Nancy Favreau, Kathy Psoinos, Michael Tabor, Derrick Smith & Susan Magnier

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Competitive Edge is the second horse owned by partners Nancy Favreau and Kathy Psoinos, who purchased him for $750,000 at a Fasig-Tipton Florida Two-Year-Olds-in-Training Sale. After Competitive Edge won his maiden debut at Saratoga by 10 ¾ lengths, Tabor, Smith and Magnier bought a percentage of the colt. 

Nancy and Kathy live together in Andover, Mass. Both are retired from careers in property management. Nancy, 51, has loved horses for a long time. “My father got me involved as a kid,” Nancy said in a phone interview October 6. “We used to go to Suffolk Downs and Rockingham Park. I won my first bet. I was hooked. I loved it. It was a great time. It was fun.”

Kathy, 56, got involved in racing through Nancy. “I’ve been going to the racetrack for years,” she said. 

They discussed the possibility of buying a Thoroughbred for years. When they both retired, they took the plunge. “We talked about it for a long time, and we decided to do it,” Nancy said. “It was the right time.”

They still can’t believe Competitive Edge’s dazzling debut at Saratoga. They were there with a lot of friends. “It was one of the most exciting things that ever happened to me,” Kathy said. Nancy added, “That was awesome. That was our first win. He is a beauty.”

Competitive Edge then won the Grade I Hopeful Stakes by 5 ¾ lengths at Saratoga. “We’re very excited,” Nancy said after the race. “Everything’s wonderful.”

But just two weeks later, they weren’t. Competitive Edge was taken out of training when X-rays revealed a hairline fracture of his left fore-leg. He’s expected to return to training in time to participate in next year’s Triple Crown. “We’re just keeping our fingers crossed,” Nancy said.

Nancy and Kathy are in racing for the long haul. “We bought two more yearlings last month,” Nancy said. “One’s a Street Cry, and one is a Harlan’s Holiday.”  

For biographies on Michael Tabor, Derrick Smith and Susan Magnier click here

Arnold Zetcher & Michael Tabor

Arnold Zetcher fell in love with Thoroughbred racing at Cahokia Downs, a track operated by the East St. Louis Jockey Club near Alorton, St. Clair County, Illinois, not far from his native St. Louis, where he attended Washington University. Seeing Buckpasser and Secretariat race at Arlington Park in Chicago fanned his passion for racing. He held on to a winning ticket on Secretariat as a souvenir, and, in an interview in Thoroughbred Times, said that racing made him a “better person.” Then he tried making racing better, serving as chairman of Thoroughbred Owners of California.

Now 73, Zetcher worked with Federated Department Stores in Cincinnati, Bonwit Teller in New York City, Kohl’s Food Stores in Illinois and Wisconsin and the John Breuner Company in San Francisco before becoming chairman, president and CEO of Talbots, an international clothing manufacturer and retailer of upscale professional women’s wear headquartered in Hingham, Mass. He was named of the top 25 managers of the year in 2000 by Business Week, and, two years later, was awarded the National Retail Federation’s Gold Medal, the industry’s highest honor. He has also served as the chairman of the National Retail Federation Foundation, which is involved in education projects in retail sales. He retired from Talbots in March, 2008.

Zetcher became a Thoroughbred owner in 2000 with Hall of Famer Ron McAnally as his trainer. Zetcher’s first graded stakes winner was Fairy Ransom, who captured the 2003 Grade II Del Mar Derby. House of Fortune won a pair of Grade II stakes the following year, the Fantasy and Hollywood Oaks.

In 2008, Zetcher decided to focus on younger horses, and he switched his stable to another Hall of Fame trainer, Bob Baffert. Zetcher won a pair of Grade I stakes in 2010 with EZ’s Gentleman in the Triple Bend Handicap and El Brujo in the Pat O’Brien Stakes.

Zetcher currently has a stable of nearly 40 horses, including 16 in training with Baffert and three with trainer Ben Cecil, and nine broodmares at Winter Quarter Farm in Lexington, Ky.