Ned Toffey (Spendthrift Farm General Manager) – Tommy Jo and Ted Noffey

Ned Toffey (pink tie) after the 2025 Spendthrift Hopeful Stakes

Ned Toffey’s interest in horses was kindled when his family moved from Columbus, Ohio, to Great Barrington, Massachusetts, when he was five years old: “My dad was teaching at a very small college. We had a big old dairy barn. There were two stalls in there. We had a little Morgan and the other a part-Thoroughbred gray. We had them for years. I grew up with my sister and brothers. We did a lot of trail riding along the Green River. I really didn’t know what drew me into it, but I had a fascination with horses. I would read anything I could get my hands on. I always had a fascination with it. I think that probably Secretariat coming along when he did set the hook.”    

The Great Barrington Fair was part of the Massachusetts fair circuit. “We’d go to the races at the fair for years,” Toffey said. “We were more interested in the fair than the racing, but I do remember we would hang out near the $50 ticket window and listen to what was going on. We’d send up my older brother to bet.”

In August, 1974, Toffey’s father took him to Saratoga: “The cool thing was we wandered over to the Hall of Fame. We got to see Secretariat inducted. They set up an old LP record of Secretariat’s race calls in his career. I saw Ron Turcotte and Penny and Laurin. I remember a Ron Turcotte quote, that he had never been on a horse that moved so easily and went so fast and kept going.”

Toffey could have never dreamed that one day that a horse would be kind of named for him, would win the same Saratoga stakes Secretariat did.

Toffey attended the University of Massachusetts and surprised everyone when he was a walk-on tight end on the football team: “I’d never brag about it. I considered myself a better baseball player. They said, `No thank you.’ In the spring of my sophomore year. I walked on the football team. I was a skinny, late-developing kid. I was a tight end. I was just good enough to win a scholarship. I was no superstar by any stretch.”

However, he did convince the University of Massachusetts to let him do an internship at a breeding farm, Manganaro Stables in Kentucky, thanks to his roommate and teammate Paul Manganaro. “I thought I was pretty clever putting together an internship at that stable. I don’t know if anyone ever got more out of an internship. I don’t think I appreciated at the time the caliber of people I was exposed to.” 

In the summer of 1986, Toffey and Manganaro spent the summer in Kentucky visiting as many breeding farms as they could, including Claiborne Farm, where Toffey got to see Secretariat.

After graduating with a degree in Sports Management, Toffey began his horse career as a groom at Kinderhill in Old Chatham, New York: “The more I did hands-on work with horses, the more I loved it.”

He spent a year at Kinderhill, then worked at Prantlack Farm in Stanfordville in New York. After moving to Lexington with his wife. Katie, Toffey worked at Brookdale Farm doing just about everything, then served as Broodmare Manager at Dixiana Farm and at Three Chimneys. Toffey spent seven years at Three Chimneys before joining B. Wayne Hughes at Spendthrift Farm in 2004.

Twenty years later, Toffey was honored as the Kentucky Thoroughbred Farm Managers’ Club Farm Manager of the Year. “If you’re around long enough, they just give it to you,” Toffey laughed.

On Twitter, a tease for the next issue of Blood-Horse featuring a story about Toffey winning that award, Ned Toffey had been mentioned as ‘Ted Noffey’. Toffey’s daughter Megan noticed the mistake and sent it a correction. But that’s not all she did. “She took a snapshot of it and sent it to my boss (Spendthrift Farm owner Eric Gustavson),” Toffey said. “All of this was unknown to me. He apparently said, `I know what to do with this.’”

The following summer, Toffey got a text saying that Ted Noffey just breezed a half-mile :47: “I got no warning about it. My first goal was, just let him be faster than me, and he’s definitely accomplished that.”

And then some. 

On July 26th at Saratoga, Tommy Jo, a Spendthrift Farm home-bred two-year-old filly by Into Mischief, well on his way to a seventh consecutive leading stallion year at Spendthrift Farm, drew off to a 3 ¼ length victory under John Velazquez for trainer Todd Pletcher. She was named for Gustavson’s first granddaughter.

Exactly a week later, Ted Noffey, a son of Into Mischief, won his debut for Pletcher/Velazquez by a length and a quarter.

Both Tommy Jo and Ted Noffey were pointed to the final weekend of the Saratoga season. Tommy Jo would contest the Grade 1 Spinaway on Saturday, August 30th, and, two days later on closing day, September 1st, Ted Noffey would race in the Hopeful, a race Secretariat dominated 53 years ago.

Tommy Jo won the Spinaway powerfully by 6 ½ lengths with Kendrick Carmouche subbing for Velazquez. “It was nice when Tommy Jo won,” Toffey said. “Three of my four kids were there. It was cool having them cheer. It was especially nice because that was a home-bred.”

The Spinaway began an unforgettable weekend for Pletcher: four Grade 1s in three days. “I don’t know if we ever had a weekend like that,” said Pletcher, who rallied to tie Chad Brown for the Saratoga training title on the final day of the meet. 

In the Hopeful, Ted Noffey broke first, settled nicely off the pace, took over on the far turn and drew off to an 8 ½-length score. Toffey is still trying to believe that powerful performance: “It’s very nice to work for people who would think to include my name. I wish my parents would have been there. The funny thing is that we thought Tommy Jo was pretty special and that Ted Noffey was pretty good. She did nothing to disprove that. The way Ted Noffey dragged Johnny past those other horses and then explode, and then Johnny said it was hard to pull him up.

“As a kid who was a fan of Secretariat, I think back from then and now. To have this horse win this race that way, it’s an important goal for our farm. Everyone on the farm can share in that success. Tremendous professional satisfaction. I’m very happy for the ownership. Going back to my earliest involvement, the Hopeful was very special on so many different fronts. It sure is a lot of fun.”

Trying not to mix up Ned Toffey and Ted Noffey, Pletcher said, “I have confused them. You’ve got to think about it. It’s taken on a little life on its own now.”

Toffey (owner) admitted, “I have gotten it wrong once or twice.”