Clint & Mark Cornett

White Abarrio with Tyler Gaffalioneup beats the previously undefeated Charge It, to win the 2022 Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park

By Bill Heller

Some rules are more flexible than others. Clint Cornett’s rule isn’t one of them. “I always said I wouldn’t go to the Kentucky Derby unless I had a horse in the starting gate,” he said. “It was a personal rule. My wife used to laugh at me and say, `We’re never going to the Derby.’”

They are now one step closer, thanks to White Abarrio’s victory in the Gr. 1 Florida Derby April 2nd.

Clint, the founder and CEO of Valutrac Software in Flower Mound, Texas, started going to the races in the late 1980s. “We’d drive down from Dallas to Louisiana Downs in high school,” he said. “I really enjoyed it. It was exciting. I loved the horses. I loved the sport.”

In the early 2000s, he and  his brother Mark, who now owns a roofing and construction business in Naples, Florida, formed Turf Express. “My brother started it and pulled me into it,” Clint said.

In 2010, Clint got out of racing to focus on his new company, Valutrac, and his family—wife Danielle, who used to go to the races at Lone Star Park, and their children, Whitney and Cameron, now 30 and 28, respectively.

Clint & Mark Cornett

Mark stayed in the game as a bloodstock agent and put together two ownership groups of a pair of 2010 Eclipse Champions: Blind Luck and Dubai Majesty. “Blind Luck—she was a great mare, wasn’t she?” Mark said. No argument there. The incredibly game mare never finished out of the money in 21 career starts, posting 12 victories, seven seconds and two thirds while earning more than $3.2 million. She was the Champion Three-Year-Old Filly. Dubai Majesty, named the Champion Female Sprinter, won 12 of 34 starts with seven seconds, six thirds and earnings topping $1.5 million.

In the summer of 2021, Clint called Mark and told him he was ready to return to racing, telling him, “My goal is to find a horse to go to the Kentucky Derby with.” Clint asked Mark to find a two-year-old prospect, “I trusted his expertise,” Clint said.

They created C2 Racing Stable, LLC,  on August 30, 2021. Clint is the operating manager and Mark the racing manager and bloodstock agent. Mark didn’t waste any time finding a Kentucky Derby prospect, though their first purchase, Beloved Warrior, was a bust. 

On September 21st, at Gulfstream Park, just three weeks after forming C2 Racing Stable, Mark watched La Milagrosa Racing’s two-year-old gray colt White Abarrio, who went off at 12-1 for trainer Carlos Perez, win his debut by 6 ¾ lengths. “He checked every box,” Mark said. “This horse had a presence about himself. I called Carlos. He had already received four or five calls. He said they wanted to keep a piece of the horse. I said, `No problem.’”

Clint and Mark purchased the colt and gave him to trainer Saffie Joseph, who has done wonders with him. White Abarrio followed a neck allowance victory in his debut for his new connections with a troubled-trip third by six lengths in the Gr. 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes at Churchill Downs in his final start as a two-year-old. “He was behind a wall of horses,” Mark said. “He was third, dropped back to fifth or sixth, and when he finally got a little daylight to run, he came running.”

Clint said, “We were obviously disappointed he didn’t win, but it was his first time shipping. When he got bottled up, he could have just quit. It showed he wanted to compete.”

It also gave White Abarrio a race over the track. “When our ownership group won the Kentucky Oaks with Blind Lucky, I didn’t go to the Derby the next day,” Mark said. “I didn’t have any interest. I didn’t have a horse in the race.”

Until now. 

Tyler Gaffalione, White Abarrio and groom celebrate after the 2022 Florida Derby win

The brothers and Joseph gave White Abarrio a needed break and laid out a plan to get to the Kentucky Derby through Florida: the Gr. 3 Holy Bull Stakes and the Gr. 1 Florida Derby, both at Gulfstream Park. White Abarrio won the Holy Bull by 4 ½ lengths over Simplification. When Simplification then won the Gr. 2 Fountain of Youth Stakes by 3 ½ lengths, it said volumes about White Abarrio’s Holy Bull victory.”

In the Florida Derby April 2nd, White Abarrio beat previously undefeated Charge It by 1 ¼ lengths. Simplification finished third, another length back.

So, guess who’s going to the Kentucky Derby with a colt who has four wins and a troubled third in five career starts? White Abarrio is certainly one of the top contenders.

“It’s very surreal,” Clint said. 

Mark said, “Right now, I’m going over a million different things. I’m looking at the competition. Doing research. People want to buy him. Stallion farms are calling. It’s going to be a full-time job to get to the Derby.”

It’s a race the brothers have been waiting for their entire lives.