Kentucky Oaks 2025 owners - Kristian Villante, Kyle Zorn, Travis Durr of Legion Racing with Drexel Hill

The three musketeers of Legion Racing, Kristian Villante, Kyle Zorn and Travis Durr, are on quite a tear. Last year, their Honor Marie finished second in the Louisiana Derby, then competed in the Kentucky Derby, the Belmont Stakes and the Travers Stakes, finishing eighth, fourth and eighth. This year, their filly Drexel Hill has them primed for the Kentucky Oaks off a victory in the $200,000 Busher Invitational at Aqueduct, March 1st. 

Considering they started Legion Bloodstock, their full-service bloodstock agency, only four years ago, it’s rather amazing.

“I think, truthfully, why we’ve been very successful is that we all see eye to eye,” Villante said. “There are no egos. Just one team. The people we have assembled all kind of share the same vision. We all see eye-to-eye. We’re all doing this because we love it. It’s just a belief in ourselves. Everyone’s able to feed off each other and build off each other. Myself, Travis and Kyle had been very good friends before we started Legion, so it’s like three brothers.”

Or three musketeers.

“It’s very easy,” Villante continued. “It’s fun to do every day. We’re always on the same page. We can kind of make our own little footprint and prove ourselves.”

 They chose another friend, a young trainer who just went out on his own, to lead them, and Whit Beckham has delivered, training both Honor Marie and Drexel Hill. Beckman worked for Todd Pletcher, Eoin Harty and Chad Brown before going on his own in 2022. “I think we had all this confidence knowing Whit,” 

Villante said. “He’s done a great job building in the last two years; the passion he has for it; the horsemanship second to none. He just has a way with all these horses. She (Drexel Hill) is a prime example of that.”

Beckman is enjoying working with his friends at Legion: “I’ve known Kristian and Kyle for the last 15 years. Me and Kyle actually grew up together in Louisville and went to the same high school. I worked with Kristian for Todd Pletcher, so we became pretty good friends back in the day. Travis, he’s been selling horses for so long and has a training center in South Carolina. So he really has a good feel for buying a young horse. Kyle is as sharp as the other two. Kristian always said, `If you go on your own, we’ll make sure you get a barn full of good horses.’ So they made good on their promise. We’ve had a lot of luck together. They’re all super sharp horseman.”

Durr has certainly made a huge difference in Beckman’s stable, sending him Simply Joking, a three-year-old filly who won two stakes and finished second in the Gr. 2 Fantasy Stakes, and three-year-old colt Flying Mohawk, who was second in the Gr. 3 Jeff Ruby. Neither are owned by Legion.

Durr’s interest in horses traces back to his grandfather and father, who both raced Quarter Horses: “We always had horses. We used to go to Texas, Delta Downs. I started riding at the bush tracks.”

At the age of 12, he rode races on bush tracks in Georgia and South and North Carolina. As his family transitioned to Thoroughbreds, Durr began breaking young horses for his father and grandfather. 

When his father died in 1995, Durr took over the family business. He began breaking horses in St. George, South Carolina, for local clients in 2007. He then joined the Webb Carroll Training Center in Matthews, South Carolina. In October, 2016, Durr and his wife Ashley then purchased the training center from Carroll.

“Time has flown by,” Durr said. “Me and Kristian have been buddies for a while, working with me with Webb. I started buying horses for the training center for myself. We’d look at horses together. We liked the same type of horses. We started the racing groups based on me and Kristian buying yearlings at Keeneland for $20,000 and it was tough.”

Now they spend more, but not a lot more. Honor Marie cost $40,000; Drexel Hill $50,000. “Me and Kristian talk four times a day,” Durr said. “We’re pretty good buddies. We all work together. It still doesn’t feel like a job a lot of days. We still get to enjoy what we do.”

Zorn also traces his love of racing back to his grandparents: “From the time I was ready to walk, two or three years old. I just loved it. Everybody had their favorite jockey: Patty Cooksey and Pat Day and Jerry Bailey. I still have signed goggles. The track was always a fun place to go.”

Zorn worked at a training center, then for trainer Pat Byrne, eventually becoming his assistant trainer. Then Zorn helped Maribeth Sandford, the owner of Take Charge Indy, when her husband passed away from cancer: “Maribeth was left with all the pieces. She needed help and I took a job helping her. That’s how I met Travis Durr. We became friends right away. And through Travis, I met Kristian. I was good friends with Whit. We’ve been very blessed.”

Villante grew up in Philadelphia: “I just kind of always loved horses in general, not necessarily horse racing. My dad [Joe] had a friend, Scott Lake.  I was 12 or 13. I went to Parx. They’re amazing animals to be around. Scott took me under his wing. Did I have any idea of what I was going to do this? No.”

He did after working for Todd Pletcher and meeting Beckman: “We had very similar personalities. We became friends and it kind of grew.”

Still. One for all and all for one.

Kentucky Oaks 2025 owners - Mike Gatsas (Gatsas Stables) - Five G

Family has always been paramount to Mike Gatsas, in his family business and his family’s passion in horse racing. “Family is super important to him,” his son, Matthew, said.

Now, their family’s home-New York-bred Five G, named to honor Gatsas’ five grandchildren, will be their first starter in the Gr. 1 Kentucky Oaks. The fact that Five G is a daughter of their star runner Vekoma makes it even sweeter.

Matthew is the Vice-President of Trivantus, a payroll service/employee benefits/human resource administration company his father founded in New Hampshire in 2003. He’s partnered with his brother-in-law Danny Casey.

Matthew named Vekoma, a son of Candy Ride out of Mona de Momma by Speightstown, a horse Gatsas partnered with Randy Hill: “We were trying a bunch of names. So many got rejected. Our family was going to Disney World for the first time. There’s a big roller coaster there named Vekoma, made by Expedition Everest. I just thought it was a cool name. His dad was Candy Ride. Everybody loved it.”

The fact that Vekoma turned into a multiple Gr. 1 stakes winner and now a superstar stallion didn’t hurt.   

Vekoma finished 12th in the 2019 Kentucky Derby, one of his rare losses. He won six of his seven other starts, including the Gr. 1 Carter Handicap and the Gr. 1 Metropolitan, and earned $1,245,525.

Then Vekoma became the leading 2024 first-crop sire, standing this year for $35,000 at Spendthrift Farm.

Mike Gatsas bred his Quality Road mare Triumphant to Vekoma and was rewarded with Five G, who followed a dismal debut – seventh by 22 lengths – with a victory and second on grass, a nine-length victory in the $150,000 Cash Run Stakes, a fine second to Quietside in the Gr. 3 Honeybee Handicap and a 2 ¼ length score in the Gr. 2 Gulfstream Park Oaks. “It’s great we get to share it as a family,” Matthew said.

That’s the way Gatsas intended it to be. Asked about his highlight participating in the 2019 Kentucky Derby, he replied, “Being there with my whole family, my wife, my kids, my grandchildren. That’s how we got started, having something the family could do.”

Well before he bought his first horse in 1998, Gatsas let his intention to buy a Thoroughbred known. “It was 100 years ago when I was a little kid,” Matthew said. “We had been at Lake George with another family. We were sitting at the dinner table. The story goes that somebody offered them a tip on a horse that was running. I was very young. We had to go to Saratoga. Dad said to one of his friends: `I want a horse that runs at Saratoga.’”

When he was a teenager, Matthew remembers trips to Rockingham Park, not far from their New Hampshire home: “We’d go every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It seemed like we went all the time.”

In 1998, his father purchased two horses: a sleek, gray New York-bred gelding named Gander and Shadow Caster. Gander went on to be 2000 New York-bred Horse of the Year. He won 15 of his 60 starts, including six stakes, the biggest being the 2001 Gr. 2 Meadowlands Cup. He finished second in the 2000 Gr. 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup and his earnings of more than $1.8 million are still 13th all-time among New York-breds. Shadow Caster was no slouch, making nearly a half a million thanks to eight victories in 47 starts. Gatsas’ brother Ted, a former state senator and mayor of Manchester, was his partner. 

Asked about Gander, Gatsas said, “Being new to the game, my trainer, Charlie Assimakopuolos thought it was a great opportunity to get a New York-bred. I was sold on the program ever since. It’s a phenomenal program.”

Gander paved the way for future success. “Gander is the one who got us started,” Matthew said. “Probably, he’s the reason we’re still in the game. I don’t think a lot of people have that luck early on.”

Racing as Sovereign Stable, the Gatsas family had more luck with Negligee, a two-year-old filly who gave them their first Gr. 1 victory when she took the 2009 Alcibiades.

Fortuitous seating at Saratoga led Gatsas to partner up with Randy Hill, who races as R. A. Hill Stables, on Vekoma. Hill’s box was right behind Gatsas’: “We met, and I said, `what do you think if we split some horses?’ He said, `sure.’ We really got to like each other. We’re really having fun with these horses.”

Gatsas guesses he now owns 40 Thoroughbreds, many in partnership with Randy Hill and others. Gatsas uses trainers George Weaver, John Terranova, Danny Gargan and Ricky Dutrow.

“We don’t have a big stable, but we’ve been very blessed,” Gatsas said. “George has done a great job with this filly. I’m pleased to be associated with George and his wife Cindy. We’re very blessed to have George as a trainer.”

Matthew said, “We’ve been in the business a long time. I’m very much involved in it. I love the sport. There’s no doubt I got that from my dad. My wife Celia, she’s from the Saratoga area and she enjoys the races. Now my kids, Calla and Matthew, are picking it up from me.

“We all made it to Keeneland when Vekoma won the Blue Grass. Then we went on to Louisville. It was pretty awesome. The kids were too young to enjoy it, but they did come. I think all five of them (grandchildren) are super excited for this (the Kentucky Oaks). It’s going to be pretty cool.”

Graded Stakes Winning Owners - Judy Hicks with Thorpedo Anna

Judy Hicks, who is forever linked to her incredible home-bred three-year-old filly Thorpedo Anna, overpaid for another filly 35 years ago: $10. That filly, Phoenix Sunshine, posted nine wins, nine seconds and three thirds in 47 starts, earning more than a quarter of a million. She was even better off the track, foaling six winners including half-a-million dollar-earner Boss Ego. Hicks calls Phoenix Sunshine “the anchor of my broodmare band.”

Learning from her Phoenix Sunshine purchase, Hicks only paid $6 for the foal of a mare whom the original owner kept eight years later. The foal was Miss Pink Diva, who was one-for-14 and made $111,780. She was second by a head in the 2016 Grade 3 Locust Grove Stakes, but in her next start, the Grade 1 Spinster Stakes, she broke down and had to be euthanized.

Both purchases came from an unpaying owner for boarding his horses at Hicks’ farm. “I’m stubborn,” Hicks said. “I’m a California girl. I didn’t know male chauvinism existed until I moved to Kentucky and that women weren’t allowed to speak. When I had somebody not pay their bill, I said, `This isn’t going to happen, so what do I have to do?’”

Hicks began researching state law and found out that if you give a client a month to pay and if you don’t hear from them, you have a legal right to have a sheriff’s sale, which is then advertised. “Nobody goes to them,” Hicks said. “There were two horses. The colt, I just let him go. But the filly I really liked.”

She liked her even more as the years went by.

Now Hicks owns Thorpedo Anna, five-for-six with one second and earnings of more than $1.7 million in her career. If there was an eclipse vote in mid-2024, she’d be a walk-over three-year-old filly champion and a contender for the Horse of the Year.

But Thorpedo Anna would never have been born if Hicks didn’t save her dam, Sataves, when common sense and logic suggested to give up on her.

Hicks has never believed in giving up.

Born in Chicago, Hicks’ family moved to California when she was six. “We had a little farm,” Hicks said. “We started having horses and go-karts.”

She chose horse racing over a career in NASCAR.

She spent five years finishing a double major of biological and animal sciences at California Poly. She wanted to go to vet school at UC-Davis, but didn’t get in. 

Through her grandfather’s connections – he knew the president of Texas A & M - she got into vet school there. She didn’t stick. “I was in vet school for six months, cleaning lab cages,” she said. “They had this Great Dane puppy in one of the experimental cages.” When she didn’t see him in his cage one morning, she asked, “Where’s Duke?’” She was told Duke’s remains were in several jars. “They had killed him,” she said.

That killed her desire to be a veterinarian.

Through another of her grandfather’s connections Hicks journeyed to Kentucky and was an intern at Forest Retreat Farm. While she was there, she met Dr. Donald Applegate and Cecil Horne. They were looking for a farm manager at their Mint Springs Farm. That’s where she met her husband, R.W.

In 1983, they purchased 600-acre Brookstown Farm in Versailles. It needed a lot of work, which has never stopped Hicks from doing anything she wanted. They began boarding Thoroughbreds, then began breeding and racing them. 

Sataves, a daughter of Uncle Mo out of the unraced Stormy Atlantic mare Pacific Sky, was born extremely premature.

“She was born six weeks premature,” Hicks said. “She was 40 inches tall. I didn’t weigh her, but she was maybe 60 pounds. A few weeks later, her owner came and saw her. Her hocks were crushed. The owner gave her to me. I said, `Let me see if I can keep her alive.’ I named her for Sataves, a Buddhist god.”

Hicks waited three years until conceding to the reality that Sataves was never going to race. “Because of her hocks,” Hicks said. “I bred her to Tourist.”

That foal, Charlee O, won two of 18 starts and earned more than $100,000 for Hicks and R.W.

They bred her back to Fast Anna, a Grade 1-placed sprinting son of Medaglia d’ Oro. Fast Anna’s crop that year was his last. He died of laminitis at the age of 10.

Thorpedo Anna was born on January 27th, 2021. “She was tough,” Hicks said. “She had a mind of her own. She was not an easy foal to raise.”

Trainer Kenny McPeek bought her for $40,000 at the 2022 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Yearling Sale.       

“I didn’t know Kenny,” Hicks said. “I went over and introduced myself. I asked him for 45 percent. All he did was laugh.”

Regardless, she maintained an undisclosed percentage of Thorpedo Anna, joining partners Brookdale Racing, Mark Edwards and Magdalena Racing’s Sheri McPeek, Kenny’s wife.

“I wasn’t familiar with Judy,” McPeek said. “She approached me after I signed the ticket. It worked out.”

Thorpedo Anna’s first race was at Keeneland. “Kenny couldn’t be there,” Hicks said. “He said, `you better go because she’s going to win by a lot.’”

She did, by 8 ½ lengths. She then won an allowance race by nine lengths and finished second by 5 ¼ lengths in the Grade 2 Golden Rod in her final start at two at Churchill Downs.

This year, no filly has been close to her. She won the Grade 2 Fantasy Stakes at Oaklawn Park by four lengths. She captured the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks by 4 ¾ lengths, the first half of McPeek’s incredible weekend. The next day, McPeek’s Mystik Dan won the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby by a nose.

Asked about the Oaks, Hicks said, “I don’t think I expected her to win, but when she started drawing away, I went crazy. I was hugging Kenny. It was amazing. People said, `You don’t realize what you’ve done. The ultimate dream if you own a mare is winning the Oaks.’”

How about winning the Grade 1 Acorn Stakes at Saratoga, too? Despite losing a shoe during the race, she triumphed by 5 ½ lengths. Her next planned start is the Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks at Saratoga July 20th. 

“We have yet to ask her to run,” Hicks said. “I think she’s going to go down as one of the greatest fillies in history.”