Graded Stakes Winning Owners - Atlantic Six Racing, owners of Book'em Danno

Whether you’ve been passionately involved in racing for decades, or was recently lured into the game by your brother, winning a Grade 1 stakes at Saratoga is as good as it gets. Book'em Danno gave six guys from Jersey, who race as Atlantic Six Racing, LLC, that thrill, taking the Woody Stephens Stakes on June 8th. “It was incredible; you had to pinch yourself,” Jay Briscione, the group’s managing partner, said.

Briscione, a 70-year-old real estate appraiser, began hotwalking at Monmouth Park in high school, then left college (Fairfield University) for one semester to be a groom at Hialeah. “I was in the same barn as Seattle Slew in his three-year-old season,” Briscione said proudly. “I watched him get ready for the Triple Crown. I had never been around horses at all. Being young, it was a pretty cool thing. Once it’s in your blood, it’s in your blood.”

His partner Mark Rubenstein, whose family business was doing municipal revaluations in Jersey, knows that feeling: “I dropped out of law school (Antioch Law School in Washington, D.C.) to work at the racetrack. It was the best time of my life: seven days a week at Hialeah. I was rubbing and grooming three horses. I just loved being around the Thoroughbreds.”

Both Briscione and Rubenstein worked their way up at the racetrack before resuming a more stable livelihood. “As I got older, there were no vacations,” Briscione said. “If I had gotten tied up with somebody at the high-end of racing, I might have stayed. I went back to school and got into real estate soon after college.”

But his feelings for racing never left him completely. “Always, I stayed interested,” Briscione said. “We tried to buy a horse with two friends. It didn’t work out. I owned a couple bad horses. But I always went to the races in the summer and to the big races, the Preakness, the Belmont and the Breeders’ Cup.”

Rubenstein put together small partnerships with relatives, racing as Red Flag Stable in the ‘80s: “We claimed a mare, Cuca’s Lady, for $25,000, at Monmouth in the late ‘80s. She went on to win seven stakes for us.”

Cuca’s Lady became a turf sprinter. She broke the track record at Monmouth Park for five furlongs, and in her next start she set the track record at The Meadowlands for the same distance. Later, she won eight straight races. She finished her career with 24 victories from 70 starts with 10 seconds, 11 thirds and earnings topping $350,000. “She was our big horse back then,” Rubenstein said.

By then, Briscione had put together Atlantic Eight Stable “Jim Ryerson was our trainer and a friend,” Briscione said. “The third horse we owned, Relaunch Lass, won her debut by 6 ½ lengths on a sloppy track at Monmouth.”

She won an allowance race in her next start at Philadelphia Park and retired with 11 victories, eight seconds and 16 thirds in 80 starts, making $179,673.

“Then we bred her,” Rubenstein said. “She died in foal to Mining. The foal died, too. That was our only attempt at breeding.”

Atlantic Eight lasted until the mid-‘2000s, In 2019, Briscione started Atlantic Six LLC, which included two partners from Atlantic Eight, Jim Scappi, who does equipment leasing, and real estate broker Frank Camassa. Camassa brought along his close friend Jeff Reshnikoff, an attorney. “Jim and I have been friends for 30 years,” Briscione said. “Frank was a hotwalker in Jersey before becoming a real estate agent. Jeff had owned horses before.”

Briscione called up Rubenstein. “I asked him, how about doing it again?” Briscione said. 

Rubenstein said, “Jay and I, we’ve known each other for years. He contacted me five years ago when he was reestablishing a racing partnership. He asked me if I was interested. I was out of the business. I said, `Sure.’”

Then Rubenstein called his younger brother, Jim, a semi-retired radiation oncologist in Fort Myers, Florida, who had never been in the business. “He didn’t know a hock from a toothpick,” Rubenstein said.

He didn’t mention that when he dialed his brother. “He was up front,” Jim said. “He’s done it before. He said, `You’re not going to make a fortune.’ Then he pulled out the grandchildren card. They can visit the horses in Monmouth, and in Tampa, where we’re near. I have 12 grandchildren. So I’m in.”

Good decision.

Atlantic Six’s first good horse was Counterfeitcurency (sic), a hard-hitting Jersey-bred who earned $199,152. “He was just retired,” Briscione said, “He’s going to be a show horse in Florida. He gave us the money to parlay into Book'em Danno. When we buy these, we’re basically looking for a Counterfeitcurency and maybe run in Jersey stakes. That’s a home run for us. When we got Book'em Danno, we knew we might have something.”

They bought the son of Bucherro out of the Ghostzapper mare Adorabelle privately from his breeders, Greg Kilka and Christine Connelly of Bright View Farm and gelded him before he started training.

Mark Rubenstein named the yearling: “I’m a child of the ‘60s, and Hawaii Five-O was one of my favorite TV shows. In quite a few episodes, they got the bad guy and they said, `Book'em Danno.’ I have no idea how that popped into my mind.”

Book'em Danno’s trainer, Derek Ryan isn’t known for cranking up his first-time starters. That made Book'em Danno’s debut even more impressive: a 9 ½ length victory in a Jersey-bred maiden race at Monmouth. He followed that with a two-length victory in the Smoke Glacken Stakes and a 6 ½ length romp in the Futurity at Aqueduct. He finished his juvenile season by finishing second by three-quarters of a length in the one-mile Nashua Stakes there.

Displaying no intention of sending his three-year-old on the road to the Triple Crown, Ryan picked the seven-furlong Pasco Stakes for his first start this year at Tampa Bay, and he won by 12 ½ lengths as the 1-5 favorite.

His next start would be in the one-mile $1.5 million Grade 3 Saudi Derby. “It’s shocking to believe that this horse took us to Saudi Arabia,” Briscione said. “Derek had brought this up in September. He had been approached by them.”

All Book'em Danno did was finish second by a head to unbeaten Forever Young. When Forever Young then finished third by a head in the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby, Book'em Danno was flattered. Then Book'em Danno won the seven-furlong $500,000 Woody Stephens Stakes by a half-length at Saratoga June 8th. “Amazing,” Jim Rubenstein said. “I was there.”

That made Book'em Danno five-for-seven with a pair of close seconds. He’s earned $835,625.

“To be in the business for such a short time, I know people put a lot of money into this, put a lot of time into this,” Jim Rubenstein said. “You almost feel unworthy.”