthritis. 

Mark is in charge of the stable’s 125 horses with the help of general manager Rob Landy, a Hall of Fame jockey who rode the stable’s lone Queen’s Plate winner in 2004. “Rob makes the wheel go round,” Mark said. “He does the daily things. My dad really likes the breeding part of it, determining matches. I really enjoy the animal, and I’m competitive. There is nothing like winning a race. Stacy [Mark’s wife] works on after-care, and she follows up on them. My mom, Linda, keeps my dad going. She tolerates all of us, and she loves the animals. Everyone plays a role.” 

Jonathan and Leonard Green - D.J. Stable

Jonathan & Leonard Green with jockey Joel Rosario after Jaywalk wins the 2018 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Filies

Jonathan Green’s priorities crystalized for him at an early age. “I was probably eight or nine years old,” he said. “Our neighbor had a $5,000 claimer. He was racing at Monmouth Park, just minutes from our home. My dad took me. The horse won. I cashed a $5 ticket, ate a hot dog and got to go to the winner’s circle.”

Hooked for life.

Fast forward to college. “I went to Lehigh because Comcast showed Philadelphia Park,” he said. “I’d set up my classes to see the races. I took night classes.”

Now, at the age of 51, he is living his dream as the general manager of his and his father’s D.J. Stable—one of the largest racing and breeding operations in the entire country with more than 100 racing stock, foals and broodmares in five states. “As a family, we’ve really enjoyed it,” Jonathan said. “You have to treat it as a business, but it’s such a thrill to win a big race or sell a big yearling and enjoy it with your family. We’ve won more than 2,400 races and over 150 stakes.”

There is one race they covet winning. They’ve had one starter in the Kentucky Derby—a horse they owned in partnership with former Duke University basketball star Bobby Hurley, Songandaprayer, who set the fastest pace in the Derby’s long history: a half-mile in :44 86 and three-quarters in 1:09.25 before tiring to finish 13th in 2001. But the race they want to win most is the Haskell at Monmouth Park July 17th. “Our Kentucky Derby is the Haskell,” Jonathan said. “We’ve always wanted to run a good horse in the Haskell. We’ve never started a horse in it. The Haskell is a million-dollar race in our backyard…. We’ve done unorthodox things before.”

If Helium were to win a Triple Crown race, that would be tough to resist. That’s what’s classified as a good problem to have. And Lenny and Johnny are good at solving problems. They both succeeded in financing. “My father is 84, and he still works 70-hour weeks and loves every minute of it,” Jonathan said. “My grandfather, Abe, lived to be in his late 90s. He said, `Your mind is a muscle, and you must exercise it daily.’

Lenny is an accountant and CPA who explored the business side of horse racing before getting involved. “He wanted to explore the tax laws to see if there was a benefit for owning horses,” Jonathan said. “He remembered something about the tax codes. He studied it for eight, nine months. Doing that was about as exciting as it sounds.”

Lenny survived and dived in. “He found an industry that he enjoyed that he wanted to be a part of—one that had tax benefits,” Jonathan continued. “He was an athlete. He was a tennis player. He loved competition. In the late 70s, he was a minority owner of the New Jersey Nets.”

The Nets, in the American Basketball Association before it merged with the National Basketball Association, had an outstanding guard named Super John Williamson, who helped the Nets wins two ABA titles. “He was the first actual star I met,” Jonathan said. “He was very gracious. We named a horse Super John.”

Roadrunner Racing, Boat Racing and Bill Strauss

Five football-playing fraternity brothers seeking a way to stay connected after graduating from Brown University in Providence, R.I., did just that by connecting with two veteran Thoroughbred owners in Southern California. Now all of them are having the ride of their lives with their Louisiana Derby winner Hot Rod Charlie.

“It’s astounding,” said Greg Helm, the managing partner of Roadrunner Racing, which owns 50% of Hot Rod Charlie after being convinced by bloodstock agent Dennis O’Neil to take a step away from claiming horses and take a shot with a yearling he liked. “Dennis has a good feel for the personnel groups that would fit together,” Greg said. “Thanks to him, we have a unique ownership.”

The world got a glimpse of this unique group immediately after Hot Rod Charlie won the Louisiana Derby. TVG’s Scott Hazelton was interviewing one of his owners, Bill Strauss, in the winner’s circle. Wildly enthusiastic and raspy after cheering his horse home, Bill fairly shouted, “This is what you get in the game for, to go to Kentucky on the first Saturday of May.” In the background, the brothers were jumping up and down on one another’s body as if they were, well, frat brothers playing boat racing—the beer chugging game they used to name their stable.

“We bring a youthful enthusiasm,” said Patrick O’Neil, the frat brother who is a nephew of Dennis and who bought Hot Rod Charlie as a yearling for $110,000, and his brother Doug, their trainer. 

What do the frat brothers get from their elder partners? “The best thing that happened from this is you get to meet a lot of great new people along the path,” Patrick said. “We are meeting so many amazing people in the world. We are attached to Greg and Bill, who have had very impressive careers. They became mentors to us.”

Working together? “We all have the same mindset about racing, about what’s important to us,” Greg said. “All the decisions that had to be made were unanimous and simple.”

Greg, a 73-year-old retired advertising agency owner, and his wife Glenna formed Roadrunner Racing with five other couples. At their golf club, they watched Hot Rod Charlie’s coming-out party in the 2020 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, when he led late before finishing second by three-quarters to still unbeaten Essential Quality at 94-1. “They said they could hear the cheering miles away,” he said. “At 94-1, we were pretty pleased.”

His golf club, which had offered a special on its menu that afternoon—the Hot Rod Charlie (a spicy, crispy chicken sandwich)—made it a permanent lunch option. “They have a picture on the menu,” Greg said proudly.

He said of the partnership with Boat Racing, “We’re a pretty lively group ourselves. When you get around the Boat Racing people, it’s hard not to get further energized. We met all of them in New Orleans. That was fantastic. We all sat together, partied together and had lunch together.”

Now he has a horse that deserves a start in a Triple Crown race. “I can almost sleep,” he laughed. “It’s tough to get to sleep.”

Three Diamonds Farm

Working with family can be tricky. Two families working together? Kirk Wycoff and his son Jordan, and Meg and Mike Levy with their son Ryder Finney have found a way, enjoying continued success with their Three Diamonds Farm. “I think it had a lot to do with a great team, bouncing ideas off each other,” Jordan said. “It’s a collective effort.”

It’s been a successful one for nearly 15 years.

On January 23 at Gulfstream Park, their five-year-old horse Tide of the Sea captured the Gr3 William McKnight Stakes by three-quarters of a length wire-to-wire—quite an accomplishment in a mile-and-a-half turf stakes. The massive son of Turf Champion English Channel follows the success of Gr1 United Nations Stakes winner and $1.5 million earner Bigger Picture and near $700,000 Gr2 Bowling Green Stakes winner Cross Border. They helped Three Diamonds top $3 million in earnings the last three years. They’ve already topped $300,000 this year before the end of January, thanks to Tide of the Sea’s victory and Cross Border’s third-place finish in the $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational—a half-hour after Tide of the Sea’s victory in the McKnight.

The common denominator for Tide of the Sea, Bigger Picture and Cross Border is that they are older turf routers. “We know the grass can be kinder on them—more conducive to a career going into their five or six-year-old season,” Jordan said. “The turf is kinder on their bodies.”

So the Wycoffs, Meg and Ryder seek them out. And they work very hard to succeed. Meg was an accomplished equestrian who became the first female show person for Eaton Sales. She opened her own consignment company, Bluewater, in 1999, and sold a $1.3-million yearling a year later.

Kirk Wycoff is the managing partner of Patriot Financial Services in Rachor, Penn. Jordan, 32, works with a different banking firm. Three Diamonds Farm isn’t a physical farm; the Wycoffs use the Levys’ Bluewater Farm in Lexington, Ky. Meg is the owner, specializing in physical evaluation of prospects and with lay-ups; Mike runs Muirfield Equine Insurance while getting more involved with the farm. Ryder, 29, is their bloodstock specialist. At any time, they have 20 to 40 horses in training, not including their babies in Ocala, Fla. They do pinhooking, claiming and racing.

“The Levys are my second family,” Jordan said.

His first family, Kirk and Debbie, have been in racing for a long time. “My dad was in the Thoroughbred business,” Jordan said. “He trained on his own at Penn National in the 1980s. Then he and Mom messed with show jumpers, pinhooking them. That’s how they got started.”

The Wycoffs dove back into racing in 2011, claiming a horse with trainer Mike Trombetta. Three Diamonds Farm claimed Jimanator for $20,000 at Saratoga on August 15, 2011, and he won the Gr3 Fred W. Hooper Stakes at Gulfstream Park 3 ½ month later.

Not long after, Three Diamonds Farm went to trainer Mike Maker. “Mike is good with horses who mature with age,” Jordan said.

Jordan was an aspiring golfer—good enough to get a scholarship at Rider University—but his father gave him an ultimatum one summer. “I was a sophomore in high school, and I caddied in the morning and practiced golf in the afternoon,” Jordan said. “My dad said I had to get a real job when I was 17. He said you could do that or go to Kentucky and learn the horse business. It was a pretty easy choice.”

He drove to Lexington and had the good fortune to meet the Levy family. “I learned both trades: horses and equine insurance,” Jordan said. “I did that every summer all the way through college.”

Ryder said, “Jordan used to come down and stay with us to learn about the business. Because we were so close in age, we got really close.”

The Wycoffs work hard to succeed in racing. “Me and my dad get up at 4:30 or 5:30 every morning,” Jordan said. “We look at past performances at every track we have money at: Gulfstream Park, Fair Grounds, Oaklawn Park, Santa Anita, Turfway Park and New York. It’s a good way to procrastinate a couple hours in the morning.”

Ryder said, “The Wycoffs are very precise people. They’re very precise with their numbers. They’re both very good handicappers. They say, `We like these horses on paper.’ My mom’s role is a lot of physical inspection. She did that when I was younger—before I was trusted with that kind of thing. She tells them which ones she likes. She runs the farm. One of her largest contributions with Three Diamonds is lay-up situations. She is instrumental in figuring out what’s wrong with them.”

Asked about working with his mother, Ryder said, “We’ve very similar. We see horses similarly. She raised me to think like she does about horses, which is a blessing. She’s one of the best horse people in the world. I think we get to experience things together that most mothers and sons don’t. I’m very blessed.”     

John Sondereker

Sixty years ago, John Sondereker got a taste of the tantalizing possibilities racing can offer. He was 18 and in his third year working for trainer Jerry Caruso at Ascot Park, a small track in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. Because Caruso knew Ohio-based Jack and Katherine Price—the trainer, owner and breeder of Carry Back—Sondereker was able to tag along with Caruso’s foreman to see the 1961 Kentucky Derby. “I went down in a pick-up truck,” Sondereker said. “That was my first Derby.”

When late-closing Carry Back rallied from far-back to edge Crozier by three-quarters of a length and won the Run for the Roses, Sondereker was moved. “I was 18 years old,” he said. “I was flabbergasted. I’m a small-town kid. We used to call our track a bull ring. $1,500 claimers. Lots of them. Seeing Bill Hartack, catching the whole Derby experience—horse racing was totally different down there. You could get lucky with the right horse and win it all.”

Just two years before Sondereker's first Derby experience, he had gotten a job mucking stalls and walking hots at Ascot Park. “I was a kid, and I needed the money,” he said. “So that was a job that was available. I think they’ll pick anybody.”

He quickly fell in love with horses and horse racing. “I loved the animals,” he said. “It was just a great experience. It was a thrill. Back then, horse racing was king. On Saturdays, at that little track, we had 20,000 fans. It was the only game in town.”

He’s now living in the city that has thousands of games in town—Las Vegas, where he wakes up at 4 or 4:30 a.m. and walks or half-jogs five miles every day. “I jogged for 50 years,” he said. “I live on a golf course, 15 miles west of the Strip. I’m out there walking with a little lamp on my head.”

In the city that never sleeps, Sondereker goes to bed at 9 p.m. “I sleep well,” he said.

Sondereker served in the Air Force, the last year in Iceland. “I was the only person in Iceland getting the Wall Street Journal and the Cleveland edition of the Daily Racing Form,” he said.

When he returned, he had an intriguing career working for Wells Fargo, serving in branches all over the United States and in South America, Latin America and Puerto Rico—working his way up to executive vice-president. “I spent five years in San Juan,” he said. “I went to the track there.”

He’d been introduced to racing in the early 1950s by his father and uncle at Waterford Park, which became Mountaineer Park, in West Virginia. When his family moved to Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, he caught on at Ascot Park.

When he retired from Wells Fargo in 2003, he resumed his passion for horse racing. “I always was a big fan of racing,” he said. “I got involved. I decided I wanted to do it on my own. In my working career, I had a lot of authority. I’m the guy who makes decisions. I don’t look back. I want to look forward. I’m still learning. That’s a great thing when you’re 78—to still learn. It’s fantastic. 

“In my opinion, owners don’t get engaged the way I did—to find out how and why decisions are made. It’s a passive thing. Most of them don’t know a fetlock from a knee.”

Sondereker got involved with a small syndicate, Class Racing, meeting trainer Eric Kruljac. Then Sondereker went on his own, keeping Kruljac. “He went to the Keeneland Sales with me,” Kruljac said. “Then he started going in the wintertime. It was seven degrees below zero the day he bought Kiss Today Goodbye as a yearling at Keeneland.”

That was at the Keeneland January 2018 Sale. “The wind chill was brutal,” Sondereker said. “I couldn’t get my pen to write, standing outside.”

He landed Kiss Today Goodbye, a son of Cairo Prince out of Savvy Hester out of Heatseeker for $150,000. “There were a handful of fillies I liked, and they went from $20,000 to $25,000, so you know they weren’t good,” he said. “I started looking at colts.”

He liked what he saw in Kiss Today Goodbye—his name taken from the opening line of the song “What I Did For Love” from the musical Chorus Line. “I said, `Boy, this is a nice-looking colt,’” he said. “Looks so correct. I must have looked at 50, 60 horses. He was a great mover. Very graceful. He seemed like a pretty smart horse. He stood there looking at me. Calm and collected.”

So Sondereker collected Kiss Today Goodbye. The now four-year-old colt took five starts to break his maiden by a neck at Santa Anita last February, then finished 10th by 33 ½ lengths in his first start against winners.

Undeterred, Sondereker and Kruljac entered Kiss Today Goodbye in the $98,000 Shared Belief Stakes at Del Mar, August 1. Sent off at 34-1, Kiss Today Goodbye finished a much-improved third by 4 ¼ lengths. Switched to turf, Kiss Today Goodbye finished fifth and fourth in a pair of Gr2 stakes—the first at Del Mar, the second at Santa Anita. Returned to dirt, Kiss Today Goodbye won an allowance race by 2 ¾ lengths.

Kiss Today Goodbye stepped back up to stakes company December 26 and captured the Gr2 San Antonio Stakes at Santa Anita by a half-length, becoming the first three-year-old to win the stakes dating back to 1925. That performance got Kiss Today Goodbye into the Gr1 Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park, January 23. A victory would have given Sondereker his first Gr1 victory, but he finished seventh after racing last early in the field of 12.

Sondereker can only hope for similar success with Ruthless But Kind, a War Front filly he purchased for $625,000 at the 2020 Fasig-Tipton Yearling Sale in September. “I was really looking for a filly who could long on turf,” he said.
“She was the best filly I could find. I figured maybe a half-million.” When he bid $625,000, he didn’t think he was going to get her. “I figured I was going to be the underbidder again,” he said. “That happens a lot to me.” Instead, he got his filly. 

Regardless of how she does, Sondereker is still enjoying racing. “It’s definitely enhanced my life—learning something and being able to apply your knowledge,” he said. “It’s always been a thrilling sport, from the $1,500 claimer going up. The bigger the race, the better.”

Anyone who knows Sondereker knows how much he has given back to racing. “He’s fabulous,” Kruljac said. “He’s just a wonderful man. He’s very, very generous.”

Sondereker supports retired racehorses and the California Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Foundation, which serves over 3,000 backstretch workers and their families throughout California. “You have to give back,” Sondereker said. “I’ve been so fortunate in my life. I’m happily supporting backside employees and retired racehorses, and I’m going to do more of it. It’s a passion for me.” 

Robert and Lawana Low

Long ago in business, Robert Low found that success is much more appreciated if it follows disappointment. That’s what happened with his now massive truck company, Prime Inc., in Springfield, Mo. The business he started by buying a single dump truck when he was a 19-year-old attending the University of Missouri, prospered, tanked and recovered three years later to the point that it now has a fleet of more than 21,000 vehicles, approximately 10,000 employees, a gross revenue of $2.2 billion, and in January 2020, was recognized as one of the Top 20 Best Fleets to Drive For by Carrier’s Edge/TCA for the fourth consecutive year.

“About 1980, we went flat broke,” he said. “We spent 3 ½ years in Chapter 11. We then built the business model that is successful today. I think if the success continued from the 1970s to now, I would have been spoiled, unappreciative and somewhat arrogant. I learned my lesson. I learned it well.”

With Thoroughbreds, he spent $1.2 million to purchase his gray, four-year-old colt Colonel Liam as a two-year-old-in-training in April 2019. “We thought we were buying a Derby horse,” Low said. 

Instead, Colonel Liam got a late start, finishing second in a maiden race last April 14, when he was placed first on a disqualification, then a distant third on a sloppy track in an allowance race. “He was an expensive two-year-old-in-training,” Low said. “You’re disappointed.”

His trainer, Todd Pletcher, said, “He has more than what he’s showing. We’re going to give him a shot on turf in an allowance race.”

Bingo. “He was like a different horse,” Low said. “He took off. He’s very comfortable on the turf surface—how he moves.”

On January 23 at Gulfstream Park, Colonel Liam moved into a new status, taking the $1 million Gr1 Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational by a neck over his stable-mate in the Pletcher barn, Largent. “This is just unreal,” Low said after the race. “It’s fantastic. It’s a wonderful feeling.”

It’s a feeling he shared with his wife of 48 years, Lawana—and sweethearts since the fifth grade in Urbana, Mo. Robert lived on a farm. “She lived in town,” he said. “When I rode my horse in the Christmas parade, we flirted.”

  She loved horses, too. “They’re wonderful owners,” Pletcher said. “They love the sport, and they love their horses.”

Robert not only grew up with horses on his family’s farm, but he’d accompany his parents—both racing fans—on trips to Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark. He’d ride his horses against neighboring farms’ kids “on hard-gravel roads. Asked if he was a rider, he replied, “I was more of a cowboy.”

In college, he took a mighty risk buying a dump truck, which led to an open-road truck, then other trucks—lots of other trucks. “You have to do it when you’re young and dumb,” he said. “In my case, it was really a lot of luck involved, a lot of hard work involved.”

When the prime interest shot higher, he was suddenly in trouble. “I made a million dollars in 1979, and I went into bankruptcy in 1980,” he said.

He is so thankful that Lawana helped him through that rough period of his life. “God bless her,” he said. “My wife has stuck with me through thick and thin.”

When his business returned healthier than ever, Robert and Lawanda went after their dreams. “We bought just a couple of mares at first, because we always had a dream of having a breeding farm,” he said. Now, the Lows have a 330-acre farm, home to dozens of their horses. 

His first star was Capote Belle, an incredibly quick filly who won the Gr1 Test Stakes at Saratoga in 1996, for trainer Daniel Peitz and jockey John Velazquez. “We were over the moon,” Robert said. “An historic track. We’re country folks. We had our friends with us. We closed down a few places that night. I think it was Johnny V’s first Gr1 win at Saratoga.”

Capote Belle finished nine-for-22 with more than $600,000 in purses.

With Todd Pletcher as their trainer, the Lows had another highlight when their Magnum Moon won the Gr2 Rebel Stakes and the Gr1 Arkansas Derby in 2018, making him four-for-four in his career. “That was the thrill of our lives because Oaklawn has been a part of our lives for so long,” Robert said. “It’s not Saratoga, but it’s got a lot of ambiance.”

Magnum Moon’s next start was his last. He finished 19th in the Kentucky Derby, and he was retired after suffering an injury while training at Belmont Park in June 2018. The following October, he had to be euthanized after battling laminitis.

The Lows have another outstanding runner trained by Pletcher: Sweet Melania, a four-year-old filly who has won three of nine starts, including a Gr2 and a Gr3 stakes, with two seconds, three thirds and earnings topping $400,000. Just as Colonel Liam did, Sweet Melania made her first two starts on dirt, finishing third twice. On turf, she turned into a star. “We’re looking forward to her return,” Robert said.

Colonel Liam’s improvement on grass was striking. He won his grass debut—a maiden race at Saratoga—by 2 ¾ lengths. His next start was in the $500,000 Saratoga Derby Invitational last August 15. He had a brutal trip, getting “bumped hard at the break and pinched,” according to his comment line in the Daily Racing Form, then rallied strongly to finish fourth, losing by just three-quarters of a length. 

“He had trouble,” Robert said. “He got bumped very hard at the start. Then he was behind a lot of horses. But he only got beat by three-quarters of a length. With a little luck, he would have won that race.”

Pletcher decided to give Colonel Liam a break and point to the Pegasus Turf. In his four-year-old debut at Gulfstream Park in the $75,000 Tropical Park Derby on December 30, he won going away by 2 ¼ lengths. In the Pegasus, he went off the favorite, and he delivered.

He is the star of the Lows’ stable, which numbers about 60 including 16 broodmares, 14 yearlings, 19 juveniles and 12 horses with Pletcher, Peitz and Steve Margolis.

”I am living the dream,” Robert said. “For a small-farm kid, it’s been quite a ride. I’ve been very fortunate.”

MyRacehorse Stable with Spendthrift Farm, Starlight Racing and Madaket Stables

Partnerships have been flourishing in recent years, but there’s never been a partnership like this one: matching three well-known, long-tenured Thoroughbred groups with the upstart MyRacehorse Stable, and it’s 5,314 shareholders on Authentic. When Authentic turned back Tiz the Law to win the Kentucky Derby, MyRacehorse literally jumped from curiosity to game changer—a vision of founder and CEO Michael Behrens when MyRacehorse debuted in California only on Belmont Stakes Day in 2018.

MyRacehorse went national in June, 2019. Now? “We had just under 1,000 people that signed up on Derby Day before the Derby,” Behrens said. “We never had that many in one day before. It was breathtaking actually.”

That it happened with Wayne B. Hughes of Spendthirft Farm, who has backed MyRacehorse, made it even more meaningful. “They joined us in 2019,” MyRacehorse’s West Coast Manager Joe Moran said. “Mr. Hughes has been such a supporter of racing. It’s quite amazing.” Spendthrift was able to partner with MyRacehorse after buying a majority interest in Authentic. “It was a huge stepping stone for us,” Moran said. “It brought us credibility.”

Behrens, 44, was the chief marketing officer for Casper, a start-up online mattress company with offices in Manhattan. Behrens lives in California. He’d always been a racing fan. “I spent a lot of time looking at reports, and I came to the conclusion that we needed a simple way to itch people’s curiosity about horse racing,” he said. “It’s very difficult to get people to try that. I figured if I could sell mattresses, why couldn’t I sell horses? There were racing clubs in Japan and Australia. Ownership was the way to go. I forced it. We’re all in on social media. You’ve got to give people information they want to share with their friends. That’s how you grow the product.

“We had 5,314 winners, and almost all of them have been posting on Facebook, sharing their stories of winning the Kentucky Derby. That was always the vision. We did that with Casper. I just thought that those attributes would work here.”

Shares in Authentic ranged from $206 for a one-thousandth of one percent to $70,000. That interest includes Authentic’s breeding career.

“We had teachers, business leaders and big-time owners,” Moran said. “We had a gentleman in Ireland. On the morning of the Derby, he bought a share for $206. He got it off our website, and he shut out 10 other people when the horses loaded in the gate. Very cool.”

And that was before the Derby.

MyRacehorse’s website says “With micro-shares, you compete at the highest level for a fraction of the cost.” Perks for this one-time investment include “race-day privileges, winner’s circle access, meeting the trainer and jockey, updated entries and recaps, visits with your horse and race winnings paid directly to your on-line account.”

Sheikh Fahad Al Thani, Staton Flurry, Autry Lowry Jr.

Staton Flurry and Shedaresthedevil connections celebrate winning the 2020 Longines Kentucky Oaks.

How does a sheikh from Qatar, a parking lot owner in Hot Springs, Ark., and a fire captain from Benton, La., wind up partners on Shedaresthedevil—the Brad Cox-trained stakes-record winner of the Gr1 Kentucky Oaks?

They all bought in.

“At the end of the day, I’m happy to partner with anyone,” Sheikh Fahad said September 24th. “I haven’t met them, but they seem like nice people.”

Lowry said, “It’s definitely a unique relationship.”

Sheikh Fahad’s love of horses began as a child. “I’ve grown up with horses—a lot of Arabians,” he said. “I’ve always loved the horses. Not the Arabians that much. I dreamed of Thoroughbreds.”

He made that dream real after studying in England. He tuned in to watch a steeplechase race on television in 2008, and liked it so much he watched it every week. In 2010, he saw his first live race. “I said, `I better try that,’’’ Sheikh Fahad said. “When I started, it was just myself. Then my brothers joined me. I had my first win in 2011—a great thrill. I definitely caught the bug.”

Dunaden was why. He captured the 2011 Gp1 Melbourne Cup, Australia’s premier race, and the Gp1 Hong Kong Vase. The following year, he won the Gp1 Caulfield Cup, completing his career with 10 victories from 46 starts.

In 2014, Sheik Fahad’s QIPCO Holding became the first commercial partner of Royal Ascot by special royal permission.

Now, Sheik Fahad’s horses race in England, Ireland, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and in the United States with Fergus Galvin as his U.S. racing advisor. “I’ve had a lot of partnerships in California with Simon Callaghan as trainer,” Sheikh Fahad said. “I was out at Del Mar. I usually go to Del Mar.”

Sheikh Fahad saw Shedaresthedevil finish third last year in the Gr2 Sorrento Stakes, a nose off second to the six-length winner Amalfi Sunrise. He was pleased with his filly’s third. “I thought she was a big filly,” he said. “I thought she’d do better as a three-year-old.”

He had no idea. 

Staton Flurry didn’t grow up around Arabians, rather cars. His family has operated 10 to 11 parking lots around Oaklawn Park for more than 30 years. He estimates he was 12 or 13 when he began parking cars. “From the time I had sense enough to not run in front of cars,” he said. “You meet a lot of cool people.”

Now 30, he graduated from Henderson State University with a degree in business administration. He used that education to claim his first horse, a five-year-old mare named Let’s Get Fiscal, with a few friends. “She won her second race for us,” he said. “She got claimed and I’ve been enjoying racing ever since.”

He races as Flurry Racing Stables. “I got tired of my first name being mispronounced,” he said.

Blue Heaven Farm – Starship Jubilee

Starship Jubilee, a seven-year-old mare, was the 2019 Canadian Horse of the Year, and she just may repeat this year after winning five of her six starts, including the Gr1 Woodbine Mile. 

“She’s taken us to new heights,” Adam Corndorf, Blue Heaven Farm’s vice president and general manager, said. “And she’s brought four generations of our family together.”

That’s quite an accomplishment for the former $6,500 yearling and $16,000 claimer, who was sold in the 2018 Keeneland November Sale after finishing fourth in the Gr1 E.P. Taylor at Woodbine. When she failed to reach her $425,000 RNA, Adam and his family scooped her up in a private deal.

This family tale begins with Corndorf’s grandfather, 99-year-old Sy Baskin; Corndorf’s mother, Bonnie Baskin; Corndorf; and now Corndorf’s very enthusiastic children, seven-year-old Henry and five-year-old Emma.

Their story and their lives sure seemed headed in other directions. Sy, who had dabbled in partnerships in the Chicago area, had retired and moved to Florida.

Bonnie, who splits her year between Minnesota and Texas, is an accomplished microbiologist who founded, served as CEO, and ultimately sold two science law companies. Then, in Johnson City, Texas, she founded the Science Mill, a science museum. “It’s a rural area, and it’s for kids who don’t normally have access to labs and museums,” she said.

Adam was working for a law firm in New York City, specializing in mergers and acquisitions. He was there for four years before he redirected his life to horses.

Bonnie picked up their story: “When my father turned 80, he calls me up and says, ‘I have an idea. What if I create a partnership with two other guys, and you and me buy a little higher-end horses?’ I had two young kids. I was divorced. I felt it could be my father’s last hurrah. I said, `Count me in.’”

Two weeks later, he called back. The other two guys dropped out. He told her, “It would be just the two of us.” She replied, “Okay, let’s do it.”

  They created Sybon Racing Stables and used Taylor Made as their farm. The game plan was to buy three fillies at a 2001 Keeneland Sale. All three won. The best was multiple graded-stakes winner Ocean Drive for Todd Pletcher. “Todd was just starting out,” Bonnie said. “It was beginner’s luck. So we all got hooked. Adam got hooked.”

Adam gave up his practice. “The legal profession in New York City was a grind,” he said. “It’s a wonderful city, and I met my wife Cynthia on the job at the same firm, but I didn’t see myself living there my whole life.”

Adam worked for Pletcher for four months, then with Taylor Made.

In 2004, Bonnie founded her own racing and breeding entity, Blue Heaven Farm, named after the 1928 Gene Austin song “My Blue Heaven.” Her father used to sing it to her as a little girl. 

They had been boarding their mares at Taylor Made, but decided to buy their own farm in central Kentucky in 2010. “I had sold my second company in 2008,” Bonnie said. “We had started growing our stable. It got to the point where we had critical mass. It made sense to have our own farm. Adam made the decision he was going to move to Kentucky.” 

Adam has never regretted that decision. “It’s been wonderful—for the quality of life, the experiences we’ve had and the friends we’ve made,” he said. “Zero regret and zero complaints.” 

Having Starship Jubilee hasn’t hurt. The Woodbine Mile was Blue Heaven’s first Gr1 stakes. “We felt confident going in,” Adam said. “She’s tough as nails. It was a great moment. It was amazing.”   

Maggi Moss and Greg Tramontin

This was an unlikely partnership because Maggi Moss’ storied career as an owner was strictly a solo act (including being named national owner of the year by the Thoroughbred Owner and Breeders Association in 2007 after becoming the first woman to finish as the leading owner in the country since 1945). “I’m a real control freak,” Moss, an attorney in Des Moines, Iowa, said. “I don’t play with others. It’s my money. It’s my horses. I take in the good news, the bad news, the disappointments and everything in between. If something goes wrong, it’s on me. I’m a one-man band, and it worked well with me.”

Until February. Still suffering from the loss of her mother last December, Moss was flooded with offers to buy her undefeated three-year-old colt No Parole, who had won his first three starts for Louisiana-breds, a maiden race by 14 ¼ lengths, an allowance race by 13 ¼ lengths and the a $100,000 Premier Night Prince Stakes by 6 ½ for Tom Amoss, Moss’ long-time trainer. “I received several generous offers—very generous—over a million dollars,” she said. “I didn’t take partners, but most of those offers were by individuals who wanted 100 percent of the horse, and more importantly, wanted to take him away from Tom. I am fiercely loyal to Tom after 17 years. He had developed the horse. I bought him, but Tom developed him. He won those races—he and his crew. Taking the horse away from him didn’t seem right.”

That opened up a possibility: finding a partner who would take less than 50 percent and be happy to keep Amoss as trainer. Tom suggested Greg Tramontin. “I didn’t know who he was, but I trusted Tom. Tom said he would be a great partner,” Moss said. “The deal was really smooth. He’s wonderful. He’s smart. He is the perfect partner. Now we’ve partnered on another horse.”

Tramontin, the 2009 founder and CEO of GoAuto Insurance in Louisiana, had just reconnected to horse racing and was delighted to take a 49 percent interest in No Parole, who improved his career record to five-for-six with a powerful 3 ¾ length victory in the Gr1 Woody Stephens Stakes at Belmont Park June 20.

“I had called Tom in January to see if we can get anyone for the Kentucky Derby—a bucket item,” Tramontin said. “He said he has a fantastic horse, not just a fantastic Louisiana-bred. I didn’t know Maggi, but now we talk on the phone almost every day. She’s the best partner you could have. She’s been a fantastic partner. Tom put us together. Now, we’ve purchased another horse at the March Sale, Let It Be. We’re now 50-50 partners. I gained one percent.”

Joking aside, Tramontin, now 66, tipped off his future business acumen at the age of six. That’s when he won a competition at his Chicago Catholic school for selling the most doughnuts in his first-grade class. “The doughnut contest?” he asked. “I’m a competitive guy by nature. I was a cute little first grader. I went up and down every block in Chicago. I sold more than any kid in the whole school. They brought a truck to deliver those doughnuts. My mom didn’t know she had to deliver them. She got mad at me.” Tramontin received a wooden statue trophy of the Virgin Mary. “That’s still on my desk,” he said.

His business education was aided mightily by his grandmother around the same time. “She gave me three stocks,” he said. “I had to come home and look them up in the paper every day. The three stocks were Sears, Marquette Cement and El Paso National Gas. That wound up paying my tuition to LSU. That got me from Chicago to Baton Rouge.”

The son of a tool company worker, Tramontin grew up near Sportsman’s Park, but he didn’t get into horse racing until his close friend Bob Asaro bought a horse for $2,500 in 1989. That horse, Genuine Meaning, was named Louisiana-bred Two-Year-Old Champion and earned nearly $300,000. “Bob’s telling me, `This is easy,’” Tramontin said.

It’s not. Tramontin bought his first horse, Windcracker, who broke down in training and had to be euthanized. “Then Tom, who’s always been my trainer, calls me from England and said there’s a Louisiana horse, Artic Tracker, in a sale there,” Tramontin said. “He said he was Group placed in the 2,000 Guineas but caught the equine virus. He said, `This is a really nice horse. We’ll have to pay $40,000.’”

Tramontin said, “I’ll do it one more time, Tom.’”

They got the horse...for $80,000. Amoss told him not to worry because he found a partner for the horse in Texas. That partner reneged, so Amoss took a $10,000 share as did Bob Asaro. Artic Tracker was worth it, earning $241,795 from eight victories, nine seconds and 11 thirds from 47 starts.

In August 1994, Tramontin almost bought the horse of a lifetime, two-time Horse of the Year Cigar. “Artic Tracker had just won a stakes at Louisiana Downs,” he said. “I told Tom, `Let’s find another horse and try to get into the next level.’ He called and said, `I found one: a three-year-old in California.’ Tom said he’d been racing on turf, and that the horse is racing on the wrong surface. We made a bid for $175,000 on a Friday, and they said they’d consider it.”

Over the weekend, owner Allen Paulson decided not to sell his would-be star. “In October, he wins the first of 16 straight on dirt,” Tramontin said. “I watched him on TV and threw my sock at the TV.” By the end of Cigar’s run, Tramontin was out of socks.

Despite missing out on Cigar, Tramontin was enjoying racing, but he decided to get out when he entered the insurance business in 1995 after a successful five-year run with the Yellow Pages, beginning as a sales rep. “I didn’t want to get criticized for being in the horse business,” he said. “Insurance is a regulated industry. I took a hiatus from racing.”

He didn’t return for 23 years.

While Tramontin was out of the game, Moss, a three-time champion hunter/jumper, was flourishing. Horses have always been in her life. “It started when I was eight years old,” she said. “My dad was very adamant about learning about horses before he bought me show horses,” she said. “He had come from Chicago, and he loved horses.”

Moss joined the pony club, then got involved in hunters and jumpers. She won a national show jumping championship at Madison Square Garden.

“I came up with some of the greatest horsemen you’ll ever meet,” she said. “I rode competitively until I went to school at the University of Kentucky.”

She brought her horses to Lexington to keep competing, but found a whole new way of life in college and asked her father to pick up the horses and take them back home. “I had never had a social life,” she said. “I never had any life other than horses. I’d never left my mom and dad. I joined a sorority. You drink, you party, you meet boys. I had the time of my life. I had too good of a time—a way too good of a time. I did all the crazy things. I was in college. I got placed on probation the first semester.”

Eventually, Moss calmed down her college lifestyle, deciding to go to law school. “I got involved in law,” Moss said. “I got really serious. I worked in the Appalachian mountains with poor people. I switched from animals to people.”

She served as a public defender, then as a prosecutor and finally in a private practice. “I had some high-profile cases,” she said. Most were with personal injury, discrimination and victims’ rights.

Lee and Susan Searing - CRK Stable

Maybe it’s the genes. Maybe that’s why 72-year-old Lee Searing gets up every morning looking forward to going to work at his company, Searing Industries Steel Tubing in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., and why his first Santa Anita Derby victory with Honor A.P. was the culmination of a life-long passion for horses he shares with wife Susan, his high school sweetheart. “My dad, until the day he died, worked; and until the day he died, he bet on horses,” Searing said rather proudly. “My mom was an avid horseplayer, too. It’s always been in my blood to own horses and try to achieve some things I’ve always dreamed of doing.”

Racing was also in his father’s genes. “My grandfather, an Irishman who loved horse racing, introduced it to my dad,” Searing said. In turn, his father introduced racing to Searing. “I attended the races at Santa Anita as an eight-year-old,” he said. “I remember the day.”

There were dozens of more racing days at Hollywood Park and at Caliente in Tijuana, Mexico. “I traveled down there to Mexico every weekend,” Searing said.

The family’s love of horse racing escalated when Searing’s father purchased their first horse. “My dad had Thoroughbreds, Standardbreds and Quarter Horses,” Searing said. “I gave it up for 10 years to start my company. My dad ran the first tubing machine and started two other companies. In 1985, we started Searing Industries—my dad, my brother Jim and me. We manufacture welded steel tubing.”

A visit to the company’s website speaks volumes about the company’s vision: “Others see steel; we see possibilities”; and the way the Searings treat 200 employees: “Related or not, we consider all our team members to be part of the Searing family.”

Searing said, “That message about our employees, my dad taught me. Respect the working man. We share profits, and there’s very little turnover.”

He has no thoughts about retiring. “When I lose it, I will retire,” he said. “I wake up every morning and go to work. I want to accomplish more. That’s maybe one reason, right now, I relate so much to a barn, a trainer, a hotwalker, a groom. They wake up, and they want to take care of their horses.”

He considers himself lucky to have trainers John Shirreffs and John Sadler tending to his horses. “I’ve had great trainers,” he said.

He’s also had a great partner, Susan, who retired after working 37 years as a special education teacher.

“We started dating at the age of 18,” Searing said. “Racing was a weekly affair. We’d go to Caliente on weekends. It was a great place to go. She’s always followed racing and loves it.”

Her personal highlight may have come in the 2004 Gp1 Golden Shaheen, when Our New Recruit won the $2 million race. “She was the first woman to stand on the winner’s stand in Dubai,” Searing said. “They didn’t want to let her. She’s very persuasive.”

Our New Recruit, who won six of 19 starts, is one of four millionaires the Searings have campaigned under CRK Stable, named for the first initial of their three children: Christiana, Richard and Katherine. Candy Boy, who had a rough trip and finished 13th in the 2004 Kentucky Derby, Switch and Kobe’s Back have also earned seven figures. “Switch was a valuable asset,” Searing said. “She won Gr1’s.

Honor A.P., a son of Honor Code out of the outstanding mare Hollywood Story by Wild Rush, nearly cost seven figures. The Searings purchased him at Saratoga for $850,000, making him the highest priced yearling in Honor Code’s first crop. Honor Code was one of 36 foals from the last crop of A.P. Indy.   

 “We knew we’d have to pay for him,” Searing said. “We hung in there. We got him. I named him Honor A.P. in homage to his grandsire, the breed-shaping A.P. Indy. I loved A.P. Indy. It’s always been my goal to race a horse of this caliber and to stand him at Lane’s End (which stands Honor Code). I hope this horse has a chance at a second career.”

Lane End’s Will Farish is thrilled to stand Honor A.P. “He’s a horse that we have had an eye on since he was sold as a yearling,” Farish said. “April Mayberry was quietly touting him while being broken, and John Shirreffs has been high on him since he arrived at Santa Anita.”

Honor A.P. has only four lifetime starts, working around a minor foot injury. He was second to unbeaten Authentic in the Gr3 San Felipe on March 7, then defeated Authentic going away by 2 ¾ lengths in the rescheduled Gr1 Santa Anita Derby on June 20.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, Searing had to watch Honor A.P. on TV. “We had a small Santa Anita Derby party at our house,” Searing said. “Family, a few friends. It was very exciting to see that horse make that move on the turn and draw away. You know what? It finally happened. I just really, really love being able to buy a horse like this. When we bought this horse, we knew we had a chance.”

Now Searing has a chance to win the Kentucky Derby on September 5. The game plan is to prep Honor A.P. in the Shared Belief Stakes at Del Mar on August 1. “We would prefer to stay home,” Searing said. “He’s got enough points.”

Searing is thrilled to be on the ride to Louisville. “After being in racing all this time, it’s exciting for me and my family,” he said. “We have been around the world for racing. I buy a horse, hoping for a chance he’ll bring us to these amazing races. I will participate to the limit I can.”

He will do that every day. His father and grandfather wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

Jack Knowlton

Can it be 17 years since Sackatoga Stable partners rolled into Churchill Downs on a rented yellow school bus and left with all the roses when Funny Cide became the first New York-bred to win the Kentucky Derby? Funny Cide added the 2003 Preakness Stakes for the stable, which returns to this year’s Triple Crown chase with another New York-bred: Gr1 Florida Derby winner Tiz the Law, whose four-for-five record stamps him as one of the top contenders for this year’s revamped Triple Crown; he’s now beginning with the mile-and-an-eighth Belmont Stakes on June 20.

Tiz the Law’s co-owner Jack Knowlton, the managing partner of Sackatoga Stable, can’t wait to see Tiz the Law back in action off his impressive victory in the Florida Derby March 28. “The good news is this horse has proven twice he could win off layoffs,” Knowlton said.

It was Knowlton, who runs a health consulting firm in Saratoga Springs and created Sackatoga Stable by a seemingly innocuous question to his long-time buddies at a 1995 Memorial Day barbecue in Sackets Harbor on the shore of Lake Ontario: “Do you want to take a shot?”

They did, and now they’re taking another with a whole different group of investors who comprise Sackatoga Stable—a name derived from his hometown, Sackets Harbor and Saratoga, where Knowlton works and lives. “Our merry band of 10 people, including five guys I went to school with, was a very closely held group,” Knowlton said. “After Funny Cide retired in 2007, it made sense to try to expand the horizons. We formed a management entity, Sackatoga Stable, Ltd. Then we formed 2 LLCs after that.”

Only Knowlton and Lou Titterton remain in Sackatoga, which now numbers 50 people. There are 35 partners on Tiz the Law. “What’s great is we have numerous people who have been with me for 10 to 15 years,” Knowlton said. “We’ve vastly expanded geographically.”

He has partners from California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York of course, South Carolina and Texas. “It’s much more challenging logistically to put on events for 60 to 80 people,” Knowlton said. “For the Holy Bull, we had four suites at Gulfstream Park. We had a crew. We’ve got a lot of people who love the game.”  

It’s hard to imagine anyone loving horse racing as much as Knowlton, who had previously raced Standardbreds at Saratoga Harness across the street from Saratoga Race Course with Frank Coppola—a top driver and trainer at Saratoga Harness. They called their stable The Breakfast Club because they’d go out for breakfast together on Saturday mornings after their horses finished training. They did well, especially with Sunset Blue, who won more than $270,000 from 33 victories, 33 seconds and 32 thirds from 209 starts over seven years; and Paulas Big Guy, who posted 49 wins, 52 seconds and 35 thirds in 259 starts. The Breakfast Club owned both horses for part of their careers.

A labor dispute and a horsemen’s strike at Saratoga Harness in 1994 pushed Knowlton out of harness racing. The following May, he popped that innocuous question to his buddies at a barbecue and the rest is history—wonderful history for Knowlton and his partners.

Sackatoga Stable’s first horse was Sackets Six, a New York-bred who cost $22,000 and earned $111,730 under the guidance of trainer Tim Kelly. Four years later, they hired Tagg. Their first horse with Tagg, Bail Money, was purchased for $40,000 and earned $108,665 before he was claimed for $62,500. 

When Funny Cide lost his Triple Crown bid by finishing third to Empire Maker in the sloppy Belmont Stakes, Knowlton simply shrugged his shoulders and kind of smiled—a classy gesture by a classy man seen on national TV and in many pictures.

Knowlton has used Funny Cide’s success to help the sport he loves by doing anything he can. He served as a member of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association’s Jockey Insurance Working Group; with the Ad Hoc Committee on the Future of Racing in New York State; with the New York State’s Task Force on Retired Race Horses; and as a member of the New York State Gaming Commission’s Aftercare Summits in Saratoga Springs.

After Tiz the Law’s victory in the Florida Derby, Knowlton was doing a TV interview with Kenny Rice. “The second half of the talk was about Funny Cide,” Knowlton said. “The school bus—it never gets old. We became everybody’s darling. It was a feel-good story when the county needed a feel-good story.”

Sounds like today, doesn’t it?  

Chris Mara

New York Giants Senior Vice President Chris Mara’s passion for Thoroughbred racing goes back a long way. After purchasing a football franchise—which ultimately became the New York Giants—for all of $500 in 1925, his grandfather, Tim Mara, was a legal bookmaker at Belmont Park in the 1930’s. Tim passed both his Giants’ legacy and his love of Thoroughbreds onto his son Wellington, who in turn passed it onto Chris and his brothers.

“He influenced my dad, and my dad influenced me,” Chris said in a phone interview. “The first Saturday in May, you couldn’t find my dad. He and my mom were at the Derby.”

His father took him to Belmont Park for the first time when he was 10. 

Chris’ first trip to the Kentucky Derby was in 1982 when he, his parents and their dear friends the Rooneys watched Gato del Sol take the first leg of the Triple Crown. Chris would marry Kathleen Rooney, NFL pioneer Art Rooney’s granddaughter. 

Chris spent one summer, while in college at Boston College after transferring from Springfield, parking cars at one of the Rooneys’ racetracks, Yonkers Raceway. “I loved it,” Chris said. “It was a very interesting job to say the least. The guys were teaching me how to park cars. I parked one, and when I returned the car, the guy gave me a $20 tip. That was like 1977 or 1978. It was a lot of money. I told the guys, `They gave me $20.’ They said, “You [bleep, bleep].’”

He came a long way from parking cars at that harness track. Some 35 years ago, he owned his first Thoroughbred, Itchy Hooves, with his mom. Fast forward a lot of years. After meeting Starlight Racing’s managing partner Jack Wolf in a Saratoga golf tournament hosted by basketball coach, Thoroughbred owner and long-time friend of the Mara family Rick Pitino in August 2012, Chris decided to make a serious commitment to Thoroughbred ownership by joining Starlight Racing.

“I had been looking into it,” Chris said. “I sought out a couple different people and asked them what they thought I should do. They suggested various syndicates. I looked at all of them. Then I sat down with Donna Brothers (who works for Starlight Racing) at the Saratoga Sale. Then I met Jack Wolf on the golf course at Saratoga National.”

That did it. Maybe Chris was feeling giddy—the after effect of a memorable year, which featured the New York Giants beating the previously unbeaten New England Patriots in the Super Bowl; and his daughter, Rooney Mara, for being nominated for an Academy Award for her title role in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”

In a May 3rd Newsday story, Chris told Ed McNamara, “I sat down with Jack, and he asked me what I was going to bring to the table; and I answered, `Luck! We just won a Super Bowl, and my daughter is up for an Academy Award!’”

That very afternoon, Chris and Starlight Racing’s two starters in the 2014 Kentucky Derby—General Rod and Intense Holiday—finished 11th and 12th, respectively, to California Chrome.

In 2018, two months before the Kentucky Derby, Chris, through Starlight Racing, became a partner on both Justify and Audible, who finished first and third in the Run for the Roses. Then Justify became racing’s 13th Triple Crown champion and retired as the only undefeated Triple Crown champion.

This summer, Chris and Starlight are back again as partners on undefeated Charlatan, who injured his ankle in early June and will be pointed to the Preakness Stakes, now the final leg of the Triple Crown this year. Charlatan’s ownership includes a bunch of other partners and partnership groups. “It’s a lot of people,” Wolf said May 14. “They’re really fine partners to have.”

Charlatan was scheduled to test his three-for-three record in the rescheduled Belmont Stakes on June 20 as the first leg of an entirely rescheduled Triple Crown, to be cut back from a mile-and-a-half to a mile-and-an-eighth in this chaotic year defined by the coronavirus pandemic plaguing the entire globe.

“Ever since I got involved with Starlight, the ultimate goal was to get a horse to the Derby,” Chris said. “With Charlatan, it’s just fun to have a horse like this.”

Hearing that would make his grandfather smile.

“I just love this sport,” Chris said. “I loved reading about my grandfather.”

It’s hard for Chris to not think of his grandfather. “I walked into Belmont Park one day and there was a picture of my grandfather taking bets on the second floor,” Chris said.

In the picture, Tim Mara is wearing a large, silver button stating he was a legal bookmaker. The button has been passed on to Chris. “I kept it in my pocket before the 2018 Kentucky Derby,” Chris said. “I didn’t wear it, but it worked. I will bring it with me for Charlatan.”

Asked what he thought as Justify crossed the finish line to win the 2018 Kentucky Derby, Chris said, “I hope I didn’t lose all the winning tickets. I had a lot of them. My grandfather would have been proud, but he wouldn’t have been happy because he was the bookie.”