W.C. Racing

Less than a week after Goldencents won the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, W.C. Racing’s partners Glenn Sorgenstein and Josh Kaplan, who owned 75 percent of the horse, announced that they had privately purchased the remaining ownership shares of Dave Kenney and RAP Racing’s Rick Pitino, the head coach of the University of Louisville’s defending national championship basketball team. “My plan is to continue to race him as a four-year-old,” Sorgenstein said. “Why not live the dream? Nothing beats this.”

Goldencents, whose dam is Golden Works, was named to promote Sorgenstein and Kaplan’s precious metal and rare coin auction website www.goldencents.com, which is now run by Sorgenstein’s son Landon. W.C. Racing stands for Wilshire Coin, another one of their businesses. Located in Santa Monica, California, Wilshire Coin offers cash for gold and silver, and deals in coin collections, foreign exchange, and estate jewelry.

Sorgenstein, a 57-year-old native of Bayside, New York, now living in California, fell in love with racing at the age of five. “My dad’s friend was [trainer] Lefty Nicholson,” he said. “They were best friends. He put me on a horse, Tudor Sovereign, when I was five, and I went around the backstretch at Belmont. I knew I’d be involved in horseracing one way or the other.”

When his family moved to California soon afterwards, Sorgenstein simply transferred his interest in racing to Santa Anita, where he learned how to drive a car by practicing in the track’s parking lot.

Sorgenstein held a real estate license when he chose another career at the age of 23. His first wife’s brother was a coin dealer. “As a kid, I collected everything: bottle caps, posters, stickers, coins,” he said. “I loved collecting.” So he went to work in the rare coin business for his brother-in-law. “After being in it for two weeks, I knew I could do it for the rest of my life,” he said. “I worked for him until 1985, and I went out on my own. I took Josh on in 1997. He’s 39. His grandfather would take him to the track in California. His grandfather loved horseracing.”

Sorgenstein bought his first horse, Green Eyes, in 2004. She raced once, finished out of the money, and was injured. Sorgenstein’s first top horse was Blazing Sunset, who finished second by a half-length in the 2006 Iowa Derby before suffering a fatal breakdown on the track at Del Mar in his next start. “I stayed away from horses for a year because that was really horrible,” Sorgenstein said. “Then I got back in it. With the help of Dennis O’Neill [trainer Doug’s brother], we started buying two-year-olds.”

They purchased Goldencents, who had sold for $5,500 as a yearling, for $62,000 as a two-year-old. After winning last year’s Santa Anita Derby, he became their first starter in the Kentucky Derby. Sorgenstein, Kaplan, and their friend Mark, who also owns horses in the O’Neill stable, had a special pair of pants made for jockey Kevin Krigger which included three first names with a smiley face on each one for the three people who introduced them to racing: Sorgenstein’s dad Sol, Kaplan’s grandfather Max, and Mark’s dad Art. “They all passed away the year prior,” Sorgenstein said.

Unfortunately, Goldencents finished 17th in the Kentucky Derby. But he bounced back to win the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile by year’s end. “It’s been an amazing journey,” Sorgenstein said. “He’s a dream horse. This is the one we dream about.”

Their former partner Kenney is the President and CEO of Westrux International, which sells and services diesel trucks at five locations in Southern California. The company was founded in 1988. Westrun International was named Navistar’s International 2012 Dealer of the Year. Kenney has been a co-owner of Grade 1 stakes winners Richard’s Kid and Willyconker.

To read Trainer Magazine's profile on Goldecents, click here

Good Friends Stable

“Good” Friends doesn't seem to do justice to the bond of brotherhood in this stable. “Great” Friends would be more accurate for these owners: Hilton Gordon, Joe Casciato, former Chicago Blackhawks star Denis Savard, Dave Flanbaum, Larry Slavin, and former jockey Rene Douglas, who was paralyzed in a gruesome accident at Arlington Park on May 23, 2009.

It’s easy for Savard to remember the date. It’s his and his wife’s anniversary. They were in Las Vegas celebrating their anniversary when they received the call about Douglas’ accident, which left him paralyzed from the waist down.

Douglas, who has benefitted from the support of his wife Natalie, deeply appreciated the additional encouragement he received from his friends. With Douglas, they are an eclectic collection. “There’s a Frenchman; there’s a Panamanian, an Italian, a Jewish person. You’ve got them all,” Savard told Mike Spellman in a story in the Chicago Daily Herald last March.

The 46-year-old Douglas, who won more than 3,500 races in his career, is the Panamanian, born in Panama City. While watching racing in his native country on TV from his home in Florida a couple years ago, Douglas spotted two horses he thought he and his friends should buy. The first was Golden Moka. He won four of 11 starts and earned $331,102. The second one was Private Zone.

Reddam Racing LLC

J. Paul Reddam seems to have crammed several successful careers into a single lifetime: college professor of philosophy, founder of a mortgage loan company, and horse owner in both harness and Thoroughbred racing. Last year, he won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes with I’ll Have Another, which was his response every time his wife offered him her homemade cookies.
Reddam, a 60-year-old native of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, has been called by his middle name since childhood to distinguish him from his dad, who was named John Paul. He can thank a friend, who was a groom at Windsor Racing, for exposing him to racing when he was a teenager, and it continues to be his passion.

He graduated from the University of Windsor with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, got his Master’s at the University of Toronto, and his Ph. D at the University of Southern California. Reddam taught philosophy at California State University-Los Angeles and settled in Southern California with his wife Zillah and her daughter Chanel. Eventually, he turned to business. In 1995, he founded Ditech.com, a mortgage loan company which was the first to use television and billboard advertising for current rates. He sold the company to General Electric in 1999, then became the president of CashCall, a finance lending company in Fountain Valley, California.

During the ’80s, while he was still teaching, Reddam put together syndicates to buy harness horses. He claimed his first Thoroughbred, Ocean Warrior, in 1988. 

Reddam had many successful Thoroughbreds before I’ll Have Another brought him to the brink of immortality. He bought a 75 percent interest in two-year-old Wilko in England before that colt won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile in 2004. Red Rocks provided Reddam’s second Breeders’ Cup score when he captured the 2006 Turf. His other Grade 1 stakes winners include Square Eddie, Elloluv, Sharp Lisa, Cash Included, Swept Overboard, Pt’s Grey Eagle, and Crowded House.

I’ll Have Another outshone them all by winning the first two legs of the Triple Crown, only to be scratched the day before the Belmont Stakes and retired because of tendonitis in one of his legs. Ever the businessman, Reddam sold him for stud duty in Japan for $10 million.

In 2015 his 2yo colt Nyquist became the Eclipse Juvenile Champion following victory in the Gr1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile.

In 2016 his flagbearing colt followed up his victory in the Gr1 Florida Derby with a scintillating success in the Gr1 Kentucky Derby and now remains unbeaten in seven starts.