Richard Santulli

Richard Santulli, a native of Brooklyn, New York, earned his bachelor and master’s degrees in applied mathematics and a master’s degree in operations research at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. Santulli worked as an investment banker, then as a vice president with Goldman Sachs & Co. from 1969-1980. Four years later, he purchased Executive Jet in 1984. He created NetJets Inc., which offered a new concept of fractional jet ownership and revolutionized the private and corporate business jet market. He sold the company to Berkshire Hathaway for $750 million in 1998, but stayed on as CEO through August, 2009.

Santulli got involved in racing in the early ’80s. With George Prussin, David Orlinsky, and the late Jules Fink as partners, Santulli formed Jayeff B Stable, whose top horses include 1989 champion sprint Safely Kept, who won the 1990 Breeders’ Cup Sprint, and 1998 champion filly Banshee Breeze (owned in partnership with her breeder James B. Tafel). Santulli serves as the managing general partner of Jayeff B.

A member of the Jockey Club since 2002, he has served on the Board of Directors of the Breeders’ Cup and the New York Racing Association.

Caroline Forgason

Standing in the winner’s circle at Saratoga July 19, trying to get her mind around what she had just witnessed, Somali Lemonade’s owner Caroline Forgason said, “I never dreamed of this.” Forgason had just won her first Grade I stakes, the Diana Handicap, at a track she’s been coming to since she was 18 years old with her only horse—one whom was almost retired at the end of last year. “We thought she lost the `want to,’” Forgason said. “And when you lose the `want to,’ that’s kind of it.”

It’s a fairy tale come true for Forgason, whose family has deep roots in racing going back to her grandfather’s grandfather, Richard King, the founder of legendary King Ranch in Texas. Known for raising cattle and Quarter Horses, the ranch began breeding Thoroughbreds in 1934 and in 1946 won the Triple Crown with its home-bred Assault. Four years later, their home-bred Middleground won the 1950 Kentucky Derby, finished second to Hill Prince in the Preakness, and then won the Belmont Stakes. Forgason’s grandfather, Robert Justus Kleberg, took over management of the ranch in 1885. Under Kleberg, the ranch grew from 600,000 acres to 1.3 million. “My grandfather was really the one who got us into it,” Forgason said. “It’s a family affair.”

In 1974 Forgason’s sister, Helen Alexander, began managing the ranch’s Thoroughbred operation. In 1989, King Ranch sold its bloodstock to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum and its Kentucky property to Robert Clay’s Three Chimneys Farm.

Forgason has been in and out of racing for more than a quarter century. “I had kind of gotten out of things, then Michael (brother-in-law Matz) trained Barbaro and it was so exciting—so amazing when he won the Derby,” she said.

“I had a ton of horses and most of them got sick or hurt,” Forgason said. “That makes the Diana very special.”