Rich Mendez (Morplay Racing), Sheila Rosenbloom (Lady Sheila Stables) and Joey Platts – Guns Loaded
/Article by Bill Heller
Only Thoroughbreds could bring together Rich Mendez, a music executive from Puerto Rico who believes he was conceived at Saratoga Race Course; Sheila Rosenblum, a ballet prodigy from Switzerland; and Joey Platts, a Wyoming cowboy and oil and gas industry executive. Guns Loaded did that when he captured the $145,000 Mucho Macho Man Stakes by a neck at Gulfstream Park January 4th.
“We’ve been very blessed,” Mendez, who founded Morplay Racing with his son Josh and partners Randy Hartley and Dean DeRenzo, said. “It’s been an amazing ride so far, and it taught me a lot because you never know when that next one comes.”
Mendez’s uncle, Victor Sanchez, was a jockey. “My uncle has been here at Gulfstream Park for 52 years,” Mendez said. “My mom used to walk horses at Saratoga with my dad. The story is I was conceived somewhere at Saratoga Race Course. I’m sure it was in a barn somewhere.”
It didn’t take long for Mendez to fall in love with horses: “I’ve always loved horses. The smell of being around the barn. It intrigued me. I just always loved watching the big races on TV. You always saw the white-haired trainer, Bob Baffert. He was a rock star.”
Mendez would work with rock stars in his career as a music executive at Rich Music, an independent record label he founded with his son Josh in 2007.
After purchasing his first property in Ocala, he met Harley. Then DeRenzo. Harley and DeRenzo let Mendez into their pinhooking operation. They, in turn, joined Morplay Racing.
At the September 2022 Keeneland Sales, Harley and DeRenzo landed an Iowa-bred colt named No More Time for $40,000. Racing as a two-year-old for trainer Jose D’Angelo, No More Time finished second in his maiden debut then won a maiden by 6 ¾ lengths.
No More Time made his three-year-old debut in the Macho Mucho Man Stakes and finished fifth. He rebounded to win the Gr. 3 Sam F. Davis Stakes by a length and a quarter, Morplay’s first graded stakes victory, and then finished second by a neck to Domestic Product in the Gr. 3 Tampa Bay Derby.
D’Angelo trains Guns Loaded, an $800,000 purchase at Keeneland. He too, finished second in his maiden debut and also won his maiden in second start. Stepping up to stakes company, he won the Macho Mucho Man.
Mendez said, “I love the fact that he is winning. My trainer and I, we’ve got a unique relationship. My trainer has become a really good friend. We talk probably three or four times a day.”
D’Angelo said, “I’m very happy to train for them. They have a lot of confidence in me. At the end of the day, you need good horses to be a good trainer.”
Sheila Rosenblum’s Lady Sheila Stable employs three talented trainers, D’Angelo, Linda Rice and Brad Cox. Two of them have her horses on the early Derby trail, Guns Loaded, trained by D’Angelo, and the undefeated, four-for-four New York-bred Sacrosanct, who is trained by Cox. “It’s your reason to wake up early every single day,” Rosenblum said. “You have a dream: be there in May. It’s very rare to have two possibilities on the same path for the Derby. It would be so amazing to me.”
She’s on an amazing run. Besides Sacrosanct, she and partners own the undefeated four-for-four New York-bred With the Angels, who is trained by Rice.
Rosenblum had a whiff of the Derby trail nine years ago when Matt King Coal finished fourth by 2 ½ lengths in the 2016 Wood Memorial. He didn’t make the Kentucky Derby, but he earned $662,650 in his career from just 13 starts.
Lady Sheila Stables top earner was La Verdad, the 2015 Eclipse Champion Female Sprinter who won 15 of 21 starts and earned $1,458,100. La Verdad died on May 10th, 2020, from complications with colic. Just six days earlier she had foaled a healthy colt by Into Mischief.
Dancing, not horse ownership, seemed her destiny. Born in Basel, Switzerland, she spent years at the Royal Ballet School in London, then the School of American Ballet, the associate school of the New York City Ballet in New York City: “I went there as a ballet dancer when I was 14 and I stayed.”
She would turn to modeling, working with the well-known agencies Wilhelmina and Ford, and then to horses: “My family didn’t like animals but I turned it into a way of life.”
She founded the all-female Lady Sheila Stable more than 10 years ago: “That was a dream come true from my ex-husband. He wanted to buy a dressage horse for me. I had this wonderful idea to get a couple of Thoroughbred yearlings. And he did. And that’s how it started. It’s the most humbling sport and profession. It’s been lovely. I’ve met a group of wonderful people.”
She is a board member of the March of Dimes, an advocate for children’s rights and is deeply committed to after-care for horses: “I’m very pro aftercare, especially New Vocations. We are all involved with them.”
Now, she is officially on the Derby trail with two horses: “The Derby is my son Erik’s birthday. All I can do is pray.”
She is realistic: “I don’t have the numbers others do. I have a handful. I’ve now spread my wings to breeding. It’s something I’m sticking to with a passion.”
Joey Platts’ passions are horses and rodeos. Born in the small town of Lyman, Wyoming, Platts won a silver belt buckle in team roping. His wife Wendy was Miss Rodeo Wyoming in 1981. They keep rodeo horses on their 30-acre farm in southeastern Wyoming near the Utah border.
Platts bought his first Thoroughbred from Becky Thomas of Sequel Stallions in the early ’80s, and they are still working together four decades later.
Looking for a tax write-off for his heavy construction business, the Platts claimed Lusty Latin for $62,500 after he finished second by a nose at Hollywood Park on November 29th, 2001. The following year, after finishing third in both the Gr. 3 El Camino Real Derby and the Gr. 1 Santa Anita Stakes to Came Home, Lusty Latin took the Platts to the Kentucky Derby. Lusty Latin finished 15th, way behind War Emblem. Lusty Latin would go on to finish his career with six victories, six seconds and nine thirds in 50 starts, earning $439,729.